I've read Susan Squires book "The Companion" twice now, and been wondering why it appeals so much to me.

Usually I don't like dark books, and this one definitely has some dark spots with dark-sexual stuff, not my cup of tea. (Oh, jeez! I just realized what a lie that is... Laurell Hamilton is my favorite author and what is she but dark and sex... interesting... ) Anyway... sitting here playing Mahjongg and resolutely watching the message light blinking and refusing to return a call of somebody who thinks her to-do-something is more important than the rest of the somethings on my list, because she got it to me late--another way of saying I'm ticked at the world--again anyway... I suddenly realized I liked "The Companion" because it's a story about overcoming darkness, especially sexual-darkness, and living in a lighter world. Which, of course, applies to most of LKH's books too.

This was interesting insight to me: Darkness is okay as long as it's overcome, because it gives me hope that I have the potential to overcome my own darkness.

And what does this have to do with my writing? Up until this point I've shied away from writing anything dark, because for many years I couldn't read anything dark. Okay, I understand that... but what confused me was that if I'm meant to write light books, why I had so many characters occupying my brain with dark pasts? And why so many stories waiting to pour out of me about people overcoming their dark past... Oh, yeah, I get it. :-)

What this insight boils down to is giving myself permission to write the stories that are in my head because if I like them so much there are plenty of other people out there who would appreciate stories of people overcoming their darkness. Cool!

As I think about it, it's one of those obvious insights... you see it and go 'duh! that was pretty damn obvious so why is it so surprising?' But it was anyway, so I'll treasure it as one more step to knowing myself.