Real World Building

Folks:

This post below was supposed to go up last Tuesday, but it didn't. So I'll put it up today -- and just let you know that NEVER in the history of families has a family-visit gone so well. If I wanted to make a short story out of it, I'd have to add some characters and events to create conflict -- there just wasn't any.

-------------------

We spend so much time building imaginary worlds, but sometimes we have to put that craft to work in our everyday reality.

After all, what's the point of writing or reading SF or Fantasy or Romance or any sort of fiction if you don't use what you've learned, invented, mastered, practiced or just theorized about to craft your own life?

You aren't a character in a story -- you are the hero of your life.

Fiction is only practice. Living is what it is practice for.

So this week my daughter, son-in-law and granddaughter are here for a visit and we're running all over the place being an extended family on adventure watch.

My granddaughter is going on 6 and totally enamored of the Disney Princess fantasy that is being given such a hard sell lately. I don't know if she's a victim or just born at the right time and having the Establishment feed her what's best for her.

There's a generation being enchanted by dreams of glory, beauty, power and rightful sovereignty (not to mention love, but 6 is a bit early for that). How much is that generation's natural bent and how much Disney hype? Is there serious pain on the horizon for these kids when they thump down into "reality" at last?

I have to spend this week finding out what's going on in her head. She makes up stories, plays endlessly in costumes and dress up in grandma's old clothes, and will recite the biographies of all the Princesses. Having been 6 one time myself, I sympathize -- and envy her. We didn't have all the glitter and hype, the "reality mill" of Disney. We had books, a couple of movies (no DVD) and grandma's old clothes. But we played princess.

Jacqueline Princess Lichtenberg
http://www.simegen.com/jl/

------------