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Update: I finished centering and describing all our photos from Taiwan. Take a looksy.
Okay. It’s not much of a story, but I did try. The original idea was good, but where it went…I’m not sure I like where it went, but wherever it ended up (and I’m not even sure it ended anywhere near where it began), it’s a long and painful journey, sort of like a warped sewcrates.com entry (not that any of it is real in the sense that these are my thoughts—well some of them are, but they’re mostly bent or misshapen versions of my thoughts, which when I think about it, is what most of my fiction is). Without further ado or throat clearing or excuses, here it is.
wringinghair.com
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A quick note as I started writing the story: Please, don’t start another story, paragraph, or sentence with a character sitting or staring. Please!
The original idea, which struck me last night, was to write a story about a writer (and then blogger when I gave it a bit more though) who stopped talking to people because he didn’t want to waste his clever ideas or thoughts; he wanted to save them all for his blog. Everything else in it is filler (DFW-influenced filler, to be more particular). But as I hinted at yesterday, I’m going to get back into writing vignettes or story pieces every day. What I’ve discovered is I don’t do well writing about writing. The only way I can tell a story is to write the story, and then rewrite it until I’m happy. To discuss it in writing (or meta-write, as Chuck penned) is pointless. Hearing the critiques of others is useful for the rewrite, but writing about writing or even detailed outlining is pointless. I’m still up in the air about character sketches, since they did help my FBT story, but we’ll see. What I want to do is move more of my entries into the Story category and less in the Writing category. You can think of the Writing category as the Meta-Writing category, and the Story category as the Real writing category, just for future reference.
When I read my old vignettes yesterday, I also discovered that the more I wrote stories, the better the stories became. The first few stories were decent, but it wasn’t until the end, the Chairs and The Clockman that I found my stride. I expect the same to happen this week, as I write try to find an interesting voice and a few nuggets that make up interesting stories. The real trick, I think, will be when I tackle stories that require more than one sitting to write. I seem to start strong, get lost the in the middle, and then finish strong. If I can find that comfortable middle then…this is all filler or meta-writing. It’s hard to stop once I get going on it.
What I said about DFW’s Oblivion yesterday, I take it back. I take it all back. He is a genius, a misunderstood genius, but a genius nonetheless. Some of his early stories in the collection were hard to get into (I found myself thumbing through the pages trying to figure out how many pages were left in the story—one critic said his first 60-page story read like a 100-page story, and I couldn’t agree more), but once I understood where he was going or what he was trying to say, they were great, some better than others, but all great writing and great stories, even if some of them didn’t finish by tying up all the loose ends. The DFW story I finished reading last night that produced this epiphany was written by a man who committed suicide—DFW embraced the dilemma of writing a first-person story by a dead person after his death—and what he does at the ending is meta-fiction at its best (which is much better and more interesting than meta-writing, which I do way too much of). So, to recap, DFW is still a god, not the god, but definitely a god, perhaps one of the lesser ones (yes, I quote that line from the movie “Groundhog’s Day” way often; I know). The Oblivion reviews say that his last story is the best one, so I’ll let you know how it is after I finish it.
I was optimistic about doing more writing today. I even left work early because, well, it’s the week between New Years and Christmas and nobody is there. I drove home, bought groceries, and was even humming as I pulled through my driveway (I’m exaggerating about the humming, I almost never hum—I’m exaggerating about the almost never part of humming, I do sometimes hum, but I don’t like to admit it). Then I took the turn behind my house too wide and my car is now stuck in three inches of soft soil and gravel, spinning its wheels foolishly—or at least it was as I dug myself deeper and deeper into the aforementioned soil and gravel. I’m now sitting on my couch so I assume my wheels are no longer spinning and digging the car deeper into the ground, if that, at this point, is possible. After calling my technical experts (thanks Eran!), I poured myself a glass of wine, only to find out that the wine bottle I opened a week ago was now vinegary. This has not turned out to be my night. I had thoughts of a roaring fire and a vegetable-laden dinner followed by hours of pounding on the keyboard. Now, I’ll be lucky if I can pound a few minutes before succumbing to my evil mood. Maybe I’ll use that to finish the story: evil mood. Now I’m humming. (Edit: I obviously found a little, okay, a lot, more energy to write after finishing this paragraph.)
Oh, if you can’t tell, I drank my first mocha in over a week, which is where all this is coming from. Tea is good and everything, but when it comes to real caffeination powers, there’s nothing like the bucks of stars. If only I could bottle that energy—oh, wait.