Thoughts on writing.
I have some.
I have a lot of tangential and sometimes contradictory thoughts, some provocative, some perfectly banal. Where to begin?
Well I’ve been wondering a lot lately what someone’s creative output says about them, about their unique psychology. Wondering too if other people wonder this. For instance a conversation in my head might go thusly:
“Hey Beth, do you think your readers might think maybe you have dark repressed sexual issues when they read about your characters who obviously have a great deal of awful sexual issues?”
“Umm, I dunno Beth, that’s an intriguing and alarmingly embarrassing question, thanks for asking. Thanks for bringing that up and getting me all self-conscious about the incestuous creeps and misogynists and adulterous folks in my stories.”
“Whoa, Beth, try not to be so defensive, I was just asking a question! Jeesh. Ummm, why ARE you so defensive and paranoid about this anyway? Do you think maybe you actually DO have something to hide?”
“Um, please stop being outrageous. An artist is an artist and all I’m doing is telling stories. Fictional stories. Letting the imagination wander where it will. I resent the implication that I might be sick in the head.”
“Well, your stories are a little fucked up.”
“So what? So they’re fucked! People are fucked up and fiction is even more fucked up so what the hell?”
“Yeah but aren’t you the least bit curious? Haven’t you even stopped to consider that you might be trying to, I dunno, ‘work through something’ with all this shit?”
“Oh. MY. GOD. Shut the fuck up, you sick fuckface.”
“So you haven’t? Given it a second thought? Spared a moment to consider?”
“You’re a real pushy bitch. Yes, Beth, if you must know this experience has indeed made me very self conscious, very self aware and very concerned about the health and well-being of my nebulous psyche. Ok?”
“And…?”
“No I don’t think I have any repressed sexual urges for my fucking father, Christ, ewww.”
“But father figures?”
“Yes. Any other father figure is incredibly arousing. Anyone EXCEPT my dad. Yuck, or my brother fucking yuck yuck yuck. Or any and all of my uncles.”
“So just fictional father figures?”
“Absolutely. Like Sean Connery or my unfathomable obsession with Tommy Lee Jones, or Indiana jones or Don Draper & Sterling from Madmen. I like father figures. Yes. I'm pretty sure it has to do with fairytales or some bullshit like that.”
“hmm.”
“hmm what? What the fuck is that supposed to mean?”
“Oh, nothing, nothing.”
“I hate you.”
“I just think maybe you should see someone.”
“Well, no shit, but that has nothing to do with the writing.”
So yeah, that’s a little slice-of-life re-enactment from my frequent back-and-forths lately. I guess as a theatre artist, an actor especially, I’ve always drawn on my imagination in cooperation with my fertile imagination to bring life to someone else’s words and characters and world and vision. It was safer. I could play a rape victim without anyone wondering if I’d actually been raped, or if I was trying to reveal some deep dark secret.
But as a writer I think people really look at you differently, really pause to wonder… “ where did that shit come from??”umm… what’s up with that??? “
So I think I’m getting a little touchy and gun-shy and self-conscious and weird. Surprise surprise. But I have to say, in the interest of full disclosure and acknowledgment of the fact that I am human, that were I a teacher or a parent and read some of this stuff I might have to seek the advice of a counselor.
But is that fair? Because if I read it in a published work I wouldn’t think twice about it. I’d be like: “Oh, that’s just a novel and that’s what happened in the novel”, but for some reason as a work in progress, as a journal or a blog or a student piece in development suddenly the lens reveals possible red-flags and maybe ‘indicators’.
And oh my god sometimes I get so embarrassed it’s unreal. Like the other day I really wanted Danielle to read some stuff I’d worked on to see if I’d crossed a line (well I think I’ve crossed a line, but maybe I wanted to know if I’d crossed a line too many, or too far, or, whatever) and I almost wouldn’t let her read the fucking thing because I got so ridiculously embarrassed. And after she’d read it I had so many questions I wanted to ask her, so many things I wanted her opinion on, but instead of getting the feedback I really wanted\needed\sought-out-- I deflected, distracted and changed the subject so effectively that I never got all the answers, never really had closure on it at all and now I’m still sort of teetering on the brink of throwing it all out! Eeeeek.
And then I’ve been thinking daily about compiling a big list of my topmost influences in writing, literature, cinema and myth, just to try and get a picture of who I am and how I’ve ended up this way; why I’m attracted to the stories I am attracted to, what makes me tick, what makes me jazzed and what stimulates my imagination.
For instance when I tell you that one of my very favorite plays of all time is THE HOUSE OF YES you begin to understand Threnody and Zenith Aschere a little better.
Everything though, from my Catholicism to my taste in music to my favorite foods to my earliest memories to my affinity for cats, all of it means something right? But that does not necessarily mean that ANY of this craziness is in any way autobiographical! Even if a character shares a common viewpoint with the author, or if another character has a particular idiosyncrasy that come directly from the author’s mother—these are not telling, these are not damning, these are not red flags, are they?
Then there’s the simple fact that stories, all stories, have been told before and though my stories might be fun they really are not original. They are a pastiche, a mash-up and an amalgamation of myth and universal truisms and post secrets and romance novels and movies and poetry and lifetime original specials and rumor and legend and taboo. They ain’t special. Lol.
So don’t look too hard at my psyche, I’m just the teller of an aggregate human tale or two. I’m just throwing together entertaining little conglomerations, cobbling together bits and pieces of shit I’ve heard or absorbed or synthesized and re-forming it slightly but really”? It’s the same old hodgepodge that is the human condition. And it isn’t even done especially well.
So I need to lighten the fuck up. And stop asking these tortuous and torturous questions. Stop trying to micro-analyze and just do this for the reasons I enumerated at the outset: tell stories, have fun, exercise the creative imagination. Nothing more and NOTHING LESS. And celebrate one another in the process.
For example, when I read danielle’s stuff I don’t find myself wondering if she might be a rapist or a victim of sexual assault, so why the fuck am I turning the bright searchlight inward with all the dogged obsession of Javert looking for Valjean? Why am I insistent that there MUST be something fundamentally wrong with me or broken with me or suppressed\repressed\oppressed that is struggling to be discovered\liberated\cleansed or whatever? Christ Almighty Beth! It’s just trashy beach novel shit so get the fuck over yourself, have a colorful frozen drink and enjoy it!
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1 comment:
oh, you don't wonder if i'm fucked in the head, because you already know the answer. :)
also, if you have questions, send them to me! i read the stories you showed me and i thought they showed the downfall of a character. sometimes characters take lead to where they are heading. they almost write themselves.
plus, we google a lot of stuff to help fill out a character. google is tormented, not you. :)
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