On writing.
There is a story that for the past three years I have been trying to write. I had an epiphany the other night when I was talking to a friend: I realized that in nearly everything I write, regardless of the topic, I'm trying to find a way to work in that same story. And yet every time I sit down to try to actually write it, I can't. I have nearly two hundred pages of attempts and little snippets here and there, but for some reason, I just can't do it. I'm not sure if it's that I'm too attached to it personally and so I'm frustrated when I can't capture the exact pathos I'm going for, or whether it just isn't a story, or what, but I feel this really intense need to commit it all to paper before I either forget everything go crazy. And I cannot do it.
The other day I was inspired by that same friend (to whom I'd link you if I could figure out how, but because I can't, go to www.dudeisuck.blogspot.com) to go through old writing. It was painfulpainfulpainful. When I was thirteen I was convinced I could realistically and sensitively tackle hard-hitting issues, like true love, leukemia, and male prostitution. When I was fourteen I wanted to add a little more drama to my portfolio, so I wrote a scene in which my protagonist's brother overdosed on what must have been the only drug I could name: marijuana. (Go DARE.) He nearly died. His whole family came to the hospital, praying that he'd come out of his coma, and he was unconscious for almost a week. It was definitely a close one, but in the end, he miraculously pulled through, then realized the grave, grave error of his ways and swore he'd never play with that kind of fire again.
I went a bit further back and found my copy of "Raven of the River," my first-ever novel. I wrote it in the third grade, using a wide-ruled notebook and a thin-tipped turquoise Crayola marker. If memory serves me correctly, it was a thinly-disguised account of the romantic escapades of the boy we were all in love with. (If Raven was supposed to be a rich, gorgeous version of me, then in the end I got the guy.) Last I heard the guy's older brother was on trial for second-degree murder, and it's too bad I didn't know that when I was thirteen. I could've really gotten some heartwrenching sections out of that one, no doubt.
Last year one of my classmates submitted a piece to be workshopped that was truly awful. My teacher called it "an insult to writers and writing," which was a bit harsh, but none of my classmates could actually argue the point. When we are bored, or when we're entertaining a friend who hasn't yet read the story, my friends and I reread my copy aloud, and each time we're paralyzed by laughter. Inevitably when we get to the parts about the "gangs that gang rape" our sides ache. I can't quite pinpoint what it is about the story that makes it so bad, but it is. It's so terrible it's hilarious.
Sometimes after a reading we discuss the author, and then we feel kind of bad. Little does she know that about once a week, we feel the compulsive need to reread the best parts until our eyes are tearing. (I blacked out her name to save her identity, but still.) Writing this now I realize how horrible that sounds - although I think if you read the story you'd understand; it's more melodramatic than my 1999 rendition of a near-fatal marijuana OD - and I feel guilty.
And then sometimes I wonder if my writing is the same way. I think it's something I want to do indefinitely, hopefully my career, but then I think she probably feels that way, too. And I'm sure you're biaesd toward your own work, and that somewhere in you there's that hope that today will be the day a publisher somehow breaks into your computer and stumbles across the story about the pitiable and all-too-human male prostitute and convinces you that, no, it's not nearly obscene in its stupidity, it's not uniformed, it's not stereotypical or degrading to fiction everywhere, but, in fact, it's amazing, and you should get paid for it! You should write more!
But I know that doesn't happen and that you actually have to be really good, and you have to actually work like hell, to get anything out there. So I'm scared.
(Especially because a writing major, if you're not writing, is pretty effing useless. I've lost count of adults who, after pleasantly asking my major, cite their niece/daughter/best friend's son/neighbor who loved writing and got a degree and now works at a bakery and hates it and regrets college every single day.)
In high school I remember talking with a friend about his anger. It was kind of a generalized anger; it wasn't directed at anything specific, and he hid it fairly well most of the time. He was very involved, friends with everyone, really political in how he conducted himself, usually. And in the conversation I remember - it was online, of course, and on a Saturday afternoon - he admitted that it was messed up, and a terrible way to live, but this anger had fueled him for so long that he felt without it, he'd be nothing. What else would be left? I think I understand that now, or at least, better. (And you thought the angst would end in high school, suckers.)
