Families are messy, wonderful, painful, emotionally draining, utterly fun, funny, and fabulous. All families have problems that they must deal with, family members that require special tending, and family members who make you feel loved and accepted for who you are and believe in your dreams for who you want to be. I love my messy, complicated, zany family.
In order to understand who I am, I have to look carefully at where I came from. Who were the ancestors that launched me into this adventure called life? What were their problems? Their victories? Whom did they love, and more importantly, how did they love? What can they teach me about how to be a better person?
I hear my father, my grandmothers and a few aunts and uncles, all who have passed away, murmuring to me in the darkness as well as in the light. They tell me how best to raise my sons, who I should and should not trust, what I should do and where I should go.
What I am is the sum of all who came before me. If I don’t listen to their whispers, learn from their mistakes, try to piece together the life they would have me live–the life they might have lived–then I am a prideful fool believing that I have all life’s answers because I’ve lived a few decades here on this earth.
And that is why I write novels. Aside from the fact that I’m compelled to write, I write to learn who they were, I try to preserve their wisdom in the hopes that my own children and grandchildren, and my readers, will have an easier way of it.
I would love to hear from you at milindajaywriter at gmail.com, or, you can follow me on Twitter at milindajay
