Finally I begin. It begins.
Upon recommendation I have chosen WordPress as the home of my current, nascent thoughts. The question of how I chose to write them in this format at all has murkier origins; origins of which I am content to be ignorant at present. Suffice to say that I am curious enough and, like Keats, discern strength in negative capability. There is great potential in strolling through the unknown. As for what potential that may be, I suppose we shall see.
I’ve a purpose to my madness and, consequently, a method to my blog. Just as I cannot write an essay without a thesis, I could not happily write a blog without a purpose. That is, a topically oriented reason to keep it that would be distinct from a journal-writing inclination, which I don’t particularly have. [I write letters.]
I am always reading something – so the idea is to frame thoughts with my book of the moment…Incidentally this moment has no book, as I like beginnings to diverge from the [albeit indiscernible] pattern. Plus I’m not reading a book with themes of beginning or birth, inconveniently. I’ll give it a genre, instead.
Lately I have been focusing on biographies, autobiographies, journals and correspondence of favorite writers. I am a writer, immutably, and so harbor a tireless curiosity about the lives of the writers who have influenced me. Perhaps I am seeking similarities between their lives and my own; proof that I belong in their elite group. Perhaps combing for the advice they can never personally impart. Absolutely developing futile crushes on them and their glorious characters.
I’m looking for mirrors to reflect truth and clarity and other noble things, like wit! and subtle behavioral analysis! I’m attracted to the medium of correspondence because I quickly begin to resent the third party mediator of the biographer. I don’t always trust their [let's just say it, blithe] suppositions, don’t often even like them. I’d like to draw my own conclusions, thanks, when so much is at stake: this is my steadily evolving self definition we’re talking about here. I’m looking for myself and taking meticulous notes of everything – because I could be anywhere. I’m 24. Dickens was a political journalist at 24. That’s comforting, isn’t it? Hawthorne was brooding in Maine, working on Fanshawe. I’m in Maine! I brood! Austen was writing diligently, helping to care for her family. Swift was sick, studying at Oxford. I could do that… C.S. Lewis was also studying at Oxford, after being in in the army. Steinbeck had graduated Stanford and was doing random jobs in New York, trying to write. I went to Harvard! My jobs are random!! See what I mean? Heartening stuff.
The numerically smitten part of me wishes the date had more significance, as I like patterns of significance immensely. I have a weakness for significance in general, but an accompanying weakness regarding chronology ensures that I hardly ever know the date, anyhow. I will have to settle for a chilled Maine evening that will likely be lost in the historic synapses of writing, movies, reading and meticulous organization of music files that characterize my hours of late. As I’m determined to be pleased, that will do quite nicely.
N.B. For the sake of being thorough with my new spinnerets, my [now static] Route 66 travel blog may be viewed here:
