Fire

Casey writes: "I hope you remember that not all of the McClishes of the world are behind bars. There is a continuum: the guy who runs off when real life inconveniently intrudes on his fantasy world, and the guy who went home and cuddled his wife because his "problem" was lying at the bottom of a ravine. Both are the extreme ends of abhorrent behavior. Guy #2 got his; guy #1 will get careless and then will answer for his behavior, because the truth will out... Carry the fire and use what you know: the abandonment, the fear, rejection, being called crazy, whatever, and use that to stand in the shoes of the people you write about. Think about you begging this person not to abandon you to go through chemotherapy alone and then enduring just exactly that; then think of Asha going trustingly off with McClish, thinking they would discuss child support for the baby, and then the moment all of that changed and she knew she was in danger."

These are good, strong words for this process. "Carry the fire"  is a phrase I use with very close friends who are writers...it is a phrase the father uses to reassure his son in The Road, to keep hope alive during impossible circumstances. The inner life can become a post-apocalyptic landscape, too, so it is important to remember that there is always an ember of hope that can be found, no matter how hard you have to scrape for it sometimes.