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By Emmanuel Williams

Dearest Lestat,

I don’t write to you for the blog fans, or facebook fans, or anyone else. This is between you and me.

I write to you when I’m feeling manic or if I fear mania is near.

Today is not one of those days. Thank the Universe, I know when to send you a letter.

Forget the expectations. 

Look at me. I’m bold, I’m brave, I’m black. I’ve got a new pair of handpicked prescription frames carrying a brand new prescription and I feel like I’m wearing binoculars that make me look more debonair than Jay-Z on his wedding day with Beyonce.

I have far too much to drink and I’ve only smashed the first half of the stash. I’m close to the apartment of my dreams, due to it’s location, and I’m eating a bologna and cheese sandwich with mustard and Cheddar Sour Cream Ruffles while finally catching the Big Bang Theory in a motel on east colfax.

Spare me your sympathy.

Because it could be worse…

I could throwing chairs at the walls. I could be in jail so hallucinative that even the guards have to double check my cell to be 100% sure no one is talking to me while I’m trying to touch myself under the thin blankets they give you.

It could be worse.

I could be stuck in one of my older brother’s choke holds brought on by how much the asshole can NOT handle his drinking binges. 

I could be lost without knowing my purpose on this earth!

You wanna know what my true purpose is?

THIS.

Writing.

Today I visited the local Tattered Cover Bookstore to browse the shelves at leisure, and I came upon so many genres and topics… I stopped at the Greek Mythology section and put a few pieces together about the origins of fiction, poetry, and song…

I know right!

It turns out, according to AI (Google Gemini, preferred) the origin of fiction is epic poetry. And the paintings on the caves in the early BCE years found likely in Egypt and elsewhere, are pictures of a narrative. But in the written form, the early OG’s (original gangsters) were Homer and the Greeks. 

Today I asked Gemini what the origins of even Poetry were, and guess what it said…

SONG.

Which means, if anything, the best fiction, the best story, the best narrative, all of it is based on a… on a song!

Lestat!

I trust you grasp the beauty of this!

I am just trying to sing!

You want some irony? 

I LOVE TO SING!!!

I SING SO LOUD I SCREAM IF I CAN!!

So this FITS me. This is PERFECT. I COMPLETELY HARMONIZE AND CONNECT to literature as an attempt at song.

It may not rhyme, but mostly neither did Homer or those that followed soon after. The more important cadence isn’t literature’s rhyme, but literature’s METER.

Consider PROSE.

Mostly iambic pentameter meant to sound like common conversation in which a subject is explained, examined, or discussed.

Scientists use prose to discuss their theories following the example laid by Aristotle, Socrates, and Plato in the centuries following Homer and – wait –

I looked it up AGAIN and it turns out the entire Epic Cycle of early Greek epic poetry was mostly written in a meter known as “dactylic hexameter”.

SONG.

Words with rhythm enough to be passed down orally as stories.

And that’s the tradition we writers are responsible for.

You, Lestat. Me, Emmanuel. 

In the words of Trent Reznor:

“You and me

We’re in this together now”

• “We’re In This Together” by Nine Inch Nails

I’m not a writer, I’m a singer. I sing with prose. I sing with narrative. And now that I know that for sure, my songs need to sing so much more. My songs need to POP. My songs need to ROCK!!!

I’ll let my fans decide whether they like these lyrics I’m droppin’. But at the end of the day, AS LONG AS THE SONG IS SUNG, I’ve done my fucking job.

Every time I deliver a narrative, report, essay, or poem, I’m offering a song to the audience.

I just wish they could hear my voice…

Ever your servant,

Emmanuel