There are sleepless nights, when sometimes you just have to write...

[Wetzelbill]

I can't sleep. Exhausted, but I keep thinking about this story. Language is like blood. It pulses through my veins. When I write, sometimes that's the only time I feel at peace with myself. It's like no matter how bad everything else can be, I know that I can always sit down and put a story together. I used to write to make people laugh. I always loved to tell stories. For me, when I was little, the most exciting part about my life was family friends and relatives who would come over and visit.

That was my introduction to the art of storytelling. I'm from a rural area on an Indian reservation. The kitchen table is better than television. Life happens at a kitchen table. A pot of coffee and a group of adults telling stories. Exchanging the news. Laughing. Crying. Having a wild time.

I always wanted to be like that. To be an entertainer.

So I write.

Like for the past few days, I've had something in my head. A few days ago I watched "The U.S. vs. John Lennon." So I got curious and started looking up information on the internets about Lennon.

I ended up on Wikipedia reading about his assassin, Mark David Chapman. Chapman used to fantasize that these little people lived in the walls of his house. They worshipped him. It was like watching him on tv for them or something. He was in their papers everyday. And he sometimes would get mad at them and pretend he had a button on his sofa that he could push and blow some of them away. But still, they worshipped him, he could do no wrong. Then when he announced to them that he was going to kill Lennon, they begged him not to do it. Saying stuff like "Mr. President, think about your family etc."

It's creepy. But I started thinking up a character who was like that. Who had conversations with little people who worshipped him. I wanted him to believe he was following in the footsteps of great men, sort of like how Machiavelli writes in "The Prince." I also wanted him to believe that he was a mythological figure in Blackfoot traditional folklore named "Blood-Clot." Blood-Clot was created from a clot of blood, and came to the earth to rid the world of monsters who hurt the Blackfoot people. I wanted this guy to think he was some kind of hero like that. So basically, I'm working on this story tonight about this delusional person who believes he is sent to rid the world of monsters and that a whole race of little men hiding in his walls worship him. That and he has some kind of grand purpose, like some great historical figure.

I always wonder about delusion. The fantasy life that killers like Chapman lead. He believed he was like Holden Caulfield, and that Lennon was a phony person. Caulfield hated phoniness, so Chapman did too. I guess for me, it's interesting writing a character like that. It's dark, but challenging.

Some nights it's worth it to challenge yourself.

So yeah, tonight that's what I'm doing. I'm probably too tired to finish it, but I had to at least start writing. The subject matter just seems to have a grip on me right now.

[hfojvt]

1. I think we all wanna believe we have some grand purpose

like making people laugh, or keeping the world from being over-run by chocolate chip cookies (as Snoopy figured was his purpose, besides trying to GET THE RED BARON!! :grr:)

See, for example, the young Lt. in Kurt Vonneguts "Mother Night" who figures that his purpose in life was to kill the Nazi propagandist Howard W. Campbell Jr. Lot of times we find that in our career or in our families. One writer, perhaps Bertrand Russell, said that was one thing that lead to Nazism. That people used to have purposes in running small businesses and farms, but with the rise of bigger business and bigger nations, they no longer had that and so they diverted their search for meaning by attaching it to the fuehrer. HE and the REICH had a noble purpose and their purpose was to play a part in helping it along.

Calvin made a existentially tormented snowman, who knew he was gonna melt and felt that his life was without purpose or meaning. Hobbes asked 'Is it?' and Calvin quipped 'No, he's about to get a big screen TV.'