i wanna taste the salt of your skin

I want to write about human relationships. In any book I read, any show or movie I watch, the thing that interests me the most, the thing that will always get me hooked, is a character's interaction with the people around him or her. And that's not necessarily a strange thing to say, I'm sure a lot of people feel that way.

But when I read The Blind Assassin, I believe that Iris and Alex are in love, and I feel the loss that they feel. When I watch Buffy or Firefly, I believe that Xander and Buffy love each other in that way that only best friends can, that Giles sees Buffy as he would see his own daughter, that Captain Mal is fiercely loyal to the few he lets into his life. When I watch a movie, if the relationships presented are not convincing, I generally won't like it much. The reason I actually like Gangs of New York is because of the way Bill the Butcher interacts with those around him.

I want to write like that. I want to write relationships that mean something to the reader. I want to show the complexity of human interaction. I know it's been done a thousand times before, and I'm not exactly sure I have something new to say about it, I just want to be able to do it in a way that satisfies me.

I think that's probably a curse for any writer.