Dealing with Loss and Storytelling...

It's fascinating to see the difference and growth in ones writing, but through the years I know I've dealt a drastic change in my writing style, and not only because I've grown, but also because I have lost people I loved, people who died that I cared for and that I knew. On top of dealing having to watch both brother's going through critical operations while I could do nothing, same is said when I lost my Dad suddenly at seventeen.
I felt like the world had dealt me a horrible hand of fate, that we had already gone through so damn much and yet we are thrown through something none of us fathomed. Not long after my writing had changed, I could no longer write stories that would please people, and I moved far from the genre of Romance since it all just began to feel fake to me.

I found that in my books of recent years I've come to work on realistic characters and they're development, they're relationships with one another and how it can change the story. Like with my recent novel FrAcTuReD, where years have gone by for Charla since the loss of her twin brother but she is still feeling it, still dealing with it and so are others in the story but in many different ways.
She doesn't just jump back and think all is fine with the world when you know how her brother died and how it affected her. losing family can be extremely devastating (or some people just wouldn't give a damn, it happens) and the fact that so many just want to see them as they were before I honestly find rather insulting. And it's something I've actually dealt with personally.

Not three months had gone by since my Dad's death and I'm asked why I'm not like how I used to be, it can be an innocent question enough but I was disgusted with the one who said it, I was close to raging at them for it. I know everyone is different, we don't all act the same, we are our own person, but being told that I should go right back to how I was before he died angered me, it made me feel like to them my Father wasn't important to me, that he was just some insignificant person, what's more it made me feel like no one could understand, and in a sense no one really could. Personal loss is different for everyone, just like ourselves and how we live.I've had to cope and deal with the hand that had been dealt to me, much like the main character in FrAcTuReD.
You could say that the story is a metaphor in how many people deal with loss and their own ways of coping with it or even flat out ignoring that it even happened.
It makes me just wish more people were open to that...

But you know to tell you the truth, I'm glad, I'm glad that this is how my writing has taken shape and how real it can feel for me, like these fictional characters actually can/could exist in the world.
Life and death can be a horrible, terrible thing but it can also shape you into a strong individual, which is something that I think if my Dad was still alive would be proud of how far I've come since I started writing.


Sorry for the weird WTF post here but I kind of wanted to get my personal thoughts out there, sorry if it sounds dumb as all hell but it's how I feel, hope you don't mind.