March 23rd, 2022
Last night, I got to take part in a really special interview/conversation (hopefully I can share details soon!). The fun part of interviews is that it doesn’t matter how much you prepare; you don’t know what someone is going to ask you, and you never know what you’re going to say until you say it.
My charming interviewer asked an especially poignant question towards the end of our discussion; he wondered if, looking at my work as a whole, there was a unifying theme or idea to all of it. If there was a specific legacy to what I’ve created.
Next year will be my tenth anniversary as a published writer, so I’ve been able to start thinking about everything I’ve done and if there are any connections. So I paused, and I thought, and I knew the answer all along but the word was small.
Hope.
In every single book I’ve shared with the world, though the characters and stories and themes and ideas change, the one thing they all have in common is that they believe in hope.
Hope for a better future.
Hope to reconcile our pasts.
Hope to be able to let go of control and to overcome what tries to control us.
Hope for something more.
Hope that our dreams are more than just dreams.
Hope for somewhere better.
Hope to make right here better.
Hope for connection.
Hope for kindness; for others, and to ourselves.
Hope for our planet.
Hope that there will always be a tomorrow.
And as I’m working on these two new books, I can see it plain as day. Hope, hope, hope.
The world (and especially the internet) can largely feel like a cynical place. I’ve been argumentative and a person who used to find himself in fights but wasn’t always sure what he was fighting against.
It was cynicism all along.
And as I’ve gotten older (and I’m so old, you guys) that fight has been refined and distilled and crystallized into the outlook I try to bring to every day, and everything I write.
It’s all about hope. And I hope it will always be that way.
The Den 