That's when I started to love Anna Kavan.

From the very first I felt drawn to Anna Kavan. That was when, knowing nothing about her, I saw the title of one of her books: Machines in the Head.

Eventually, after poking about online for information about her, I was prompted to pick up a copy of her biography, A Stranger on Earth. While reading that, I encountered this on page 41:

"Lots of the things that happen to me, I really can't bear at all. Then I write about them. Only just, mind you. But it makes that little difference. I suppose it gives one the illusion of having some control over things, of being somebody, instead of merely an anonymous grain of sand in the desert called chance."

That's when I started to love Anna Kavan.

Because I know what it's like to be overwhelmed by this fucking world. There are times when I can barely force myself out the door. (There are times when I can't.) And there are times when writing seems like the only way to breathe. My lack of success in publishing any work has broken the back (and hands) of my creative personna, thus for some time now Songs of Innocence & Experience has been my only outlet. Which feels small and even pathetic at times. (Wasn't I going to write great novels? Wasn't I going to make the world cry?) But still I persisted in writing it. It's not a blog, it's a lifeboat. It's a bit of broken mast in an angry sea. It's what I have left.

P.S. read a little more of A Stranger on Earth. It quotes Anna talking about adverse criticism to her writing, how it is self-indulgent, undignified, a betrayal of confidences, etc. She finishes with "And then there are the ones who get personal and who want to know who the hell I think I am, anyway, that people should be interested in my reactions to the extent of 60,000 words or whatever it happens to be. I must admit that I am inclined to sympathize with the last group." (54 - 55)

And that is just so exactly IT for me that I feel like copying it to my masthead here. I have written something along the lines of, "Sorry, I know this is only interesting to me" a time or two here...and it really should preface every blog entry. "I'm sorry, i know this shit is totally unimportant to anyone who is not necessarily, but I just really needed to get some stuff out of my head, and out of my head and into a drawer just doesn't cut it."

It's also the reason that, while I have published 1,952 blog entries, I also have 3,814 entries in Draft form. Mmm-hmmm.