Little C: I Miss Terry Pratchett
Hey readers,
As some of you will have heard, Terry Pratchett died last week. He was one of my favorite authors, and I've been taking the news pretty hard. So I thought today I would do a tribute to this man in my own inadequate words.
I first found Terry Pratchett when I was 12. I was a young and impressionable Little C, with some anger issues and a... dark-ish sense of humor. So Sir Terry and I got along great. Everyone always talked about him in terms of how "jolly" or "funny" he was. But for me the fact that he was funny was incidental. He was snarky. And his characters were subversive. And I was getting into his books at the same time as I was getting into punk (full disclosure, it was mostly Good Charlotte in those days) so the subversive really caught my attention. I always felt that humor was just another tool in Sir Terry's arsenal. He used it carefully, and only where it really belonged.
Sir Terry was with me through all the major hurdles of my life. I was passive like Rincewind. I hated people like Granny Weatherwax. I got pushed into impossible situations just like Moist von Lipwig and his post office. And Sir Terry told me each time that I could figure it out if I was clever and willing to ignore the rules that I didn't feel should apply to me in the first place.
So it felt for a long time that Sir Terry was a friend. Or an uncle that told me weirdly appropriate stories to help me through my though times. He was the flashlight in the darkness. A slightly fraying rope in my well of anguish. And other metaphors that barely seem to scratch the surface. I urge you all to pick up one of his books. My favorite was probably Equal Rites, but they're all wonderful in different ways, and there were dozens of them.
So here I am, trying my best to feel like this is just the ending to another story. Trying to remember that Sir Terry wasn't afraid of Death, he thought of Death as just another character. Trying to remember that I liked the character of Death as Terry wrote him. And this does help a little. But I can't help selfishly wanting him to come back and tell another story. I think Terry would tell me to get writing and tell the damn thing myself, if I feel it's so important. So I will. Writing is the best tribute to him I can think of.
Happy reading,
Little C
As some of you will have heard, Terry Pratchett died last week. He was one of my favorite authors, and I've been taking the news pretty hard. So I thought today I would do a tribute to this man in my own inadequate words.
I first found Terry Pratchett when I was 12. I was a young and impressionable Little C, with some anger issues and a... dark-ish sense of humor. So Sir Terry and I got along great. Everyone always talked about him in terms of how "jolly" or "funny" he was. But for me the fact that he was funny was incidental. He was snarky. And his characters were subversive. And I was getting into his books at the same time as I was getting into punk (full disclosure, it was mostly Good Charlotte in those days) so the subversive really caught my attention. I always felt that humor was just another tool in Sir Terry's arsenal. He used it carefully, and only where it really belonged.
Sir Terry was with me through all the major hurdles of my life. I was passive like Rincewind. I hated people like Granny Weatherwax. I got pushed into impossible situations just like Moist von Lipwig and his post office. And Sir Terry told me each time that I could figure it out if I was clever and willing to ignore the rules that I didn't feel should apply to me in the first place.
So it felt for a long time that Sir Terry was a friend. Or an uncle that told me weirdly appropriate stories to help me through my though times. He was the flashlight in the darkness. A slightly fraying rope in my well of anguish. And other metaphors that barely seem to scratch the surface. I urge you all to pick up one of his books. My favorite was probably Equal Rites, but they're all wonderful in different ways, and there were dozens of them.
So here I am, trying my best to feel like this is just the ending to another story. Trying to remember that Sir Terry wasn't afraid of Death, he thought of Death as just another character. Trying to remember that I liked the character of Death as Terry wrote him. And this does help a little. But I can't help selfishly wanting him to come back and tell another story. I think Terry would tell me to get writing and tell the damn thing myself, if I feel it's so important. So I will. Writing is the best tribute to him I can think of.
Happy reading,
Little C
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