Can You Handle the Truth? With Guest Blogger: S.J. Drum

Win a copy of Sinful Southern Ink & 

meet author S.J. Drum 

today at the Book Boost!

She's here to chat about the refreshing truth of fiction and here's what she had to say...

As time and attention to social media and social networking sites become an overwhelming part of our day, it seems as though we’re all becoming more one dimensional. Most people post only pictures showing themselves from the best angles, express their most admirable thoughts and gestures via status updates (“I volunteered at the pet shelter today.” “I’m engaged!” “My thoughts go out to…”), and generally, I think most of us polish and trim our lives down to only show the glowing half.

If our lives were a whole apple before social networking, now, our lives appear as the finest cuts of fruit. We’ve removed the ugly core, pitted and pockmarked with dark slippery seeds, trimmed away the bruised spots where someone left their mark on us, and sliced away the tough, blemished outer skin and display only the remaining sweet perfection.

Granted, some people seem to use their updates only for garnering pity or self-depreciation. (“Poor me, I have a splinter.” “I’m so sad, someone cheer me up.”) But, mostly, what I see are only the shiniest, most polished parts of people’s lives.

I find writing and reading fiction to be very refreshing after having been inundated (and participating in) the trimmed-for-show lives we share on social sites. Characters in fiction have problems and these problems are displayed openly for the readers’ appreciation, commiseration, or displeasure. In books, characters are overweight, clumsy, frizzy-haired messes.

They trip over cracks in the sidewalk, have to pee at inopportune times, feel unsure of themselves, get fired from their dream jobs and walk in on their lovers cheating on them. They experience everything we’re experiencing, except we’ve trimmed our troubles from our (public) lives.

When I write, I have a responsibility to put my characters through hell and describe it thoroughly. I find it amusing my fiction is more truthful than my own social networking profiles. Of course, no one is going to advertise online the fact they receive more phone calls from collection agencies than they receive from friends.

For my characters, however, everything is out in the open. When the envelopes in their mailbox stop being white, start arriving as yellow, and eventually turn the financial-death-threat-color of red, I get to write about it. I get to lay it all out, bare the ugly truth of life for all the world to see.

My question is, how do you feel about a world in which fiction holds a refreshing truth?  A world in which our characters’ public lives are more honest than our own?

The characters in my recent release, Sinful Southern Ink, experience a bevy of horror, pain, lust, humiliations and redemption. Their lives have not been trimmed down for public consumption.


A Note from the Book Boost:  S.J.  thanks for joining us today.  I LOVE this post.  Very insightful stuff.  I don't use social networking for personal stuff much.  I really only use it for promotion purposes but I totally agree with your evaluation of it.  Fiction is an awesome dose of truth and the more "in your face" with honesty it is--the better!  Please tell us more about your latest.




Blurb:

Jed Weston is a tall, hard country boy with dangerous cowboy charm and piercings in all the right places. As Abigail’s employee in her tattoo and piercing shop, he’s kept things between them on a strictly professional level.

Until Abigail’s violent past catches up with her and she seeks his comfort—comfort that leads to an intense emotional and sexual connection neither can ignore.

Jed’s jealous ex-girlfriend, a nosy reporter, and a potential father-in-law in prison won’t keep him from the woman who makes him hard at the very sight of her. Nothing will keep Jed Weston from catching—and keeping—the woman he loves.

Want More S.J.?

Visit her on the web here: http://www.sj-drum.com/

Follow her blog here:

http://sj-drum.blogspot.com/

Pick up a copy of her book today!  Click here.

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