Daniel Handler, commonly known as Lemony Snicket was the Sophie Kerr Weekend Speaker on March 26, 2010. In entering Gibson threather that day, I had no idea what to expect from Mr. Handler, but I must admit I was leaning towards thinking he would be somewhat dull as I seem to imagine most authors, unfortunately in my mind. In retrospect, my thinking could not have been further from the truth because Mr. Handler cannot be described as anything but playfully hilarious. I felt as though the way he tells stories are intriguing in a somewhat indescribable way. Perhaps is was the way he tells them so seriously or maybe it was the pure ridiculousness of each narrative. To be honest, Im not really sure, but whatever it was he kept myself, as well as every other audience member on the edge of their seats with intermittent bouts of explosive laughter throughout his entire lecture.
I throughly enjoyed every word out of Mr. Handler’s mouth, and at the time I didnt realize that he was actually impacting my own prospective on writing. He helped me to realize that sometimes, I think I take my writing to seriously. I am always striving to do my best, to get an A, and to must myself to my greatest potential in penmanship. This is all fine and well but sometimes we need to step back and appreciate the fact that writing does not always have to be this serious thing.
Sometimes, writing needs to be about having fun, letting your imagination run wild, and to try to enjoy the ability to put pen to paper. Sometimes, writing is not about getting a perfect grade or writing seriously. Sometimes, you need to write what you believe without worrying about the judgement of others. I think thats what Mr. Handler gave to me that day, to not take myself to seriously sometimes and I appreciate that he did that for me. Because if he can write about a baby with razor sharp teeth and find humor in his own pitfalls as an author then I believe we all should be able to laugh at ourselves sometimes too.
