I would be devastated if I cared

In the last few days I downloaded the FB app back onto my phone. I had removed it becasue, let us be honest, facebook is a bore and monotonous website. Ok, that could just be my friends but after I scroll down it becomes boring post, boring post, advert, advert disguised as a recommendation, boring post, picture of food etc, etc. I am in a large amount of writing groups. Sometimes I comment, if I can help, mostly I do not.

Scrolling today I came across one of these writer groups. An answer to the question: what are you struggling with in your current work was this:

Two things:

It’s a work of fiction, and I am reluctant to write it, because I don’t want it to come true. I don’t want it to be a “road map” for anyone.

Also the fact that, in my outline, there are characters who are very dark. I don’t want to spend the better-part of a year in that headspace…To say nothing of the judgments from friends and family that are bound to come from writing those inevitable chapters.

I have been writing editorial pieces for 42 years, but the above has had me staring at a blank page for over a year (with the exception being story and character notes…I have a TON of those, of course).

It would really help to hear from authors in the group, who have faced such obstacles, managed to overcome them, and how.

Thanks!

My answer got me banned.

either shit or get off the toilet. This book is obviously in your headspace now, so write it. The darker the better. It is a work of fiction, and if the reader uses it as a roadmap that is on them not you. As for judgement of family and friends either use a pseudonym or just patiently explain it is fiction, a good story, or tell them not to read it. Just write. Just write what you want, not what your friends or your family think you should. You are the artist, the writer, it is up to you.

Please note: I have removed the writer’s name and the group name.

I thought my answer was pretty good. I was helpful, and encouraging. Ok I started by using the saying to do something or don’t: stop sitting on the fence. I love dark characters, plots from the seeder side of life. Not everything is pink, roses and heroic. I grew up as a reader with Alan Sillitoe and the ‘kitchen sink’ drama from decades ago in British fiction. Life can be tough, so why not write about the tough choices people have to make in the lower rungs of society. I want to encourage this type of work in others if they are inclined to write it. You write what you want to write is my opinion.

My question to you readers is: am I being a self-righteous prick (something I was accusing some else in a totally different facebook post in a different group — yes I have that mood on me today) and they were right to delete my post and cancel me? Or, am I an innocent being persecuted for wanting to write and read the downsides of capitalist society in this modern global world?

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