under construction

So…what is this exactly? Who knows!

Probably me, I should know.

As we near the end of this year, I’ve been determining my writing goals, what’s up next. No, maybe it’s more like this; I’ve been looking inward, questioning the heart of my passion, where the heat rises from. What type of writer would I like to be? I entered into 2023 asking myself similar questions, trying to establish my artistic identity, and it’s brought me farther than I anticipated. Now, I’m ending this year a step closer to becoming the playwright I hope to be, with the beginnings of an artistic community I’ve sorely needed.

I’ve been saying that ultimately, I’d like to be a good writer, and then one day I’d like to be a great one. I’m not sure if I’ll ever know if or when I’ve achieved that last part, but I do know what getting good looks like for me. There’s a certain way I’d like to analyze creative work, a level of sophistication in my speech and writing that I want to convey. For example: I’ve been reading a lot of international work, my favorite amongst them being literature written by Japanese women. I’m talking Banana Yoshimoto, Yōko Ogawa, Mieko Kawakami. There’s so much I want to tell you- how their character’s internal lives and contemplations are laid bare in such a lovely, devastatingly simple way. How Yoshimoto’s Moshi Moshi made me sob snotty, messy tears into my bed sheets, months after my godmother’s passing, because I never expected to be known so intimately. And there is no excessive flourish, their writing is not ostentatious in any way; there is enough warmth and grace in the world, in these women, that the embrace of their words is like a mother’s to her child, familiar and kind, honest and believed. Their work is unencumbered by the conventions and rules found in Western writing.

I’d like to say all of that, and then more, here. But in a cleaner way? Maybe.

So any essays, or poems, or short stories, or monologues, or rants about how bad I think the live action Zelda movie will be- I hope you’ll come back and read them, so we can talk about it all.