Rhyme and Reason
I have been a writer for as long as I can remember. In my angst ridden youth it was angry poetry about the darkness of life and the pain that we adolescents assume no one else could possibly ever understand. I’ve re-read many of those pieces and feel myself cringe because, quite frankly, they’re not only depressing but clichéd as all get out. During these years I tried my hand at many sorts of fiction, everything from teen drama to fantasy and sci-fi. I also wrote a couple fanfics that ended up being rubbish-bin-worthy as well. In general I’ve found I start off with a million ideas, wonderfully laid plans, and the very best of intentions and by the end I come up short and always lose interest, or slap together an ending that's too perfect, too happy, or just plain old lame. I don’t read a lot of them anymore because they’re just awful, and I dread the day I become an author and one of my friends decides to show the world exactly what I came from. Horrible stuff, really, it would make your skin crawl with all it’s sugary sweetness and plot holes.
It was not until I was older, around nineteen, that the notion writing the real was better than creating the fake. I stopped writing about the wonderfully thin deeply troubled girls because they bored me. I had done it so many times that there was nothing left there anymore. I made the main characters what we in the Role Play Realm like to call a “Mary Sue”, or in the very worst cases a “Misery Mary Sue”. These characters were weak, and so self involved that they allowed for little to no growth, and on the off chance they did grow and change it happened so fast it was hardly believable. It was during this phase of analytical introspection that I really realized that one no one wants to read about perfect characters that are so deeply troubled they can’t ever get out, and two I was so busy trying to make everything fit tightly together by the end I would lose the whole meaning of the piece.
It was in that moment I realized that not every story ended happily, and even if it did, I always wondered for how long. So often we perceive life to be a movie, that happiness is something you get to after a winding two or three-hour journey and then everything is hunky-dory. Its not, to put it plain and simple, life doesn’t work that way. Happiness isn’t a destination, it isn’t something you just get to and then it’s all over. Happiness is all about the journey and knowing what you’ve got when you’ve got it. I decided after this revelation that it was my job, duty if you will, to get that message across. I wanted to write stories that could touch people; stories that would capture the audiences attention and maybe make them say “Hey! I’m not as alone as I thought.” I wanted to write truth, my truth, without trussing it up anymore. I wanted to write out the ugly and the pain, and find the beauty in it despite the heartache and depression it often brought to the forefront of the mind.
In a way, my writing has become my therapy. I found that when I first wrote Pink and Blue Thoughts. I didn’t even realize how cathartic it was for me, but somehow to be so honest on paper about the pain that I was dealing with, the fear of rejection, of being alone in that life boat, helped me to accept and see that while things are ever changing, the real things, the important things, the love of friends, doesn’t just disappear over night, and with a little work geography has no hold on that bond. There were of course mistakes in writing the piece, a lot of questions that needed to be answered. In my mind I have such a clear understanding of what my “Gina” is to me, that the lines other people saw as blurry were miles apart and clearly defined in my eyes. It was a case of me knowing so much more than my readers and forgetting that they wouldn’t have my inherent knowledge of this relationship between the girls. This became more obvious to me when I allowed said friends to read it. They knew the stories, the ideas, the conversations, the moments we had shared like that over lunch or dinner the last year that I lived in the dorms, and they understood it. However, if I wanted to reach a broader audience there are things I would have to change, explain, and rearrange.
My next story, Buddha‘s Angry Daughter or The Dangers of Self Medicating, presented no end of problems for me. I actually wrote four different versions, one of which I started after I had written the copy you will eventually see. From the word go, nothing seemed right, I was so angry at this stupid story that when I finally buckled down to write the version I eventually handed it I was just throwing words on the page. I didn’t even care anymore. I then found it funny that everyone seemed to appreciate this story, liking it even better than the one that had come so easily only weeks before. I added no bells and whistles to Scarlett. She is what she is, and what she is, is me. I believe this to be the root of my problem honestly. In Pink and Blue Thoughts the narrator was me of course, but she was under a guise of the first person. I never really talked about her, faced her, or brought her real issues out into the open. I could write about her because I never really had to confront her. With the second story I had to face Scarlett, face her self-destructive nature, her anger, her pain. I had to own it, and know it, and write it. I couldn’t hide from it anymore, and I couldn’t slap a Band-Aid over it with a happy ending in which she ended up with James and lost forty pounds. Life doesn’t work like that, and writing Scarlett made me realize that in doing that I would be losing the honesty, the realness, and beauty of her, while giving into all the clichés that I hate. I found when I was editing that I couldn’t cheapen her like that. I couldn’t take away from the cycle of her story by interrupting it with a happy ending. So, I left it where it was. There was no resolution, but that was the point. This was a story about life, about the mistakes we make, and the lies we tell ourselves to get in our own way. It drove me crazy, and I hated every minute of it, but apparently that makes good fiction.
