7/2/13
"Sometimes you feel like a scientist in the middle of an experiment that no one else believes in." - Sam Beckett, Quantum Leap
Today was the last day of the short story unit. The teacher gave an inspirational talk using the above quote from Quantum Leap, and then somehow we started talking about how to maintain a lifelong marriage, and then we talked about ambition and faith and the meaning of life, and it was in my opinion a great way to end the unit.
When you get down to it, the life of an artist is really quite depressing. Rejection abounds; stories you've worked on for so long and so hard die in the blink of an eye; and even though a good story has the ability to change the world, society shoves most writers in the back corner of the room just as it uses classical music as background noise. Look over your shoulder; you are alone. There is only you and the page. The great beauty and great futility of a writer is that we must have absolute faith both in ourselves to create a work of art and in our readers to appreciate it. Before the experiment can be complete, we must go through a long and difficult process. But we keep waking up every morning, we keep setting word after word down until the blank page is full, because we are in love with the craft and there is nothing we can do about it. Nothing else completes us.
Yupyup. That was me being sentimental. You'll have to excuse me - I'm a writer. Anyways.
I'm oddly tired, so I'll be brief now. Made ice cream in the afternoon. Ran out of plastic bags - had to stir with a spoon. Cream never iced. Drank it in liquid form. It was still sweet.
Pretty sweet, no?
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