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Writer's Block: I Can Relate
Jun. 18th, 2009 02:21 pm[Error: unknown template qotd]
The point of reading and writing, for me, is finding myself in people and places that I wouldn't expect. Both the characters I read and the characters I write generally gain a great deal of their likability from the extent to which I can identify with them. There's really a long list in this question, but I'll try to narrow it down to the top five or so.
First, Hermione Granger, for always being the girl on a team full of guys and making that work to her advantage, for being smart and feeling like that was important, and for having a heart. It was always her intelligence and practicality that I identified with, but also the fact that she's sensitive and kind, always giving the boys lessons in how to be better people. And I like to think I could be like that.
Next, Elizabeth Bennet, for her spunk and spark and maybe for her too-quick judgments and for the fact that Mr. Darcy's just as attracted to her brains as he is to her looks (thank you, Professor Goldsmith, for an analysis of "intelligent eyes"). If I were any of Austen's heroines, it'd be her. She's the only one with enough energy to match me.
Finally, and most powerfully, the first time I read Reap the Wild Wind, Aryl Sarc stood out to me as a character that was so unlike me and yet so devastatingly similar. At the time I read that novel, Aryl and I were both on the edge of something huge and difficult to understand. We were both about to be thrown out of the worlds that we knew and into something more, and we weren't sure if we were ready for it, but we didn't have a choice and that didn't matter anyway, because we held our ground and made a life out of what we had, and it turned out to be beautiful. I also definitely identify with Aryl's craving curiosity for the unknown, even if sometimes it's scary.
Also: how is this question different from this question? (I like how I realized this after typing out these answers...might as well post this anyway! And then back to work!)
The point of reading and writing, for me, is finding myself in people and places that I wouldn't expect. Both the characters I read and the characters I write generally gain a great deal of their likability from the extent to which I can identify with them. There's really a long list in this question, but I'll try to narrow it down to the top five or so.
First, Hermione Granger, for always being the girl on a team full of guys and making that work to her advantage, for being smart and feeling like that was important, and for having a heart. It was always her intelligence and practicality that I identified with, but also the fact that she's sensitive and kind, always giving the boys lessons in how to be better people. And I like to think I could be like that.
Next, Elizabeth Bennet, for her spunk and spark and maybe for her too-quick judgments and for the fact that Mr. Darcy's just as attracted to her brains as he is to her looks (thank you, Professor Goldsmith, for an analysis of "intelligent eyes"). If I were any of Austen's heroines, it'd be her. She's the only one with enough energy to match me.
Finally, and most powerfully, the first time I read Reap the Wild Wind, Aryl Sarc stood out to me as a character that was so unlike me and yet so devastatingly similar. At the time I read that novel, Aryl and I were both on the edge of something huge and difficult to understand. We were both about to be thrown out of the worlds that we knew and into something more, and we weren't sure if we were ready for it, but we didn't have a choice and that didn't matter anyway, because we held our ground and made a life out of what we had, and it turned out to be beautiful. I also definitely identify with Aryl's craving curiosity for the unknown, even if sometimes it's scary.
Also: how is this question different from this question? (I like how I realized this after typing out these answers...might as well post this anyway! And then back to work!)