Hey Strangers.
I am capable of telling some beautiful stories. They’re sad, usually. They have hope, and happy endings, but they’re still sad. My characters lack dimension because I can only write them how I see them, and not how they might choose to hide if they were real. And real people always hide. Besides, no one wants to read stories that are only told in shades of blue.
Watching some of my favorite cartoons this week, I’ve realized how endearing and complex they are, because underlying their characters is a profound sadness; but on the surface, there is a profound humor, and love is a critical element of both.
I missed Small Dream Saturday last week, and I missed my regular posting. But my dream was for humor. Unironically, one of my favorite things in the world is to give people close to me a place to mourn. Sometimes people need to cry and for some reason, I see sadness like little else. But I have stripped my worlds, both real and fictional, down to grief and have ignored the joy of humor. I’ve ignored why people lie. I’ve forgotten why both humor and grief make the human, and my dream is to learn to write in a way that makes people laugh and makes my characters something a real person can connect to.
I’m excited to learn how to write laughter. That’s my dream.
With love,
–Mabel
To All My Strangers 