Writing is an act of trickery. All my work is coming at you from the wrong direction – multiple wrong directions at once. I have two modes – ideas as abstract as a dream or words wielded as a blunt instrument. I do my best when I have either the most expansive universal theories or the most minute of details to work with.
I’ve been trying to find my voice. For the past few years, I have been trying very hard to discover who I am as a person and to become comfortable with myself as a person. I’ve only made real progress through getting to know other people better and through it I learned it’s hard for everyone. I think that’s ultimately what I want all my writing to be about: Being a person is hard, and we are not alone in it.
Sharing written works connects to the desire to be heard and seen. We can explore together who we are when we explore each other’s writing, and this forms community and social responsibility.
What I want more than anything is to spend my whole life creating incredible and beautiful things that I can be proud of – things to share. If you ask me why I tell stories, I don’t think I could give you any answer more honest than “Because I can. Because I am human.”
A very natural thing to want to write about is what makes us human. What is humanity? Who am I? Who are we?
I don’t seek to answer the question of what humanity isn’t. When I say I am interested in writing about what doesn’t make us human, I am talking about a presence rather than an absence. A presence of not human, rather than an absence of human. It appears to me often that my writing is dedicated to it – a close examination of where humanity begins and where something else emerges alongside it.
I want to know what personhood is. I want to know if humanity is different or the same as it. I want to know if they can be separated from each other – and more importantly…
Which part does the monster in us come from? Where does that horrific world-ending power that exists in all of us come from? When we use it… are we still human?
Lately, I’ve been thinking a lot about the concept of responsibility. I am still developing a sense of what it is. I think that it is ultimately the ability to keep promises, and that comes in a lot of different forms.
I also believe that a story is, in a sense, a series of promises to a reader. Lately, I have concluded that a story is a responsibility. My stories are my responsibilities. Only I can tell them, and I must tell them.
