It's always comes back to this. Me at my keyboard, pounding away, living in other worlds, not necessarily better than this one, but at least not so random. Words, always words. My only true love affair. The only one I'm truly faithful to.
Bad things happen to me, and even during the midst of tragedy, somewhere in my head, I'm thinking about how to write it down. What will I say about it? How do I tell it so that my readers know what I'm feeling? And if I write it well, they'll feel it, too.
Is the impulse simply the need to share misery? Or is it the drive to make the world seem rational? We humans all impose our narratives on life. We attribute motives and make judgments. We see the world within the rules of our stories.
Those rules can be terrible. Maybe our rules say that our children shouldn't date outside their race or religion. Maybe our rules say gay people should be tormented and killed. Maybe our rules say all government is bad and needs to be torn down by violence. Maybe our rules worship evil and proclaim it as good.
It's our story, and we can change it. No end is truly written, no fate set in stone, no cruel god curses us to endless failure. Everything and nothing and all between are possible. This is our story. We can write something different if we choose.
And if we're willing to pay the price. We'll talk about paying the price tomorrow. Talk to you then.
"If you would attain to what you are not yet, you must always be displeased by what you are. For where you were pleased with yourself there you have remained. But once you have said, 'It is enough,' you are lost. Keep adding, keep walking, keep advancing; do not stop, do not turn back, do not turn from the straight road."
-St. Augustine
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2 comments:
The rules we create for our stories provide interesting opportunities. Are they rules destined to be broken? Are they kept? What does the reader see from the adherence or breaking of this rules? Where does it take them? Where does it take you as an author?
Do you decide upon the rules because you believe in them, or because you decidedly do not? Do you know they will be broken when you make them? The opportunities, and the questions, seem endless.
And since all these questions have a myriad of possibilities, I think this is one reason why a reader or a professor of criticism can't with impunity say what an author really mean when he or she wrote something. In fact, unless the author specifically stated his or her motivation somewhere accurately, our chances of learning the reader or critiquer's views are more likely.
And then you through price on top of all that? Wow. Nothing boring about this pursuit.
Good points, Jean.
I particularly agree with the point about not knowing a writer's motivation. Even with my two little books, I've had people assume I was saying something about my personal beliefs by the ones reflected in the stories. And I wasn't. Well, I was, but not what they read into them!
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