what you don't outgrow ♥.
Aug. 12th, 2007 03:47 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
reenkaAwwww, Stephen King made me cry. ;___;
One day in my hometown of Bangor, I was walking up the street and observed a dirty-faced boy of about 3 with scabbed knees and a look of extreme concentration on his face. He was sitting on the dirt strip between the sidewalk and the asphalt. He had a stick in his hand and kept jabbing it into the dirt. ''Get down there!'' he cried. ''Get down there, dammit! You can't come out until I say the Special Word! You can't come out until I say so!''
Several people passed by the kid without paying much attention (if any). I slowed, however, and watched as long as I could — probably because I have spent so much time telling the things inhabiting my own imagination to get back down and not come out until I say so. I was charmed by the kid's effortless make-believe (always assuming it was make-believe, heh-heh-heh). And a couple of things occurred to me. One was that if he had been an adult, the cops would have taken him away either to the drunk tank or to our local Dreamboat Manor for a psychiatric exam. Another was that kids exhibiting paranoid-schizophrenic tendencies are simply accepted in most societies. We all understand that kids are crazy until they hit 8 or so, and we cut their groovy, anything-goes minds some slack.
This happened around 1982, while I was getting ready to write a long story about children and monsters (It), and it influenced my thinking on that novel a great deal. Even now, years later, I think of that kid — a little Minister of Magic using a dead twig for a wand — with affection, and hope he didn't consider himself too old for Harry Potter when those books started appearing.
I love you, kid with the twiggy wand. I love you, Harry James Potter (love, love, LOVE you). I love you, Stephen King. I love you and thank you, JK Rowling. I really do love you all a lot, all the semi-schizoid twiggy-stick kids who grew up to read lots of fantasy books and join fandom.
And I would also like to say that I could think of little that would ever make me prouder of myself than writing a story children would love and adults might remember fondly. More than anything, more than anything, if I could make someone feel the way I felt while reading at age 9 or 10-- that would make it all worth it many times over.
And while the 'real' adult readers may be stuck with their literary mouthfuls out in the 'real world', here in fandom, I think we've retained much of the pure joy of reading we'd felt at that early, impressionable age. We play with fanfic, with stories, with characters, with a lot of the unself-conscious glee of children (quite precocious, sexually worldly children, of course), and I think that's beautiful. Good night. ♥.
One day in my hometown of Bangor, I was walking up the street and observed a dirty-faced boy of about 3 with scabbed knees and a look of extreme concentration on his face. He was sitting on the dirt strip between the sidewalk and the asphalt. He had a stick in his hand and kept jabbing it into the dirt. ''Get down there!'' he cried. ''Get down there, dammit! You can't come out until I say the Special Word! You can't come out until I say so!''
Several people passed by the kid without paying much attention (if any). I slowed, however, and watched as long as I could — probably because I have spent so much time telling the things inhabiting my own imagination to get back down and not come out until I say so. I was charmed by the kid's effortless make-believe (always assuming it was make-believe, heh-heh-heh). And a couple of things occurred to me. One was that if he had been an adult, the cops would have taken him away either to the drunk tank or to our local Dreamboat Manor for a psychiatric exam. Another was that kids exhibiting paranoid-schizophrenic tendencies are simply accepted in most societies. We all understand that kids are crazy until they hit 8 or so, and we cut their groovy, anything-goes minds some slack.
This happened around 1982, while I was getting ready to write a long story about children and monsters (It), and it influenced my thinking on that novel a great deal. Even now, years later, I think of that kid — a little Minister of Magic using a dead twig for a wand — with affection, and hope he didn't consider himself too old for Harry Potter when those books started appearing.
I love you, kid with the twiggy wand. I love you, Harry James Potter (love, love, LOVE you). I love you, Stephen King. I love you and thank you, JK Rowling. I really do love you all a lot, all the semi-schizoid twiggy-stick kids who grew up to read lots of fantasy books and join fandom.
And I would also like to say that I could think of little that would ever make me prouder of myself than writing a story children would love and adults might remember fondly. More than anything, more than anything, if I could make someone feel the way I felt while reading at age 9 or 10-- that would make it all worth it many times over.
And while the 'real' adult readers may be stuck with their literary mouthfuls out in the 'real world', here in fandom, I think we've retained much of the pure joy of reading we'd felt at that early, impressionable age. We play with fanfic, with stories, with characters, with a lot of the unself-conscious glee of children (quite precocious, sexually worldly children, of course), and I think that's beautiful. Good night. ♥.
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no subject
Date: 2007-08-12 09:27 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-08-13 03:32 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-08-12 04:10 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-08-13 03:31 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-08-12 09:07 pm (UTC)ILU
no subject
Date: 2007-08-13 03:32 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-08-13 11:55 am (UTC)!!
Date: 2007-08-13 03:14 pm (UTC)Re: !!
Date: 2007-08-13 03:41 pm (UTC)HI <33333333
Re: !!
Date: 2007-08-13 03:42 pm (UTC)Re: !!
Date: 2007-08-13 03:43 pm (UTC)Re: !!
Date: 2007-08-13 05:02 pm (UTC)And umm, we could email-chat? Or I could also go to y!m but anytime I'm there, no one else is D:
Also, my bag (with your fic on my palm pilot) got stolen in Toronto so I -still- haven't read your fic D: D: sorry!! But I will :)) *facepalm*
Re: !!
Date: 2007-08-13 04:21 pm (UTC)REENA: Voldemort's nature dismembers and divides and separates soul & body; Harry's (best) nature unites & is united. And I suspect that's at the heart of the love vs. fear battle, and the reason why love is so powerful a weapon against the Dark Arts-- because the definition of pure love (and you could make an argument that erotic love isn't as pure) is that it's the great Uniter.
ME: I love this point, it's beautiful. I was just re-reading the chapter where Dumbledore talks to Harry about the power of love, and it's just - I love this point. And I also, I realized, love how staunchly Dumbledore sticks to the fact that love, the power of love, this compassion, this human emotion, is more powerful than the darkest magic there is. Because it emphasizes that no, magic can't do everything. Magic doesn't make wizards elevated over those without magic, because the power of love, which we all possess, is still greater. Wah. <3 JKR.
Also, the fact that Sectumsempra - the spell that splits Draco open, to put it crudely - is healed by Snape, which is almost like him uniting after dividing, isn't it? Of course he's the one to dash in and save Draco from what might have been his own spell. (Or might not have been, but he's the one who alerted Harry to it, so either way.) It is, like the things he has done for Dumbledore after being a Death Eater, a sort of reparation.
See, it was you who talked about it :))
Re: !!
Date: 2007-08-13 04:27 pm (UTC)