"Books are for people who wish they were somewhere else." Mark Twain.
If that's true, then what are writers? People who wish they could lead other lives? Or want to remake the one they've led? Or both? Can you be a writer and not be aware of the contradictions in yourself? Or does part of that art mean you have no choice but to notice the multiples within? (referencing Walt Whitman, here.)
With me, I'm greedy -- it's all of the above. I think I have a dozen different writers (read: characters) in me each trying to tell a tale through my one set of fingers...sometimes all at once. So I scatter from here and gather to there and see beauty above me and horror ahead and love to my right and hate to my left with evil in my mind's rear-view mirror. Small wonder I so identified with Daniel in "The Lyons' Den"; his brain was mine tapped in full and damn near laid bare.
You see, I just finished packing a library that contained 7000 books, all about art...and just the casual handling of these volumes and glances in passing of their titles has sent my mind reeling. Suddenly, the Salem Witch Trials play a part in OT. As does Greenland. It makes no sense, at the moment, but it will. And I say that without hesitation, for once. It just...will.
The same goes for "The Alice '65". I know what the book means to Adam, and now I can see what it means to Casey. So their worlds need to be more tightly wound and better detailed, which I already knew...but also should not be as out of control, at least insofar as Casey is concerned; Adam's just caught in her seemingly chaotic undertow.
Which makes Gertrude angry and afraid. She thinks I'll forget about her and lose Adam and Casey and not try to tell their stories in the best way possible, but instead will get lost in minutia, again. She wonders if I'll listen to the one person who said to cut her out of A65 so as to make it clearer and simpler (I won't; she's in the fabric of the tale).
She symbolizes Casey in some way, and I need to find out what that is. I think it's the key to the story.
The key...hm...
If that's true, then what are writers? People who wish they could lead other lives? Or want to remake the one they've led? Or both? Can you be a writer and not be aware of the contradictions in yourself? Or does part of that art mean you have no choice but to notice the multiples within? (referencing Walt Whitman, here.)
With me, I'm greedy -- it's all of the above. I think I have a dozen different writers (read: characters) in me each trying to tell a tale through my one set of fingers...sometimes all at once. So I scatter from here and gather to there and see beauty above me and horror ahead and love to my right and hate to my left with evil in my mind's rear-view mirror. Small wonder I so identified with Daniel in "The Lyons' Den"; his brain was mine tapped in full and damn near laid bare.
You see, I just finished packing a library that contained 7000 books, all about art...and just the casual handling of these volumes and glances in passing of their titles has sent my mind reeling. Suddenly, the Salem Witch Trials play a part in OT. As does Greenland. It makes no sense, at the moment, but it will. And I say that without hesitation, for once. It just...will.
She symbolizes Casey in some way, and I need to find out what that is. I think it's the key to the story.
The key...hm...
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