Ute Carbone
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Inside the Writer's Garret

On writing and life, with a little chocolate thrown in from time to time.

The Deep Dive

8/23/2016

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Lately, I’ve been exploring the more serious side of my nature and my writing. I’ve been writing from a deeper and more emotional place. This makes for more difficult writing days, because I’ve got to dive down, I’ve got to allow myself to be uncomfortable as my characters get uncomfortable. I have to face hard truths about life, mine and theirs, that I don’t necessarily want to reflect on.
But from these deep places comes the magic of story. Good stories take us to the edges of human endurance. And then they lift us high, they show us the way forward. I believe, profoundly, in the human spirit. I believe in our ability to go higher, to lift out of the darkness.
I’m willing to put my characters into harm’s way. It isn’t always easy. I love these imaginary people and want the very best for them. But here is the essence of story—the steps towards resolution are slow, the character stumbles and falls, begins again, and stumbles again, further downward until there is nothing but a sliver of hope. And they begin yet again. Love is tested. Resolve is tested. Courage is tested.
It's a lot like life, yours, mine, everyone on the planet’s.  Hard times come and go and come back again. We are tested. We stand up again. But in life, like in any good story, something comes of this. We are forged and tempered, we grow stronger for having gone through.
 In books, we can live a thousands of lives, we bear witness to thousands of journeys. Your life and mine and that of the character, as different as they are, are also very much the same. And as we share in the hard times, we can also be lifted, we can also find the best of ourselves.
Making my fiction work like this, on a deeper level, is my goal. It’s not an easy goal to strive for. Then again, the things worth striving for are rarely easy.
​

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Whatever Happened to Class?

8/3/2016

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This line, from the musical Chicago, is sung ironically by a group of inmates. Quite unsarcastically, and at the risk of sounding like the grumpy old woman I may be slowly becoming, I’d like to pose the question now.
I’ve heard, in the public discourse and on all sides of the political spectrum, that we are far too politically correct in this country.  We tiptoe around issues and are afraid of hard words. Or so the critique goes. And, to a certain extent, I would agree. We need to be able to speak freely, we can’t allow ourselves to become too easily offended lest we shut down the conversation.
And I’d agree it’s okay to laugh and poke fun. Without a little comedy, we might not make it through this election alive here in the good old USA.
But where is the line? While it’s okay and admirable to speak your mind, it’s not okay to use words as weapons. While it’s okay to criticize, it is definitely not okay to demean something or someone simply because you don’t agree. 
And yet. I see this, day after day in the campaign of Mr. Trump. Day after day, he calls people out for all the ways they have failed him. He calls his opposition ‘crooked’ and ‘liar’ and ‘small’. He says he’d like to ‘bash in heads’. He has called certain women ‘pigs’ and branded an entire group of people as ‘terrorists’. His supporters cheer this as plain speaking. We have free speech! It’s our right to speak out!
Yesterday, a ten year old boy at a rally yelled out “Take the bitch out” when Mr. Trump began his usual tirade against Mrs. Clinton. The boy’s mother defended his behavior. “He has a right to his opinion,” she said, smiling. Excuse me? When did it become okay for a kid to word spit on a candidate for president? To word spit on anyone? Why does anyone feel it’s okay for anyone, regardless of age, to do this?   
Yes, you do have free speech. And with freedom comes responsibility. It is not your right to be hurtful. It is not your right to be vindictive. And it is certainly not your right to incite hate and derision. Such things reflect badly on you and on our country.
I’d like to think class isn’t dead. That we can have civil discourse without becoming uncivil. I’d like to think we can move past cynicism and disparaging remarks.  Can we do this? Can we show the world, and ourselves, that we have just a little bit of class left? 
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