oh, pretentiousness. I almost committed thee..

It's hell when you get a couple three hundred words into something and realize
you've gone off the rails.

I blame it on being half asleep. Yesterday was my daughter's first true
marching band performance, the first football game of the year, and we were
up way late packing and unpacking the band gear to get them back and forth
to the game.

And then she had to get up to go to a rehearsal this afternoon. So I figured,
hey, why not sit down and write a blog in response to someone else's essay...

Bad idea. Not because the question the writer was interested in
doesn't deserve a thoughtful read. But because I didn't have any business
carrying through with my response the way it was shaping up.

Thomas Mann, I am not. No pontification, dude, it's bad for the headspace.

Most importantly, a magician never reveals her tricks, so neither should I
tell you where and how I get a character's motivation.

See, that's the real value of the internet for a writer. I get to observe
the way other people think. Which of course means that I get to put together
characters based on how I respond to the way others are thinking. If someone
thinks this way, what would they do if... say, the monster comes along that
digs into those fears?

But that's my part of the writer-reader relationship. It's one thing to say
"hey, here's a cool thing, or a cool idea." It's another thing entirely for
me to dig into mindset and such in public.

Besides being pretentious, I'd really hate for you to find yourself reading
along in some story down the road, and then hear my thoughts again. Not the
recognition of it, but I don't ever want to cause you to break out of a story
because you can hear the gears spinning.

Professional courtesy, as much as I can make it. So let me stuff that crap
back into my head, where it belongs.