Writing (443 hits)
Category: NoneRating: 0.96 on 17 reviews (Rate this item) (V)
Submitted by QuinnTheEskimo (View user info) at 2007-12-19 03:47:48 EST
I haven't been in a mood to write recently. I don't know why. I love writing, but I need to be in a mood, I need to have a certain drive to write. Writing to me is not like masturbation, which I can enjoy on a whim at any time. Nor is it like eating, a necessary thing that I must do or I'll die. It doesn't calm me down, but it doesn't frustrate me either.
I have stories I can write. I have ideas for them jotted down on the back of receipts, bits of paper and cardboard, alongside single lines of dialog or short paragraphs describing characters. This is the way most of my stories happen. I get an idea, or a flash of a beautiful image or maybe a fragmented dialog and I jot it down furiously before I lose it, hoping to keep it for later. Maybe by the time I'm done with whatever I'm writing the original paper scrap's image or dialog is changed so much that I could use it again, but I don't. As soon as I use something to inspire a story, it gets thrown away to avoid repeating anything. A mark of a good writer is being constantly original (something I still need to work on).
This last week, maybe ten days, I haven't wanted to write. I have ideas, ideas that I like, ideas that I want to write about, but I don't. Instead they sit in the top drawer of my dresser, next to the taped up carton of B.B.s, under the knife-sharpening kit, and on top of the old D&D character sheets that I never used.
What will become of these ideas? When I write, I imagine that I'm not writing fiction. Instead, I imagine that I'm writing a true story that happened to real people. I like to think this because it adds levity to my work. However, if these are real people and places that I keep on scrap paper in a drawer, where are they? What are they doing?
The city that I half-imagined in a doodle, is it somewhere, getting lonelier and lonelier as day after day I ignore it? It must be an awful place, because the doodle doesn't have any people in it, no dogs, no sunlight. Is it in stasis, unable to live or die because I have made it permanently incomplete?
What about the man I imagined? He has no face! I talk about his expensive but old suit coat, his second-hand jeans, and his shoes that he had to buy new for work. I even mention that his socks are mis-matched and he's not wearing underwear, but I do not mention his face! Is he wandering around somewhere now, blindly reaching out with his hands as he staggers about stubbing his toes? Does he constantly step on rakes, walk into open man holes, step into oncoming traffic? How does he eat, this poor, faceless soul?
More irksome than the lost cities and malformed bodies of my dresser are the lost ideas. What happens to them? How terrible it would be, to be created, even if you were faceless, and then forgotten? Are the dozens of people dead now? Or perhaps they've simply vanished? Maybe they're sitting alone, at home, lonely, hoping to be remembered before they are lost forever, like the people in an old folks home.
User Reviews
Submitted by sadie73 (user info) at 2008-01-13 13:30:41 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
Submitted by Zebra (user info) at 2007-12-19 17:21:07 EST (#)
Ranking: 0
You should read Six Characters in Search of an Author by Pirandello.
Interesting play.
That said, if you want to write, you should write every day. Every single day. Even if you only get one good sentence, that's something. Discipline is key.
Why don't you let some of your characters and scenarios write YOUR story from their point of view?
Perhaps your half drawn characters on those orphaned scraps are scheming together at this very moment to jump start your lazy ass into action so their existence will not have been in vain.
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Thank you, Stephen King, for that bit of insight. When is your next book?
Submitted by haikumikoo (user info) at 2008-01-13 13:17:53 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
Jesus Scourge, I didn't know it was possible to get that much virtual sand into one's internet vagina.
Loser.
Submitted by scourge (user info) at 2007-12-22 01:14:36 EST (#)
Ranking: 0
Submitted by haikumikoo (user info) at 2007-12-19 14:08:17 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
Submitted by scourge (user info) at 2007-12-19 10:16:31 EST (#)
Ranking: -1
what an intriguing look into your mind. thanks for sharing.
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Quinn, I think your post has herpes.
