Sudden thought:

Does it seem absurd to anyone else to talk about the motives of a character in a book? I'm trying to write a paper about Sue Bridehead from Jude the Obscure, and it occurs to me that I may be completely off-base when I try to write about her "inner motives", because it may be that Thomas Hardy had nothing of the sort in mind when he wrote her. For all I know, he simply intended her to be a constant counterpoint to Jude, with no motive other than 'do whatever is the opposite of what would be best for Jude at the moment'. After all, that requires less in the way of deep thought, simply to write a character that fulfills his need.

I guess my problem is, I don't see writers as geniuses anymore. After all, I write. People say I write well. And even though I might pretend that I'm fucking brilliant, I know I'm not. I'm just a girl with a computer and too many goddamn words in my head. So that's pretty much how I've come to think of all writers, from Shakespeare to Anne Rice. People with too much paper and too many words on their minds.

Wow. Is that passive-agressive or what? Or self-defeating? Or some other hyphenated catch phrase I'm not aware of?