(no subject)

[gategrrl]

A week or so ago, I was at a used bookstore, and bought a copy of Octavia Butler's "Mind of My Mind". I read most of it this morning, skipping to the ending (my god, why did she kill THOSE characters off? I wanted Emma to LIVE!), and then the writer's biography.

I started crying when I read what Ms Butler wrote about herself. "I am a 46 year old writer who can remember being a 10 year old writer and who expects someday to be an 80 year old writer." I feel like bawling right now, too.

It was just like the time I was reading "Miles From Nowhere" written by a woman who bicycled around the world for two years with her husband. I was working and would takes breaks at the Lexington Public library (wasn't a resident, so I couldn't get a card to take the book out) and so, would read the book a couple chapters at a time. This was the rare case I didn't read ahead or read the author's bio.

I was shocked when I read that the author was killed a year after she returned from her trip by a drunk driver. She was training for a triathalon. She never saw the publication of her book, but had seen it through some of the publishing process. Man, I *really* cried that day at the library and then when I went back to work.

I hate when writers die. Especially beloved, talented writers who had so much more to contribute.

Comments

[jenlev.livejournal.com]

i had the opportunity to meet octavia butler at 'readercon' a few years back. she seemed to be graceful, kind, and remarkably intelligent/witty. it is a real loss.

and i think about all the untold stories writers never get a chance to tell, and how grateful i am that they've told any at all.

reading other people's stories can be such an intimate experience; they're letting us into their minds and souls/hearts. it's one of the reasons i get so excited when new cuneiform tablets or scrolls are found and translated. suddenly, there's another being's life unfolded before us by the words they've strung together.

[gategrrl.livejournal.com]

Writing is something of a magic, or magical art, isn't it? It really is a time machine - one of the only time machines there are, aside from pottery shards and archeologists who can read bones, layers of earth, and deciper humps in the ground.

[jenlev.livejournal.com]

oh yes, it is a time machine. which makes the time travel that archaeologists do all that much more intriguing...when they find writing on any artifact it just makes me squeee. cylinder seals for example, just blow my mind. here's a link to a site i found with a concise description and some photos: http://www.rbmason.ca/seals.html