I know that some writers write what they know. I am not so sure Austen wrote of herself, and it seems a grand, sweeping generalization to say that her pretty tales of romance are the result of personal experience, or even idle hopes. There is something of everyone in tone and what editors call fictional 'voice,' but that isn't to say everything is, in some sense, a biography, or make every Fitzgerald a Gatsby. I divest my novels of any personal information for just this reason, people are too free with the personalities they assign to their heroes, and worse, their writers. I can only imagine what kind of person my readers might think me, if they only rearranged the order in which they've read my work.
I think I will answer your paragraph on my personality. You have what the journalists call timing, Claire, and for that and your own combination of charity and inquisitiveness, have managed to wring more from me than I intended. Here it is, then.
It would be easy to say that I assume the rest of the world to at least be bad off as I am, and they just hide it better. I could go on to tell you everyone has some dark depressing fear that they kick under their beds every night, and that humanity, when not eating its own tail, picks up speed toward the edge of the cliff and the long fall that immediately follows. I would start describing large historic trends in cultural clashes and scientific evolution, and then draw erroneous conclusions about how the atom bomb must mean that man doesn't deserve any of his gifts. I might even wrangle you into a Descartain discussion about how there's no God, just some Pavlovian need for someone to ring the bell and tell us everything will be alright in the end--or misquote a biologist about how our ecosystems are collapsing and how we're hardwired to fight or flight, and not think or talk.
I could do all that. But I won't.
I don't feel that just because there are worse human beings breathing, it means that the kind of person I am, and the amount of pain I cause, is somehow materially lessened simply by comparison. I don't think the larger question on whether or not there is a higher power makes much of a difference on my personal merit (if I had merit, then it wouldn't matter if there was or wasn't, and if I don't, whose fault it is doesn't matter either). You, by nature, are a very charitable person, as evidenced by the fact you're reading this at all, and your doings with that unfortunate former lover of yours and even with that awful bully, Quinn, who it must be absolute torture to work with, if he rages at you the way he rages at my inbox. (I notice you have not told him I was away. Very charitable of you, you see?) You're inclined to think the better of me, but I have known myself longer. Not so very long, but at least longer than you have.
I've pondered the strange behavior of my acquaintance, and I can explain all but the actions of one, a neighbor, who is at least as sour as I am but persists on involving himself in affairs that could only bring him unnecessary grief and, if nothing else, continual disturbances of the general peace. There is one who feels sorry for me, another who convinced herself in love with me, though I like to think she's grown out of it, and yet another who is bored with idle indulgence and here for the show. There was lately another, gone now, and I am waiting for the others to follow her example and find affairs more worth their time. When it gets quiet, I might write again.
Daniel
P.S. As for your stage, I have already given my opinion, unless you have a more specific request. P.P.S. You're going to need to find another white knight to save you from my more prolific colleagues. Just buy him a few cloves of garlic.