Look For the Good

Part of being a writer is that we can investigate a lot of really bad stuff, even if it's just for our personal information. You just can't have the world's worst bad guy if the worst thing happened to him is that he burned some cookies. Don't get me wrong: Burnt cookies are a terrible tragedy. But they're not earth shattering. They're not all that really interesting. 

We need something bigger, nastier, and actually horrible to happen to create a truly memorable bad guys. So we need to know what evil is out there. 

This also means that we need to keep some sort of shield between us and that bad stuff that we're looking into. This means doing weird things like volunteering at an old folks or childcare centers because we need that positivity in our life. It means paying attention to the good things that our families doing, even if it's something as simple as graduating or doing really well in the pennant race, or, even getting an A on a quiz. 

We need that positivity in our life.

We need to know that no matter how bad things get, there's always going to be something good out there. I don't care how dark your stories are, if you want to have nothing but evil endings. Fine. But figure out a way to balance that out. You can't keep continually charging into the darkness without some sort of beacon to help you come out of it or you will eventually lose yourself in that darkness. 

I know it's sort of a weird way of looking at it. But you need to realize that for all the bad stuff that's out there, there's a lot of good stuff out there as well; that for every plane that crashes there are thousands of flights arriving at their destinations, safe and without harm. Those passenger meeting their folks. They're meeting their family. They're there to start a new life. 

There's a lot of positivity that we're not cognizant of which we need to be. We need to realize that there's a lot of really great stuff going on there because if we don't we're going to drive yourself into depression at a hundred miles per hour. So remember that no matter how bad things are, there are a lot of great thing happening out there. 

If you're having a really bad day, stop what you're doing. Stop the research into all of that really nasty bad stuff and start looking for the good. You're going to need to power your shield every so often, and that means Weird Al, dog videos, and kids. Remember that there is some good stuff out there, and you should be able to shield yourself from the worst that is out there.