YA Fairy Tales

I would never go so far as to say "divine intervention." I wouldn't even say the "Universe" is being extra helpful. Let's just say, for the sake of argument, because I'm on a Jung kick and I fancy myself a writer, that the collective unconscious and my inner voice are on the same page.

I've been thinking about fiction. My need to escape into it. The relief it gives me and every other reader as we transcend worlds. I also thought about what most YA books have in common: an ordinary protagonist who isn't ordinary after all, tossed with elements of myth, the supernatural, the fantastic, and don't forget a mysterious love interest (preferably with electric blue or green eyes). It's a repetitive, cliche, and well-proven formula that appeals to women of all ages. If you follow the formula, it's pretty hard to fuck up (or fok up), whether it's vampires, ghosts, gods and goddesses, demons and/or Jinn. Oh, I forgot witches. There's usually witches.

Then it occurred to me: these engrossing yet ridiculous stories are the fairy tales of this age. And even for all their shortcomings, they offer sweet relief from kids and work and stress and adulting and, worst of all in 2017, politics. And it's not entirely a cop-out on my part. Good writers are constantly reading (or so I've read). And I might have writer's block, but there's no such thing as reader's block, at least not for me. I'll be eternally busy from now until I reach the clearing at the end of the road.

Per my current norm, I delved into a new book (although I have eight others I'm already reading). I picked up The Hero with a Thousand Faces, by Joseph Campbell at a used bookstore because the subject of heroes and myth and their relation to religion piqued my interest.

What I found in the introduction was unexpected and uncanny. As disjointed and confused as my thoughts have been in the last few months, I seem to be on the right track.

"Freud, Jung and their followers have demonstrated irrefutably that the logic, the heroes, and the deeds of myth survive into modern times."

"In the absence of an effective general mythology, each of us has his [or her] private, unrecognized, rudimentary, yet secretly potent, pantheon of dream."

Finally, I can explain why I'm driven to expel this drivel, and why my drivel tends toward the fantastic. Why the supernatural enraptures and the mysterious makes my heart sing. My writing is my own pantheon of dream. And tapping into it, Campbell goes on to explain, can open the door to "the whole realm of the destined and feared adventure of the discovery of self" (pg. 8). No wonder I'm so mad. And by mad, I mean crazy.

But you knew that already.

J. L. Dodd

Works Cited:

Campbell, Joseph. The Hero with a Thousand Faces. Bollingen Foundation, 1949.