“You underestimate the power of the dark side. If you will not fight, then you will meet your destiny.” Darth Vader

Charlie is reading Dragon Ball Z number 23. The bad guy, a chubby genie named Boo, is causing balls of energy to hurl bodies and enact destruction. “He’s really cute and really powerful. Boo is invincible.” He reads me from the panels: Krak, Wham! “I don’t even know why he’s fighting,” he says, I think referring to some hapless good guy bound to lose. “Then he knocked out this guy, too.” Charlie is so charged up about Boo’s power. It’s 6:20 a.m. I ask, “Would you rather be a super-powerful bad guy or a less powerful good guy?”

“A less powerful good guy,” he says, right away. I am relieved. Power is exciting but morality still trumps it. As writers, we’d do well to remember the thrill of power. To enjoy the invincibility of the obstacles we create or, in memoir, encounter. To trust that overwhelming power will not trump the urge for the morally good–and might even be the condition for conjuring our sympathy.

Charlie lifts the soft dog-bone pattern blanket I’ve spread over his lap, and maneuvers the other two volumes I brought him last night from the Berkeley library under his leg.

“What are you doing?” I ask. He spreads the blanket again. “Are you hiding them from Leo?”

He grins at me. “Yeah. Because I kind of want them.”

Desire. Obstacles. Extreme power v. morality. Never think these are the province of manga and fantasy. There is nothing so hard fought as a sibling. KRAK!

What obstacles does your writing face today? How can you embrace the power of those forces and transfer it to your bad guys, to your story, and wage the battle there, on the page, instead of in the path of getting to your writing itself? Let us know in the comments below!!