Stories in the News

I would imagine that the average person watches the world news, or reads the front page of the newspaper with some interest, and maybe a little fear. I used to do that. As I said in the last post, I really hated the news for the longest time. It made me have nightmares.
Now, it provides fodder for the muse in me.
I see stories on the news about families in Iraq who are afraid to walk down the street, children who sit in classrooms while bombs explode closely enough to shake the building, people crying in the streets over their dead. First I see the people. Their pain, anger, fear, and bewilderment. Then I see the big picture, how the whole country is suffering, the factions are killing, and our troops are there, trying to appease everyone, and stay alive. But it doesn't take long for Dweidl to get involved in my thoughts. Could I write a book about a young girl living under those circumstances? A love story about an Iraqi woman in love with an American soldier? How about two men from different factions who end up the only ones alive from their separate cells, becoming friends in order to survive some disaster they have in common?
No matter what else writers are, we are people who see stories in the everyday lives of those around us and those we hear about.
Recently, on the news, there was a story about the fact there there are only 26 veterans still alive from WW1. Could I write a story about one of them? Could I create that world, and live in it? Would I be able to do it justice, and if I did, would I then have nightmares for the rest of my life? A sort of Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome by proxy?
On the Oprah show, I saw women who confronted killers of their loved ones. Would I be able to write a story about that? Would it be good enough to sell? And if it was, could I ever forgive the character who did it?
Of course, I can't speak for all writers. Only the ones I've met and discussed things with, which by the way is well over a hundred. It's not that we are disrespectful of those who have suffered tragedy. On the contrary. We admire those who have survived. If we write stories based on something we've read or seen on television, it is out of a great desire to show the world the raw emotions of those people who have suffered so much, and still carried on. We love courage. We love rooting for the underdog. We love seeing the strong survive against all odds.
And when we begin such a story--I'm talking fiction here--we often end up with something so different from the original idea, as to be unrecognizable.
And we know that if we cried as we wrote it, it will bring the reader to tears. If we feel satisfied at the end, the reader will feel satisfied when she closes the book for the last time. We think and dream. We imagine and plan. We write and re-write. And then we do it again.
We keep notebooks of ideas, so many that there will not be enough time in our lives to write them all. And all of us have our own personal Dweidls who filter what we watch and read and hear, searching for yet another idea to put in our notebooks and ponder.