Wednesday's Word: Choice

As I look back on the four novels I have written thus far, everyone of them had a common thread that ran through them; that of choice. My fifth book too contains that thread. I didn't do this intentionally, but the fact that my passion to be able to choose for myself has obviously worked its way into my writing. In my current work in progress, Bonded, the M.C is a slave girl who makes her own choices, despite the oppression she is subject to. In a sense, she is more free than the society that enslaves her. They have made poor choices for the last hundred years. Those choices have led their society into dysfunctional state where they are enslaved to their gluttony, gambling, and laziness.
Bonded is a dystopic YA novel, but many elements are not that far removed from today's society. The ability to make good choices, and allow all men the same privilege, is essential to a healthy society. As our government grows bigger and bigger, and makes more  and more choices for its citizens rather than letting individuals make their own choices, the closer I feel we come to having our own dystopic society--right here, right now, in the daily news rather than in a science fiction novel. It's scary.

Only you
can choose
who or what you'll be.
Others
may try
to rule and remove
elements that make you free.
But it's you
who'll decide
to fight,
or let things slide,
to do good
and to love,
or to hate
or to shove.
Your choices define you.
So make them well
and to them be true.