Hemingway: Let's say he should go out and hang himself because he finds that writing well is impossibly difficult. Then he should be cut down without mercy and forced by his own self to write as well as he can for the rest of his life. At least he will have the story of the hanging to commence with.
I'm having a hard time with writing. It's not that the ideas aren't coming. They are. But the harder I work the more doubt I feel about every little thing; from style, to language choices, to meaning even. I've been reading short stories by Mary Gaitskill and Hemingway, which are quite different in style. Mary seems to like detail and opinionated voices. She's detatched like Hemingway, but sometimes reading her I feel she's mocking the reader, or some characters, or somebody - maybe a personal angst. Hemingway is the definition of Terse. I know I should just do what comes natural - style can't be learned, Capote said in an interview I just read. I think I have style. I also worry my style is a bad one and should be tuned down.
People have told me I'd benefit from more life experience. I don't think that's what I need. When are you not having life experience? It's a matter of being able to find stories in what you do. I've lived in India, Luxembourg, New York, got a sister in the Military, fought for love, fought for life...I'm not saying I'm very "experienced." I think I do have a certain way of looking at things. Hell, Jane Austen lived in the forests of England forever and she turned out pretty good. What is life experience, anyways? It's just living. Not like one experience is more important than another, it's just how you manage to look at it. There are stories everywhere.
Here's a story:
The boy asked, "Why can't I know?"
"Because I don't know," His father replied.
The end.
I worry about how dark my stories are. But, truth be told, I have a pretty pessimistic outlook on reality so naturally the fiction's going to reflect that. I see little flashes of light in an otherwise gritty, chaotic, bleak place. I at least need to remember to put in those flashes of light. Don't want my readers going off and slitting their wrists. I know I got humor in me too. At least, I've been told I can be funny. But that's only when I'm at my best, and as a writer (or anything else I guess) I would benefit from being at my best as much as I can. If only I could get it to work like that. If I don't make it as a writer, might just be because I'm not making it as a person.
Oh well. I don't know. I'm just going to keep writing. I don't have anything better to do at the moment. I'd like to be saving lives, but I'm not that good.
Some people just can't help being foolish enough to think they got something special when they are don't.
1 comment:
Attitude is everything!
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