Friday, December 21, 2007
The Forest for the Trees
"Chances are you want to write because you are a haunted individual, or a bothered individual, because the world does not sit right with you, or you in it. Chances are you have a deep connection to books because at some point you discovered that they were the one truly safe place to discover and explore feelings that are banished from the dinner table, the cocktail party, the golf foursome, the bridge game. Because the writers who mattered to you have dared to say
I am a sick man. And because within the world of books there is no censure. In discovering books, you became free to explore the full range of human motives, desires, secrets, and lies..."
~from Betsy Lerner's
The Forest for the TreesWriting is a very self-indulgent craft. It's like eating - it's generally good for you, but too much of it will make you bitter and ugly. And if I go into writing, it will be because of the reasons Lerner has said. I will write because I do not sit with the world; because somehow I know I am sick, and the people around me are sick and do not know it; because I am, to quote von Sacher-Masoch,
suprasensual.
I wish now to write a thousand terrible lines to find the perfect one and plant on it the tree of me.
---------------In the grand scheme of things, what we think do not matter. But in the grand scheme of things, it does not matter that it does not matter.
Labels: writing
kitten posted @ 12:41 AM
Randoms things about me
I'm Kitten :)
I get a year older every 17th of August. I am a Leo, and I carry all traits associated with that zodiac.
Right now, I'm twenty years old and I'm loving it. They say we're only as young as we feel. I feel like I'm five.
I would never leave the house without my Zen and my E2. The latter connects me to the world; the former takes me away from it.
If I were to choose a word to describe my life, that word would be
crazy.
I am in love with the stars. I am in love with the rain.
I am a Rutgers University student, and I want to graduate with an English degree. An English-Psych double major would be nice. An English-TCert would be even better.
I want to be a teacher. I want to be writer. I want to be both.
I thrive on indie and emo. Mae, The Spill Canvas, Copeland and Daphne Loves Derby - these are the guys that I listen to. I listen to other bands here and there, but mostly those are the bands I follow. That being said, I'm a mainstream moron.
There's no feeling more lovely than being carried away. People don't usually think of me as somebody spontaneous, but I like being swept away as much as the next girl.
I fall in love easily, but it is really hard for me to fall out. Really hard.
I am very fragile.
I am tolerant of almost everything except one thing: intolerance.
I am an extensive reader. I thirst only for meaning, nothing else.
I love my friends <3
I am extremely spiritual but not religious.
Things I want to do in my life time
Get a job.
- Save up enough money to go back home -
wherever that is if I ever had one before I'm 40.
- Write a book.
- Sing for a Disney movie.
- Buy a house on top of a hill.
- Go bunjee jumping.
Travel halfway around the world.
- See Italy.
Find the one person who makes my heart beat faster and slower at the same time.
Draw and paint.
Learn how to play Sudoku.
- Volunteer for American/Philippine Red Cross or UNHCR.
Quit smoking.
Kitten recommends:
- Antoine de Saint-Exupery's The Little Prince
- Trina Paulus' Hope for the Flowers
- Paulo Coehlo's Eleven Minutes
- Leo Tolstoy's The Death of Ivan Ilych and Other Stories
- Leopold von Sacher-Masoch's Venus in Furs
- J.D. Salinger's Catcher in the Rye
- Neil Gaiman's American Gods
- Anne Rice's Beauty's Release
- Leopold von Sacher-Masoch's Venus in Furs
- Douglas F. Hofstadter's Godel Escher Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid
- Leonard Mlodinow's Feynman's Rainbow: A Search for Beauty in Physics and in Life
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