You’re probably wondering why I’ve got a romance novel cover here, aren’t you? Well, this particular bit of brilliant writing goes to my thoughts for the day: Character. We’ve seen a lot of horrible characters in our real lives, haven’t we? Especially in the endless election cycles that we have to survive in seemingly perpetuity. And the bad news that continually comes out to let us know that people we tried to look up to are only human. And isn’t that what our experience on this little blue marble is all about? Humanity.

Well, as a writer, I can tell you that character is a make-or-break pivot point to everything we write. Whether it’s a figment of our imagination that we bring to life, or whether it is a bit of our own character that we put into our words, we live by what character means to each and every one of us. We understand this because we have to understand what humanity holds as important. It’s what we writers do. What are the traits that make up a good or bad character? Are they ever as straightforward as we wish them to be? Is there such a thing as a good character with defects or a bad character with redeeming qualities? By the way, the answer is YES to both. As complex as we humans are, we are also walking proof that we are made of both good and bad. It’s that yin-and-yang thing that I’m always bringing up. Because it’s an imperative part of life.

The cover above belongs to one of my most favorite story lines and characters written by one of my favorite romance novelists. Yes, I read romance and I actually look forward to the upcoming novels from my many and various favorite writers who are so much more adept than I am at capturing the qualities that make us all human. Ally Blake is one such novelist who I admire. She seems to be as open as her novels, and I really admire that strength of character in her and in her creations. When a writer manages to bring a character to life, you have to admire that imagination that built up a character from random qualities, turning them into a powerful person in their own right in such a short space of time (as compared to our hopefully decades of life). Turning them into people that we wouldn’t mind hanging out with. She is among a few chosen writers who I regularly follow, and though they all reside in different writing genres, they all grasp what it means to be embrace your humanity – flaws and all.

We look around us in our daily lives and we wonder what makes us good or bad. And we work at making ourselves one or the other, depending on which we deem important to our beings. But so many fail to grasp the necessity of both. I’ve had to reflect on my own shortcomings as I many times fail to do as I promise. I’m freely admit that I’m not perfect. That’s just too much pressure and responsibility for one person to handle. Life is busy, and I have too few hands, too big a heart, and definitely not enough stretch of my mind. I wish that I could do everything that I want to do. There are so many important things in this world, and I want to tackle them all – though I realize that I can’t because I’m a limited human being who has to stop at some point to recharge. It’s rather inconvenient, if you ask me…

And that is definitely how we need to look at those real human beings who will fall from the pedestals that we place them on. Humans aren’t meant to be put onto pedestals. We are too flawed for that, and it’s how it should be. We won’t learn and grow if we’re always perfect. And novelists like Ally Blake create characters who serve as a testament to the gloriousness of being imperfect. It doesn’t just make the story interesting, but it allows us to work on ourselves just a little bit harder so that we can be a little better than we were the day before.

I wish that more people understood the true nature of character, and realized that we’re not perfect for a very good reason. That to expect perfection is setting yourself up for an unnecessary letdown. Expecting the letdown is part of our lives, and there’s absolutely nothing wrong with it. But, in my mind, there is something wrong with people who put too much stock into a perfectly moral character. It’s just not who we are. We can strive for morality, as we should, and remember that it’s important, while also realizing that morality isn’t black and white. There’s a lot of gradients that make morality a colorful spectrum full of possibilities, both good and bad, depending on the circumstances and what we learn from them. That’s the lesson that character tries to teach us, if we’d only listen just a little harder.