![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Patterns in the Brain Pan
Jan. 25th, 2012 01:41 pmReading through all of your stories from a certain period is like a snapshot of who you were during that time. Last month, I read through all of my published stories from 2005 to 2010 and looked for a theme amongst the best of them.
It turns out that I was very interested in the temptations of the dark side and what a person was willing to surrender to achieve their ambition or dreams.
I started reading the last couple of stories I’ve recently written and I discovered the very best ones were about rebelling flesh. Souls dealing with the betrayal of their bodies. I’m older and now my body isn’t as healthy as it once was. I was sick at the early part of last year with Bell’s Palsy and surely that had an impact in the stories that came afterwards.
I think my short story “A Pattern Recognized Amongst the Stars” is the best thing I’ve written yet. I don’t think I could have written it if I hadn’t gotten sick and started wondering about my mortality and the slow breakdown of my body.
Our world affects us in such subtle ways that it is impossible to see sometimes until after the situation has passed. Perhaps that is why we look back to younger days with such happiness. Sometimes, I think writers have to tell a story over and over again until we’ve gotten it out of our system.
This last year involved some changes for me socially. I’ve gained a number of new friends and lost a few that were very important to me. Is that way suddenly I’ve become interested in the breakdown of relationships?
Sometimes, I think if you look too deeply into your own motivations, you start to wonder if you have any real free will independent of external stimuli.
It turns out that I was very interested in the temptations of the dark side and what a person was willing to surrender to achieve their ambition or dreams.
I started reading the last couple of stories I’ve recently written and I discovered the very best ones were about rebelling flesh. Souls dealing with the betrayal of their bodies. I’m older and now my body isn’t as healthy as it once was. I was sick at the early part of last year with Bell’s Palsy and surely that had an impact in the stories that came afterwards.
I think my short story “A Pattern Recognized Amongst the Stars” is the best thing I’ve written yet. I don’t think I could have written it if I hadn’t gotten sick and started wondering about my mortality and the slow breakdown of my body.
Our world affects us in such subtle ways that it is impossible to see sometimes until after the situation has passed. Perhaps that is why we look back to younger days with such happiness. Sometimes, I think writers have to tell a story over and over again until we’ve gotten it out of our system.
This last year involved some changes for me socially. I’ve gained a number of new friends and lost a few that were very important to me. Is that way suddenly I’ve become interested in the breakdown of relationships?
Sometimes, I think if you look too deeply into your own motivations, you start to wonder if you have any real free will independent of external stimuli.