November 8

I live my life around stories. Writing them. Editing them. Promoting them. Reading them.

Stories strengthen us. They provide a means for escaping reality and a model for coping with reality. They center around conflict, an event or series of events that upend the characters’ world and test them in some way. Stories have morals. They have endings.

November 8th was a turning point in this country's story. This is a story that would be better kept as words on a page, yet we have no choice but to live it. Perhaps scariest of all is the fact that it’s difficult to find a moral in the events of that day. It's difficult to predict at all how this story will end, let alone envision any type of ending other than a grim one.

Now we're the players, and this is our test. Not only the empowerment of a man who is regression incarnate, a man who promotes inequality across all platforms, be they race, gender, sexuality, religion, or nationality. It’s also the ignorance, hatred, and fear that fuel his supporters and put him in power.

If we’re to find comfort in anything, I suppose it’s the fact that stories don’t start at the end. They start at the beginning and progress scene by scene, chapter by chapter. We must do our best not to become complacent in the chapters to come. We must be both characters and authors. We must do our best to influence this story as it unfolds.

I’ve always considered myself a writer. We must all be writers now.