saying about saying

Fellow Readers,
 
Here's the part where I blab about my new website and awkwardly welcome you into my previously-quite-private writerly life, and maybe say some things about some things I think I'm going to say on this blog once i get past this initial, extra-awkward saying about saying. 

Or, I could cut to the chase: I'm a writer. But I got this way by being a reader--which I'm guessing you are too, if you're reading this [1]. And much as I love books, I mean reader in the big sense: Readers of life. Not just books, movies, and TV commercials[2], but the stories in friend's and family's and distant-acquaintance's real lives, and the big historical we're-all-involved (presidential election) kind of stories. And the ones we make up about the people we see on the street, or the ones we meet in our head. I try to be a Reader of these stories, and if you Read such things too, perhaps these posts will interest you. 

Someone once said we are each the hero of our own story. Someone else (Joseph Campbell) said there's really only one story to be told--so as we're heroing through our own lives, it probably makes sense to read how other people have done it, both real and real-ly imagined. I think those stories help us revise the ones we're living, in either plotting a better next chapter, understanding deeper what's going on in this one, or offering a little perspective on what the hell just happened. Those are the kinds of stories I want to write, anyway. 

So I thought, Fellow Reader, instead of burdening you with details of my burgeoning authorial career, I might share with you here my Reads on stories that have impacted me. Maybe not all deep, inspirational, or classy (see upcoming post about the Assassin's Creed spinoff movie), but they don't have be great to mean something. We just have to be awake enough to Read them that way. 

And every now and then, maybe I'll talk about my stories too. 

Til then,
Levi 



[1] And yes i am going to footnote things, because much as i love the linear way sentences force me to finish a thought, sometimes the thought splits or branches, and i want to take you down both limbs. This time i'm going out on a limb (puns might happen too) to note how redundant that statement was: how could you be reading this if you weren't a reader?  

[2] A secret love--i dont watch TV, but sometimes search YouTube specifically for funniest commercials. They're like 30-second blasts of highly-polished, focus-group-reviewed mega-money-funded fiction. For the purposes of selling us something, yes, but still super fun.