Saturday, June 30, 2012

In which I philosophize at much too late an hour

Horton and the unidentified clover.
 So. There's this great movie (actually, it was a book first, but it's also a really good movie) called Horton Hears a Who. It's a delightful tale of an elephant (I like elephants) and a clover (I'm also rather fond of clovers, though I can't say why). The elephant is named Horton, and the clover doesn't have a name, because the clover really isn't a big player in this story. It's the little tiny people living on the clover who are important.

Bear with me, people. This really does have something to do with writing.

I feel philosophical, and so I chose the deep and thought-provoking story of Horton and the Whos to unleash a torrent of philosophical...philosophy.

I am Horton (though I'm not really, because whenever people who are being philosophical say that they are something, they never really mean it. That wouldn't be philosophy. Also, I'm not an elephant, just to clear everything up). And my darlings are the Whos (by my darlings, I mean the horde of characters living in my head and eating my sanity for breakfast. They're so cute). In the story of the non-philosophical Horton, the Whos must move heaven and earth (which, in their case, is a very small heaven and earth) to make themselves heard. Seriously. They stand in the middle of town and shout and bang pots and stuff.

In the case of the philosphical Horton (as in, me) a similar story is unfolding. There are these characters inside my mind and my books who are constantly shouting (and I mean constantly). They pop up in my mind every time I sit down, every time I see something that reminds me of their story, every time I have a spare moment. They're down there in their little town square in my mind, clapping and shouting and singing and making a lot of noise. Theoretically, I should hear them. Realistically, I usually don't.

Yes, in case you haven't guessed, it's another one of THOSE posts. The posts where authors (like me) admit that they've been neglecting their characters, necessitating a huge "Occupy Author" character riot which nearly drives them insane. They're marching around shouting "WE ARE HERE", and I'm on my blog making a post.

My characters--they aren't too pleased about that.

To make a [very] long story short, this post is something of a pep talk I needed to give myself. Just comparing my darlings to little fuzzy people has already made me more aware of how much I miss writing about them. So, the obvious solution is to write about them. A lot. Like, every day. And I have been, most days. It's been crazy these past three weeks: I graduated, I turned 18, and I got a second job. I have a month to go before I leave for college, and I'm basically a nervous wreck. At college, my writing life probably isn't going to get much better than it could be now, and so now is the time to work.

Actually, right now is the time to sleep. But meh.

Sorry about the long hiatus. It was mostly unintentional, and I regretted it when I logged on and found about 50 blog posts to read. Ah. I love you guys.


~Elisabeth

Ps. If anyone would like to be a philosophical version of the slightly mad but still adorable Katie, she's still up for grabs ;)



Gotta love that fuzzy face. And look! Another unidentified clover.

Okay.

Time for bed.