When you are writing your hero, it can be useful to imagine them differently... to see their virtues through a smokier lens, to root out any of your own self-importance and hubris... to find the dark eye that always lurks at the heart of the lighter side.
So that your next hero may be more complete, even if you need to separate him out across two different characters... so that you yourself might become more complete, having the courage to confront the Great Serpent... so that your serpentine self might be revealed, along with your thousand other different faces.
In this case I subjected my hero Winstanley to this treatment, wondering what might be covered by his overwhelming decency and good will and especially his courage, what might be the driver of his insane, self-sacrificing courage:
Winstanley sees his mother as a hateful, pitiable soul, dead of the burden of carrying him. He sees his grandparents as brave souls worn down simply by his presence in their life. He sees everyone hollowed out by him and his pretensions to goodness... he sees all notions of bravery & kindness merely as vehicles for arrogance & superiority & also vast self-pity...
It's overly harsh, of course, but there are lessons in it, not only for our books but also for our lives, the occasional use of this kind of turbo-charged scepticism in order to come closer to the whole truth.
P. Julian
3 March 2019
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