Reinvigorated

I’ll admit this: writing started to lose its priority spot for me a couple of months ago. Writing a short story, working on my screenplay—even reading!—started to be put comfortably on the back burner, and, though it frustrated me that I wasn’t producing material, I was enjoying other things. Yet, here I was, working at a literary agency and a publisher on real-life material that is being published; I discovered that I would be responsible for proposing book ideas myself as part of one of my internship programs. I don’t know what had changed so drastically, but I was losing the urge that I had previously had—every time I left home or interacted with other readers—to write.

Finally, that’s changed. I look back at the productions I’ve seen in these past three weeks and the opportunities I’ve had at my internships and realize that, collectively, it has all reminded me just how much I enjoy storytelling, whether in a cynical, people-hating zookeeper’s voice or that of a Progeria-diagnosed, seventeen-year-old-but-not-stereotypically-teenage boy. Among the five art forms we’re studying here—drama, graphic art, film, and dance—dance and music have somehow inspired me the most—though drama, of course, has reminded me of just how fantastic a well-written voice or well-constructed character can make me feel. But dance and music—two art forms that hardly use words at all—have given me real moods to delve into.

We saw a film, Girlchild Diaries, which was about the evolution of a strange, independent dance-centric production by Meredith Monk as it began in the 1970s and was later reproduced in 1993 and afterward. The production, while being a complete load of what the hell is going on…? at a few points, brought to mind questions like: Why is it that we become older? Wouldn’t it be just as natural-appearing for us to become younger as time goes on? And: What, if any correlation is there between mental and physical age?

The production, which I and everyone else has simply thought to be strange at first, spoke to me in huge ways a day, two days, four days later, and I realized that I don’t write for characters; I write to examine the world and delve into questions that I can’t answer with what I’ve been given in my own life; I use a character’s life to experiment and to inspire myself.

So now I’m back to writing a short story recently retitled to be “Zoonoses”—a story about a zookeeper who, from the start, has a real passion for animals and, as time goes on, lets this passion expand deeper into a real cynicism toward people and resultant lack of association with either humans or animals. And I’m back to challenging myself, this time with a description of the macaque life that is meant to be, at least in some way, “beautiful.” (If you don’t know macaques, look one up and you’ll understand why I phrase this as a “challenge.”)