"The key to success, as an artist, is to realize what vision you have of the world, perfect your ability to show it, and sell it."

I realized in a paper journal (I'm sorry, blogger, for my unfaithfulness) that my "vision" of the world is not "stylized" or "gritty", but merely all-encompassing and hopeful. My "vision" of the world is not ignoring what I see. Granted, I don't make much effort to pay attention to the distant parts of the world, but the little part around me is my entire subject. The boredom of a waiter. The single-mindedness of an ant. The preoccupation of a lover. The hunger of a homeless cat. The lust of a squirrel. The exasperation of a manager. The ease of a dancer. The practiced obliviousness of a cleaning lady. The curiosity of a writer.

I'm doing a terrible job of saying what I want to say. The main point is that I care about all the little details of a person's life and the little details of the world around me, details that other people don't want to consider or bother knowing or care about if they learn. I can't stop caring about those details, nor would I want to. And so, I have to move on to part two. I need to remember them. I need to learn to communicate them, and as a fiction writer, fabricate them. Sure, I love my stylized stories and poems. But that's not all I see, nor all I want to say.

And so, each day, I need to write a boring scene, I mean boring to you, about a person that you wouldn't care about, that you probably wouldn't be friends with, even though you might know them, work with them, go to class with them. And I need to teach myself to make them interesting without sacrificing those details and without stylizing them so that they seem digitalized or blurred at the edges. Arg, that's a difficult task! [laughs] Laters, blogger.