"Novelists when they write novels tend to take an almost godlike attitude toward their subject, pretending to a total comprehension of the story, a man's life, which they can therefore recount as God Himself might, nothing standing between them and the naked truth, the entire story meaningful in every detail. I am as little able to do this as the novelist is, even though my story is more important to me than any novelist's is to him - for this is my story; it is the story of a man, not of an invented, or possible, or idealized, or otherwise absent figure, but of a unique being of flesh and blood . . . If we were not something more than unique human beings, if each one of us could really be done away with once and for all by a single bullet, storytelling would lose all purpose. But every man is more than just himself; he also represents the unique, the very special and always significant and remarkable point at which the world's phenomena intersect, only once in this way and never again. That is why every man's story is important, eternal, sacred; that is why every man, as long as he lives and fulfills the will of nature, is wondrous, and worthy of every consideration. In each individual the spirit has become flesh, in each man the creation suffers, within each one a redeemer is nailed to the cross.
I do not consider myself less ignorant than most people. I have been and still am a seeker, but I have ceased to question stars and books; I have begun to listen to the teachings my blood whispers to me. My story is not a pleasant one; it is neither sweet nor harmonious, as invented stories are; it has the taste of nonsense and chaos, of madness and dreams - like the lives of all men who stop deceiving themselves.
Each man's life represents a road toward himself, an attempt at such a road, the intimation of a path. No man has ever been entirely and completely himself. Yet each one strives to become that - one in an awkward, the other in a more intelligent way, each as best he can. Each man carries the vestiges of his birth - the slime and eggshells of his primeval past - with him to the end of his days. Some never become human, remaining frog, lizard, ant. Some are human above the waist, fish below. Each represents a gamble on the part of nature in creation of the human. We all share the same origin, our mothers; all of us come in at the same door. But each of us - experiments of the depths - strives toward his own destiny. We can understand one another; but each of us is able to interpret himself to himself alone." - Hermann Hesse, Demian
"Fundamentally, all writing is about the same thing: it's about dying, about the brief flicker of time we have here, and the frustrations that it creates." - Mordecai Richler
I think my life is exceptional. I'm amazed at the friends I have, the places I go, the toes I suck . . . okay, maybe not the last part. However, I have this insane ability to forget absolutely everything that's ever happened to me a mere two days after it happens, so what did I decide to do about that? I'm writing it all down. Starting in November of 1998, anything and everything that I thought the least bit important got itself written about. If it's not here, as far as I'm concerned, it never really happened. Keep that in mind.
Checked out The Random yet?
Or how about the Cast of Characters? You'll want to do that before proceeding.
I finally accepted my lameness and got myself a LiveJournal. Everything post-May 22nd can be found at http://www.livejournal.com/users/queenkatieett.
I am a writer. It's amazing being a writer. It also sucks being a writer. I'll let my arch nemesis, Leigh, explain:
"it sucks being a writer. yes, i'll tell you why. because sometimes the damn muse rouses you from your nice cozy bed at four in the freaking morning and if you don't get up and write down the damn couple of lines that randomly landed in your head you'll have lost them by morning. so you get up and stumble over to the computer to type out three measely paragraphs which you'll probably hate when you read in the morning. but the bitch of it all is that it is already the morning and there is not so much time before you have to wake up and be a student again, ignoring any and all things you might have produced prior, regardless if they're golden or disgusting excuses for sentences. the end." - Leigh Wisniewski
