Every story I create, creates me. I write to create myself. —Octavia E. Butler
Themes
I never know what the theme of my novel will be before I write it. Oh, I usually have an idea of the thoughts I want to explore. With A Tale of Highly Unusual Magic, for example, I started by thinking about fate and its guiding hand in our lives.
But the further I explored the novel, the more complex (and numerous) my ideas became. By the end of the process, the book was also about facing failure, forgiveness, and the way in which every choice we make determines the person we become.
The Book Creates Us
To put it simply, I was a different person after writing the book than I was before writing the book. I wrote the book, and the book wrote me.
For years, I have been inscribing books for readers with my name and advice to, “Write your own destiny.” I’ve always meant both that we have influence over our own fate because we determine our own actions and that writing can help us become the person we want to be.
The Reason Why
Bookflow is the digital embodiment of this belief—that writing helps us define and refine our thoughts and that telling stories helps us grow as human beings, both intellectually and spiritually.
Many things are beyond our control, but we have power over our choices and actions. Creating something and/or spending time with our thoughts—even if it’s only for a few moments a day—is always time well spent.