I guess that's the point of this blog. Partly it's to see how many people click on random links in one's profile, but mainly I think it's my form of accountability - just to make sure I'm actually writing. Practicing. All that. And I make it sound like a chore, but it's not, really. I actually do love it, and for as long as I can remember I've loved it, and I was going to keep going on that but then I realized how long this is getting, and how emo, and so I'm going to sign out as gracefully as I can without making things sound somehow even worse.
The other day I was inspired by that same friend (to whom I'd link you if I could figure out how, but because I can't, go to www.dudeisuck.blogspot.com) to go through old writing. It was painfulpainfulpainful. When I was thirteen I was convinced I could realistically and sensitively tackle hard-hitting issues, like true love, leukemia, and male prostitution. When I was fourteen I wanted to add a little more drama to my portfolio, so I wrote a scene in which my protagonist's brother overdosed on what must have been the only drug I could name: marijuana. (Go DARE.) He nearly died. His whole family came to the hospital, praying that he'd come out of his coma, and he was unconscious for almost a week. It was definitely a close one, but in the end, he miraculously pulled through, then realized the grave, grave error of his ways and swore he'd never play with that kind of fire again.
I went a bit further back and found my copy of "Raven of the River," my first-ever novel. I wrote it in the third grade, using a wide-ruled notebook and a thin-tipped turquoise Crayola marker. If memory serves me correctly, it was a thinly-disguised account of the romantic escapades of the boy we were all in love with. (If Raven was supposed to be a rich, gorgeous version of me, then in the end I got the guy.) Last I heard the guy's older brother was on trial for second-degree murder, and it's too bad I didn't know that when I was thirteen. I could've really gotten some heartwrenching sections out of that one, no doubt.
Last year one of my classmates submitted a piece to be workshopped that was truly awful. My teacher called it "an insult to writers and writing," which was a bit harsh, but none of my classmates could actually argue the point. When we are bored, or when we're entertaining a friend who hasn't yet read the story, my friends and I reread my copy aloud, and each time we're paralyzed by laughter. Inevitably when we get to the parts about the "gangs that gang rape" our sides ache. I can't quite pinpoint what it is about the story that makes it so bad, but it is. It's so terrible it's hilarious.
Sometimes after a reading we discuss the author, and then we feel kind of bad. Little does she know that about once a week, we feel the compulsive need to reread the best parts until our eyes are tearing. (I blacked out her name to save her identity, but still.) Writing this now I realize how horrible that sounds - although I think if you read the story you'd understand; it's more melodramatic than my 1999 rendition of a near-fatal marijuana OD - and I feel guilty.
And then sometimes I wonder if my writing is the same way. I think it's something I want to do indefinitely, hopefully my career, but then I think she probably feels that way, too. And I'm sure you're biaesd toward your own work, and that somewhere in you there's that hope that today will be the day a publisher somehow breaks into your computer and stumbles across the story about the pitiable and all-too-human male prostitute and convinces you that, no, it's not nearly obscene in its stupidity, it's not uniformed, it's not stereotypical or degrading to fiction everywhere, but, in fact, it's amazing, and you should get paid for it! You should write more!
But I know that doesn't happen and that you actually have to be really good, and you have to actually work like hell, to get anything out there. So I'm scared.
(Especially because a writing major, if you're not writing, is pretty effing useless. I've lost count of adults who, after pleasantly asking my major, cite their niece/daughter/best friend's son/neighbor who loved writing and got a degree and now works at a bakery and hates it and regrets college every single day.)
In high school I remember talking with a friend about his anger. It was kind of a generalized anger; it wasn't directed at anything specific, and he hid it fairly well most of the time. He was very involved, friends with everyone, really political in how he conducted himself, usually. And in the conversation I remember - it was online, of course, and on a Saturday afternoon - he admitted that it was messed up, and a terrible way to live, but this anger had fueled him for so long that he felt without it, he'd be nothing. What else would be left? I think I understand that now, or at least, better. (And you thought the angst would end in high school, suckers.)
I guess that's the point of this blog. Partly it's to see how many people click on random links in one's profile, but mainly I think it's my form of accountability - just to make sure I'm actually writing. Practicing. All that. And I make it sound like a chore, but it's not, really. I actually do love it, and for as long as I can remember I've loved it, and I was going to keep going on that but then I realized how long this is getting, and how emo, and so I'm going to sign out as gracefully as I can without making things sound somehow even worse.
posted by Kelly at
1:13 AM
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2 comments
