Monday, July 30, 2012

Hey Hemingway: If you're not using your cabin, I could use a place to stay. For like, ever.

I’ve let another week go by without blogging. And I’m sorry.

You should be proud to know though that I have been writing more. It’s usually late at night after I’ve exhausted myself on Pinterest or checked that anonymous twitter account I created to tweet about my job (in hopes of gaining a book deal) that I switch from my obsession with social media to my obsession with word arrangement. From my dim-lit room, illuminated in fleeting doses of blue lights that bounce from a television screen quietly projecting images of Alton Brown, I write little stories that I share with no one but myself.

Lately (well, really, for the last year) I can’t escape the tendency to write without naming my characters. At first I thought this trait developed out of pure laziness, but then it started to become something more. Characters so generic, they could be anyone. Their non-assignment of names being a character description in itself. But then I think, how can something so generic be interesting? It’s a tough line to walk because as human beings, we generally harbor an innate self-indulgence. Anything that places us in the character’s shoes or that makes us feel closely connected to the storyline is something that will typically keep us reading. But on the other hand, you don’t want to create a world so close in resemblance to the reader’s that they leave feeling unchanged or uninspired. No one wants to look through a photo album of themselves sitting on the couch watching re-runs of Seinfeld--they want someone to show them what they look like doing something great or at least mildly interesting.

I feel like I need to shut myself away and concentrate only on this idea. There’s a reason I keep coming back to it every time I sit down to write and I just need to let it happen. And create whatever it turns out to be.

Self-indulgent, whining bullshit or abstract enlightened masterpiece--it has to be one of those two, right?



Writing Music

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