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Potpourri day
Tuesday, 3 December 2002 06:51 am"Doctor, My Husband Thinks I'm Crazy Because I Keep Taking the Bulbs Out of My Lamps, Then Eating the Lamps."
"You Are Crazy! The Bulb's the Best Part!"*
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It's going to be one of those avoid-the-mirror days. It's not that I think I look bad; it's that I don't recognize myself when I see me. I don't look familiar.
Actually, that's exactly what I do look—familiar. Like someone I knew a long time ago, but can't place. It's disquieting, seeing yourself as an acquaintance, someone you have no idea how to talk to.
I'm bored with myself, bored with my life. Though . . . the sun seems to be out, and it's supposed to be warm. Really warm. Near 60. Spring! Who cares if the bees are dead, it's spring, spring!
OK, it's warm for December, but it's not really spring, and not really warm enough to eat lunch outside. Going now to run warm water over my icy hands . . . .
I've been writing on the novel again, and I'm once again in a quandary. In some ways I think it's some of the best writing I've ever done. I love writing the missing-scene stuff, love filling in the blanks, and explaining things Cannell & Co. left hanging.
But . . . I'm not sure I 100% believe the characterization, particularly Sonny's. It was one thing when I was just writing a longish story, this take on Sonny was just one of many that I found plausible and fun to write. Writing 50 pages, thinking "Could be, could be," is one thing, but shouldn't a novel be definitive, shouldn't it be 100+% what I believe, my One True Vision of the characters? Worrying about this is keeping me from writing.
And I know some of it is just the usual need to define myself, to know what I believe, write it down, lock it in a box. This is who I am, this is me, I know, because there I am in the mirror, wearing my glasses and my dragonfly pins. It must be me. If this is Theo in silk, I must be Nell in tweed. I'm looking for the definitive me, and every piece I add adds to my security, while every piece I lose (Melody, for instance, or even PtE before she showed her E-ness) is more of me that is undefined, unsure. How do I know what to do if I don't know who I am? Where does your security come from, if you have no true identity? (That's the real reason Superman is Clark Kent; you can't just fly around all the time, eventually you have to go home and go to bed—your own home, your own bed, the one with the moon in the window. Have I ever mentioned that I hate Harold and the Purple Crayon?)
Shirley Jackson wrote a story about a girl who goes out to the grocery, leaving her lovely new husband in their lovely new home, only when she comes back, she isn't sure which apartment is theirs. I don't want to be that girl.
*Laugh-In
"You Are Crazy! The Bulb's the Best Part!"*
-:- -:- -:- -:-
It's going to be one of those avoid-the-mirror days. It's not that I think I look bad; it's that I don't recognize myself when I see me. I don't look familiar.
Actually, that's exactly what I do look—familiar. Like someone I knew a long time ago, but can't place. It's disquieting, seeing yourself as an acquaintance, someone you have no idea how to talk to.
I'm bored with myself, bored with my life. Though . . . the sun seems to be out, and it's supposed to be warm. Really warm. Near 60. Spring! Who cares if the bees are dead, it's spring, spring!
OK, it's warm for December, but it's not really spring, and not really warm enough to eat lunch outside. Going now to run warm water over my icy hands . . . .
I've been writing on the novel again, and I'm once again in a quandary. In some ways I think it's some of the best writing I've ever done. I love writing the missing-scene stuff, love filling in the blanks, and explaining things Cannell & Co. left hanging.
But . . . I'm not sure I 100% believe the characterization, particularly Sonny's. It was one thing when I was just writing a longish story, this take on Sonny was just one of many that I found plausible and fun to write. Writing 50 pages, thinking "Could be, could be," is one thing, but shouldn't a novel be definitive, shouldn't it be 100+% what I believe, my One True Vision of the characters? Worrying about this is keeping me from writing.
And I know some of it is just the usual need to define myself, to know what I believe, write it down, lock it in a box. This is who I am, this is me, I know, because there I am in the mirror, wearing my glasses and my dragonfly pins. It must be me. If this is Theo in silk, I must be Nell in tweed. I'm looking for the definitive me, and every piece I add adds to my security, while every piece I lose (Melody, for instance, or even PtE before she showed her E-ness) is more of me that is undefined, unsure. How do I know what to do if I don't know who I am? Where does your security come from, if you have no true identity? (That's the real reason Superman is Clark Kent; you can't just fly around all the time, eventually you have to go home and go to bed—your own home, your own bed, the one with the moon in the window. Have I ever mentioned that I hate Harold and the Purple Crayon?)
Shirley Jackson wrote a story about a girl who goes out to the grocery, leaving her lovely new husband in their lovely new home, only when she comes back, she isn't sure which apartment is theirs. I don't want to be that girl.
*Laugh-In