Character is spontaneous, rather than coherent.
I've always believed we're a lot less definite than we think. We're like mercury; well never be held, we'll never take shape.
I sit down to write and I see nothing. No words, no ideas, no feelings, no nothing. The quiet is new and it scares me. Or maybe its old and that's why it scares me. Lately, I spend my days dissecting someone else's text, frustrated and tired. I come home and look at everything I've written and I hate it.
The stage manager is the only other girl. She has pretty brown eyes and moves like a bird.
"My friend who's a sculptor, a new artist, called me and said 'I'm looking at this piece I did and I hate it. I can't stop looking at it and I can't stop hating it. I need to go get drunk,' and I took him aside and I told him, 'Listen to me. Self-loathing is a huge part of being an artist. Every artist hates most of what they do. It's part of the whole thing. That's why so many of them drink too much, or abuse things, to escape the self-loathing.' He didn't listen to me."
She laughed. I nodded.
"You make art one time out of ten. Take a hard look back at all that you invent. My brother told me that."
Character is not what a man says, but the sum of his actions. If those actions come quick, without warning, surprising even ourselves, where does that leave us? How do we know anything?
I'm just trying to figure out what changed.
Maybe everything has its moment.
Maybe Katie it is just Old Man Winter that has changed your outlook in the present? Coming from the upper midwest snow and blizzard country, we half hybernate in the winter - hiding out for the spring - and attitudes are certainly effected by this time of year, whether here or where you are at. With the spring, and the resuming of life, most get the inspiration again that is vital to carrying on. Happy New Year, Katie! Let us wish for a better 2011 than the 2010 that we leave behind :-)
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