Writing, at its best, is a lonely life. Organizations for writers palliate the writer’s loneliness but I doubt if they improve his writing. He grows in public stature as he sheds his loneliness and often his work deteriorates. For he does his work alone and if he is a good enough writer he must face eternity, or the lack of it, each day.-Ernest Hemingway accepting the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1954 (You may listen to the actual speech here. It is only just over two minutes long.)

Does sharing your imagination frighten or worry you at times? Don’t laugh, you extroverted, uninhibited, creationistic, followers of your characters’ whims. There are those who think of who will be reading their work as in their friends and relatives, or even worse their religious leaders. Then all will know the strange goings on of their minds. Or even the naughty things they think of and dared shared. Those who do not venture into writing do not understand how the author can separate one world from the other.

Some will just laugh at the thought of being worried about what other people think, but for many it is a real fear. I believe this may be one think that keeps several very talented writers from ever becoming published or realizing their true potential. And the worst part is, they don’t even realize it.

Here is an example that might hit home for some. You have a situation where as you are writing one of the characters somehow turns out to be gay. I say somehow as in that it wasn’t a plan but as the story went along there was just something there that seemed to lead your writing in that direction. This character is a main character and a favorite. So far so good, right?

Now you have the issue that the author is fundamentally religious or whose friends are primarily against the gay life style. I use ‘religious’ because some religions share the same thoughts on certain issues. The writer personally doesn’t have an issue with it, but the friends would be shocked. So what does the writer do? Probably bails on the idea and just diverts from the issue.

But now we enter another one of those areas where the writer must decide between the truth of reality and the character or caving to peer pressure and believing it really doesn’t make a difference in the big picture. Where does the compromising end?

If anyone has read my We are the Editors of our Lives article you know that I believe God had a story written for us and then we end up editing it along the way. And I believe everyone may edit as they please without interference from anyone else, unless you plan to edit your life so that you intend to off me somehow. I might complain then.

I mention the article because my take on things is contrary to many that are of the same guild as I am in religion. I would write the character as the character would be written and move along. Would my views cost me some acquaintances? Yes, and it already has. But I believe that art should imitate life. Put what you believe into what you create.

I put the Hemingway quote at the beginning for a reason. Writing honestly will cost you some friends, perhaps many. Your life may end up a lonely one because you cannot make everyone happy. If you are making everyone happy then you are perhaps not being completely honest with yourself or your writing.

Readers want honesty. They are drawn to it. They revile the obvious snubs and cowardice of an author who runs from an issue. Some readers will never admit to reading the book, but they will read it. And…they will learn from it. That’s what we do, we allow them to escape into a place they want to be but cannot seem to get to. Be it a space adventure, a romance, a magical ride through another land, or yes, even admitting that there are real lives in the world that are not like our own but still exist and the world keeps turning as it always has anyway.

Now here comes the question all writers must face. Do you want to be true to yourself and your art and possibly end up lonely but free or be popular and unsatisfied with what should have been? And is perhaps honestly actually the popular in truth after all?