I’m working on a novel, just a little collection of vignettes about the girls in my stories. The working title is If I Could Have Been Monroe: and Other Laments of aCurvy Cuddly Chubby FAT Girl. I’ve already decided on the dedication page too, call it a little premature but I really believe it’s fitting given everything I’ve learned about myself and my art this last quarter; I dedicate these words to those who wont get them, but more importantly to those who wont like them.
This blog will be my working page with snipets of the chapters and character work. Enjoy.
It was not until I was older, around nineteen, that the notion writing the real was better than creating the fake. I stopped writing about the wonderfully thin deeply troubled girls because they bored me. I had done it so many times that there was nothing left there anymore. I made the main characters what we in the Role Play Realm like to call a “Mary Sue”, or in the very worst cases a “Misery Mary Sue”. These characters were weak, and so self involved that they allowed for little to no growth, and on the off chance they did grow and change it happened so fast it was hardly believable. It was during this phase of analytical introspection that I really realized that one no one wants to read about perfect characters that are so deeply troubled they can’t ever get out, and two I was so busy trying to make everything fit tightly together by the end I would lose the whole meaning of the piece.
It was in that moment I realized that not every story ended happily, and even if it did, I always wondered for how long. So often we perceive life to be a movie, that happiness is something you get to after a winding two or three-hour journey and then everything is hunky-dory. Its not, to put it plain and simple, life doesn’t work that way. Happiness isn’t a destination, it isn’t something you just get to and then it’s all over. Happiness is all about the journey and knowing what you’ve got when you’ve got it. I decided after this revelation that it was my job, duty if you will, to get that message across. I wanted to write stories that could touch people; stories that would capture the audiences attention and maybe make them say “Hey! I’m not as alone as I thought.” I wanted to write truth, my truth, without trussing it up anymore. I wanted to write out the ugly and the pain, and find the beauty in it despite the heartache and depression it often brought to the forefront of the mind.
In a way, my writing has become my therapy. I found that when I first wrote Pink and Blue Thoughts. I didn’t even realize how cathartic it was for me, but somehow to be so honest on paper about the pain that I was dealing with, the fear of rejection, of being alone in that life boat, helped me to accept and see that while things are ever changing, the real things, the important things, the love of friends, doesn’t just disappear over night, and with a little work geography has no hold on that bond. There were of course mistakes in writing the piece, a lot of questions that needed to be answered. In my mind I have such a clear understanding of what my “Gina” is to me, that the lines other people saw as blurry were miles apart and clearly defined in my eyes. It was a case of me knowing so much more than my readers and forgetting that they wouldn’t have my inherent knowledge of this relationship between the girls. This became more obvious to me when I allowed said friends to read it. They knew the stories, the ideas, the conversations, the moments we had shared like that over lunch or dinner the last year that I lived in the dorms, and they understood it. However, if I wanted to reach a broader audience there are things I would have to change, explain, and rearrange.
My next story, Buddha‘s Angry Daughter or The Dangers of Self Medicating, presented no end of problems for me. I actually wrote four different versions, one of which I started after I had written the copy you will eventually see. From the word go, nothing seemed right, I was so angry at this stupid story that when I finally buckled down to write the version I eventually handed it I was just throwing words on the page. I didn’t even care anymore. I then found it funny that everyone seemed to appreciate this story, liking it even better than the one that had come so easily only weeks before. I added no bells and whistles to Scarlett. She is what she is, and what she is, is me. I believe this to be the root of my problem honestly. In Pink and Blue Thoughts the narrator was me of course, but she was under a guise of the first person. I never really talked about her, faced her, or brought her real issues out into the open. I could write about her because I never really had to confront her. With the second story I had to face Scarlett, face her self-destructive nature, her anger, her pain. I had to own it, and know it, and write it. I couldn’t hide from it anymore, and I couldn’t slap a Band-Aid over it with a happy ending in which she ended up with James and lost forty pounds. Life doesn’t work like that, and writing Scarlett made me realize that in doing that I would be losing the honesty, the realness, and beauty of her, while giving into all the clichés that I hate. I found when I was editing that I couldn’t cheapen her like that. I couldn’t take away from the cycle of her story by interrupting it with a happy ending. So, I left it where it was. There was no resolution, but that was the point. This was a story about life, about the mistakes we make, and the lies we tell ourselves to get in our own way. It drove me crazy, and I hated every minute of it, but apparently that makes good fiction.
I’m working on a novel, just a little collection of vignettes about the girls in my stories. The working title is If I Could Have Been Monroe: and Other Laments of a
This blog will be my working page with snipets of the chapters and character work. Enjoy.
posted by xoxo SJ | 3:25 PM
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