I'm writing something at the moment. Who knows what it is. Us artists don't concern ourselves with labels like you little people do. Currently it's held up in a mire of plotting difficulties. Bearing close attention to a quote I read from Joseph O'Neill, I am taking care to 'lie as little as possible, tell as close to the truth as you can'. Why? Because I liked the sentiment. Didn't like Netherland though, unlike Obama. Needless to say, consciously not lying is one of the hardest things I've ever done. Lying, or 'revisionism' as I like to call it, is as necessary to my daily life as breathing. Even recounting anecdotes to friends I find myself, almost unconsciously, sexing things up: flat-sounding dialogue is brought to fruity succinctness, dull circumstances glossed over. It's my hunger for narrative, I tell myself and don't get too concerned.
So I don't lie. Or I try not to. Apparently I don't plot anything I write either as everything frequently takes wild swings away from their starting point without my permission. I like to sketch things out in my head while driving 'round town in the evenings but instead I flash past familiar places and people and they remind me of past events and a new insight occurs to me: I'll use that, I think: that's genuine therefore good. Consequentially my cast change personalities almost daily, my hero's motives alter with my own capriciousness. One day I am forgiving towards all men: relationships prosper, goodness is rewarded, and my heroine gets invited to a party. The next I want them to suffer. Stupidity abounds; all humankind is selfish and cruel; unkind wives leave their pathetic husbands. My comic relief gets more and more violent as my mood gets worse, and I'm finding laughs in pushing people over, having them bump their shins, stub toes, lose wallets. I am honest, burningly honest, letting my temper and occasional torments play with my storyboard, rearrange my written world.
This can't continue. This is how children write, it's immature and inconsistent and pointless. Eventually you're not writing fiction, you're just keeping a diary and changing the names.
3 comments:
Is this true? Lucy, I canny wait like!
Good stuff. I'm writing in a agroup at the moment. Maybe you could look at that, apart from the shame of having your every thought torn apart by miserable hyenas who aren't your equal.
Still, I deal with it well.
I fail to see what's wrong with how children write, and I think it is honest to be immature and inconsistent. And life? Pointless. I'm laughing now. I can't take myself seriously.
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