Stuff
"As a writer you are free. You are about the freest person that ever was. Your freedom is what you have bought with your solitude, your loneliness."
-Ursala K LeGuin
I'm not feeling too free this morning. Just sleepy. I worked all weekend and today I'm working until midnight again. I should take a walk. It will make me feel better, but it's cold outside. Actually, it's cold inside too. I don't want to turn on the furnace yet. I'd rather curl up in a fuzzy blanket to keep warm.
I was thinking this weekend about why I write. Part of it is to escape. It's like when I acted in high school. I felt more real being someone else. Another part of why I write is to express myself. If I don't write I get manic. I have something like a feedback loops stuck in my head of images and words. I don't want to turn this into a poor me, boo-hoo post or bore anyone with my past, but I was told as a child that a vivid imagination was a sign of demonic possession. Okay, I don't believe that now, but creativity without expression is like being possessed. At least for me, any way. I have to get it out of my head or it will drive me crazy.
Okay now that I've admitted to being insane, I also write because I think I have something to say. All writers believe that or they wouldn't put themselves through the misery of writing. Books effect people profoundly. I decided to go to college because of a book. (Paul Monette's Borrowed Time). I decided to study ancient Greek and classical civilizations because of books (Alexander by Peter Green, The Persian Boy by Mary Renault). Books have helped me form ideas about love (Storm Constantine's Wraeththu books) and family (The Commitment by Dan Savage, Comfort and Joy by Jim Grimsley). Frankly, I want to effect someone else in the same way. How egotistical of me, I know.
The thing I really came to understand this weekend while I was thinking about all this is who I wanted to write for. You think I'm going to say myself, don't you? Well, you're wrong. I want to write for those lost lonely miserable kids that I knew in high school. All of them. I want to write for D who was beautiful and sad and got beat up all the time for being gay, and for the other D who tried to hint at what was going on in his life but never could tell anyone that he was being abused until after he carved up his face with a knife one night. I want to write for A who decided life was too difficult to continue, and P and N who were lost until they found each other, and B who wrote me the saddest letters I have ever read because I was the only one who cried when he tried to kill himself. If I could go back now, I know what I would say to all of them. But since I can't go back, I want to write for them because then maybe the ones who are like they were now might understand that they aren't ugly miserable freaks. Maybe it might do someone some good, I don't know.
*sigh* My apple cinnamon oatmeal is done. It looks warmer outside now. I think I'm ready to take that walk now.
In case, you don't know it. You are special and beautiful and I am very glad you're here.
-Ursala K LeGuin
I'm not feeling too free this morning. Just sleepy. I worked all weekend and today I'm working until midnight again. I should take a walk. It will make me feel better, but it's cold outside. Actually, it's cold inside too. I don't want to turn on the furnace yet. I'd rather curl up in a fuzzy blanket to keep warm.
I was thinking this weekend about why I write. Part of it is to escape. It's like when I acted in high school. I felt more real being someone else. Another part of why I write is to express myself. If I don't write I get manic. I have something like a feedback loops stuck in my head of images and words. I don't want to turn this into a poor me, boo-hoo post or bore anyone with my past, but I was told as a child that a vivid imagination was a sign of demonic possession. Okay, I don't believe that now, but creativity without expression is like being possessed. At least for me, any way. I have to get it out of my head or it will drive me crazy.
Okay now that I've admitted to being insane, I also write because I think I have something to say. All writers believe that or they wouldn't put themselves through the misery of writing. Books effect people profoundly. I decided to go to college because of a book. (Paul Monette's Borrowed Time). I decided to study ancient Greek and classical civilizations because of books (Alexander by Peter Green, The Persian Boy by Mary Renault). Books have helped me form ideas about love (Storm Constantine's Wraeththu books) and family (The Commitment by Dan Savage, Comfort and Joy by Jim Grimsley). Frankly, I want to effect someone else in the same way. How egotistical of me, I know.
The thing I really came to understand this weekend while I was thinking about all this is who I wanted to write for. You think I'm going to say myself, don't you? Well, you're wrong. I want to write for those lost lonely miserable kids that I knew in high school. All of them. I want to write for D who was beautiful and sad and got beat up all the time for being gay, and for the other D who tried to hint at what was going on in his life but never could tell anyone that he was being abused until after he carved up his face with a knife one night. I want to write for A who decided life was too difficult to continue, and P and N who were lost until they found each other, and B who wrote me the saddest letters I have ever read because I was the only one who cried when he tried to kill himself. If I could go back now, I know what I would say to all of them. But since I can't go back, I want to write for them because then maybe the ones who are like they were now might understand that they aren't ugly miserable freaks. Maybe it might do someone some good, I don't know.
*sigh* My apple cinnamon oatmeal is done. It looks warmer outside now. I think I'm ready to take that walk now.
In case, you don't know it. You are special and beautiful and I am very glad you're here.