People Should Be Told Like Gods & Superheroes

It drives me nuts that the stories receiving the spotlight right now are about super heroes, royalty, and gods. Don't get me wrong. I'm eating these stories up right alongside everyone else. However, afterward, I'm talking to real people and the words they're saying are distressing.

"I don't speak because I'm not powerful. My voice doesn't mean anything."

"I don't vote because my vote doesn't matter. If I was someone important, that might be different, but I'm just a person trying to live my life, you know?"

"I'm not trying to change the world. Why would I? I'm nobody."

Andrea, Michelle, and River

What Entertainment Is Teaching Society

It seems to me like we're teaching society that in order to matter, you've got to be something incredible, something amazing.

I've also started learning about real Black History, which doesn't seem like it's the same, but it really, truly is. Reading these stories - and wondering why I'm just now discovering them - I see the main characters, the ones who made the big changes. They rise above the pack and become a type of royalty almost. They're the ones who did what no one else could do. They started off as people living in an oppressed world and made the choice to do something. How and why did they make that choice? They were guided by others, by people who fed their minds with dreams of a better life.

Forms of Evil

It's easy to think that evil only comes in the forms of giant villains, but that's not true. Evil comes in many forms; neglect, the unwillingness to fight, the inability to choose, the plodding through life without looking up or looking out. What's terrifying is that those evils are tangible. They're felt in almost every single home. Every single one. Even this one. I'm struggling to learn how to fight, but I was raised since infancy, knowing that fighting back was the wrong thing to do. However, in doing nothing, I become the villain. I become the person who watches something wrong and does nothing. I become the person who has an idea on how to do something that might make a life better but chooses to stay focused on breathing and allows the situation to remain as it is.

Every single one of us has the potential to be a villain, and it all comes down to every day choices. Do you choose to play Pokemon instead of having the hard conversations with your ex? Do you choose to dive into Facebook shorts instead of working on your book because your brain is telling you you're not going to make it? Even, though, mind you, that you took a company from earning $400K to $1.2M in less than a year so obviously you've got what it takes?

Being a Hero

Every single one of us can be a hero. That's what I want people - readers and myself. If you choose to get off the couch and do something, you're making inroads to hero-dom.

You might inspire someone to do something bigger.

Or you might be the domino that sets off another person's actions.

Or you might inadvertently be the way "it just works out" because you made one positive step instead of doing nothing.

If you choose to watch a class and learn something instead of re-watching Supernatural for the eighth - has it only been eight? Probably not? - time, you might spawn a conversation that will ignite a flame in yourself or in someone else and that thought might be a domino to something greater.

I think this is why I get so frustrated with the fact that heroes have to be big. They have to be super. They have to be gods. That's what we're filling our minds and souls with, this idea that we're only good enough if we achieve god level.

"Well, I know I'll never make it that far, so why should I try?"

"Why should I get off the couch or out of bed if I know I will never make the one achievement that will make me a someone?"

"Why try? The goal is so far away, it's impossible."

Me, Myself, and I

I want more stories of real people, but more than that, I want more real stories. I want romances that don't worship men at the sacrifice of the woman. I want to showcase people who make bad decisions and then face them and their consequences, and then find a way to make a difference in life anyway.

I'm tired of experiencing stories of gods and super heroes. I want people to be amazing as people. That's what I'm focusing on with my new books.

Yours truly,

Frankie Jo