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Friday, April 17, 2009

Unblocked

I know without doubts that I am a writer. Those of you who have read in the past know that my triumphal moment was making a boy who'd read my short story in 10th grade cry. He dang near got us both busted. I have been writing as long as I have been creating art. The trouble has been that in the last year, when my pen has needed to write because there was no art, I didn't know what to write.
I've been an avid journaller and have lived on my own for years. I write painfully, honestly and without any kind of reservation whatsoever. Invariably something in those journals turns into a short story. And I get some kind of benefit through applying my natural empathic skills to the situations. And of course, like everyone else, I never listen. But I have been in a unique situation and that has meant that other people have had access to my writing. I would have thought that my thoughts were of no known use to anyone else. But I was wrong. Somewhere in the back of my head I must have thought there was a chance of having my words read. You know, the ones that I don't put here. The garbage that gets composted to become something else... something better. Comtria! But I've known. And I quit writing in my journals. So I am blogging and struggling with the blog.
Now I know why. I haven't been composting anything. To prevent the family from vilifying me I haven't journaled in better than a year. And so there has been no fodder for the blog machine. And that's where things stood. Until today.
Today I found a way to make all of this work; to build a writing project that would be uniquely mine and not a copy of Kenyon's Dark Hunter world. Oh I still want to write the quintessential werewolf story set in my neck of the woods. [Um, that would be a pun... if it were a vampire story.] But the project that I have to write first, to get my short story legs under me again, is to write for this project. A study in autobiography.
Yes. A study in autobiography. I've been in the foulest black place for a year. The daily struggle to write something interesting and mildly amusing, to be disciplined to write without knowing what I was writing is finally over. In part I have twitter to thank for that. I've met writers and kindred geeks who I feel more comfortable telling my semi-anonymous woes to. Twitter has let me send out short bursts to propel me forward. I have been following Brent Spiner's tweets along a crazy wild story arc that just keeps entertaining... all in 140 characters or less. A story that can be told in 140 character paragraphs... it helps to focus the mind on what direction to go with the plot, explore options far enough down a path to know how soon it leads to a dead end... and the inspiration fro ma suggestion by the most annoying sci-fi character since WFS, Rodney MacKay aka Dave Hewlett brought me to an epiphany as I was snapping sheets onto a bed today. I know where I am going with the writing.
I don't know if I will have an audience for it. I don't know where to publish the thing when it is done. Hell, I might even just post it for the sake of posting it on the blog. Although I have found that I am being targeted for "lifting". At least I can get it out there and have some idea of how it is received, conceptually as well as literally.
In essence I am going to explore the writing process through fiction. Specifically through the author's eyes. I was even thinking that this is the kind of thing that could be good TV with about four actors, each portraying a short fiction author. I see Spiner as one, Hewlett as another. I haven't a clear picture of the female authors.
No I don't see myself as the next cool thing [O.C] and writing a new career for my fave actors. But what I do see is that I can write a lot of things that have been going through my mind, frame them in the daily lives of my authors and write autobiographically all of my fears, frustrations and the slow boat to china epic of my boring life without having to take the blame for the things that I think, feel and fear. Four authors, two of whom are men... what is and isn't autobiographical? No one but me will ever know.
Unless I tell you guys first.

2 comments:

  1. I am imagining Spiner and Hewlett on the same show ... Spiner with his dry and black humor and Hewlett as his snappy alias McKay. That would be absolutely hilarious!

    And as for the female actors ... Marina Sirtis is a riot in real life, great dry sense of humor and very witty. I've seen her at a convention last year and she had the audience in fits of laughter. She was absolutely amazing.

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  2. Hey, so glad you commented.
    I didn't know that about her. But after hanging out with those guys for 15 years she'd have to have a similar sense of humor or perish :)

    And yet again, Google won't let me, the author make a comment.

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