A resounding success...

Is SAD a resounding success? Not currently, no. After two forays I drifted off into my typical busy-ness. No excuses, though, I don't want to bury this project just because of pervasive failure. No matter how much I continue to fall short, I want this to continue. My goal is to reach a point where practicing this discipline comes as naturally as eating on a daily basis and that is a long uphill climb.

I have mostly extricated myself from the morass of emotion that overwhelmed me upon reading The Hunger Games. Mostly, I try not to think about the story, which was so interesting I felt a need to follow it while also so sad, brutal and frustrating I feared the inevitable conclusion even before the relatively happy resolution of the first book. The second and third book are frequently described as lesser works, but this isn't really fair. They are just as well executed as the first book, but the plot line the author followed was not a pleasant one to journey.

I really don't regret reading them in any way, I just have to get over my anger that these are not real people and my emotional investment is arbitrary and unnecessary. If nothing else, the experience has softened my own perspective about the work I have undertaken. I used to be ruthlessly committed to murdering every character I envisioned. It was spiteful. I have a much stronger desire to write happy stories now. I want satisfyingly enjoyable endings from here out.

In line with that thinking, I am no longer ashamed to admit that no less than five characters in the Prophecy Archives have had their death sentences commuted. They will live to see happiness at the resolution of book three because it felt entirely too heartless to kill them for no good reason. I don't want to give any spoilers though, so my thoughts resolve there.

Now, on to SADness.