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it's nice to see you ladies sticking up for each other as well as sticking it to each other.
simpletons could get more done in this world if they all learned to work together like this.
Submitted by TheUniter (user info) at 2007-12-20 11:17:18 EST (#)
Ranking: 1
Submitted by Zebra (user info) at 2007-12-19 17:21:07 EST (#)
Ranking: 0
You should read Six Characters in Search of an Author by Pirandello.
Interesting play.
That said, if you want to write, you should write every day. Every single day. Even if you only get one good sentence, that's something. Discipline is key.
Why don't you let some of your characters and scenarios write YOUR story from their point of view?
Perhaps your half drawn characters on those orphaned scraps are scheming together at this very moment to jump start your lazy ass into action so their existence will not have been in vain.
Submitted by monkeyswithguns (user info) at 2007-12-19 15:39:38 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
I have ideas for them jotted down on the back of receipts, bits of paper and cardboard, alongside single lines of dialog or short paragraphs describing characters.
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You need to get an actual paper notepad and keep it in your pocket.
I agree and can relate to everything you've written here, the story sliver that I last wrote was:
"I only bought the CHOCOLATE chip cookie because you are a black tranny."
It resulted from ordering 2 cookies from a subway sandwich artist (and I use that term quite loosely), and upon realizing he was a black transvestite working at a subway, decided to order chocolate chip instead of macadamia nut which is what I really wanted.
For some reason I was worried he'd call me a racist if I didn't.
Anyone can feel free to write a story based on that, I doubt I'm going to use it.
Submitted by sir_cowman (user info) at 2007-12-19 15:39:38 EST (#)
Ranking: 0
Submitted by EmissionImpossible (user info) at 2007-12-19 03:50:26 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
I like you Quinn, lets have a homosexual relationship. You buy the curtains and I will get the throws.
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I'm down, as long as I never have to have a dick in my mouth.
Submitted by orphelia (user info) at 2007-12-19 14:41:17 EST (#)
Ranking: 0
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Submitted by EmissionImpossible (user info) at 2007-12-19 08:50:26 GMT (#)
Ranking: 2
I like you Quinn, lets have a homosexual relationship. You buy the curtains and I will get the throws.
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And you fucking call us gay??
Submitted by haikumikoo (user info) at 2007-12-19 14:08:17 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
Submitted by scourge (user info) at 2007-12-19 10:16:31 EST (#)
Ranking: -1
what an intriguing look into your mind. thanks for sharing.
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Quinn, I think your post has herpes.
Submitted by sicosemen (user info) at 2007-12-19 10:50:48 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
Guess who didn't read this but will tell you that they will later and actually never do it?
Did you guess yet?
The answer is ME!
Submitted by scourge (user info) at 2007-12-19 10:16:31 EST (#)
Ranking: -1
what an intriguing look into your mind. thanks for sharing.
Submitted by apollo88 (user info) at 2007-12-19 10:05:49 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
yeah, i hear that.
Submitted by ConorJS (user info) at 2007-12-19 10:02:54 EST (#)
Ranking: 0
"I have stories I can write. I have ideas for them jotted down on the back of receipts, bits of paper and cardboard, alongside single lines of dialog or short paragraphs describing characters. This is the way most of my stories happen. I get an idea, or a flash of a beautiful image or maybe a fragmented dialog and I jot it down furiously before I lose it, hoping to keep it for later."
I'm the same way. I'll post one of them soon or something, maybe not. Strong commitment hasn't been my forte of late.
Submitted by Brdn_Nkd (user info) at 2007-12-19 09:56:18 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by HurtByTheSun (user info) at 2007-12-19 09:49:04 EST (#)
Ranking: -1
No Comment
Submitted by Berty (user info) at 2007-12-19 04:48:34 EST (#)
Ranking: 0
Quinn, write something uplifting.
Submitted by EmissionImpossible (user info) at 2007-12-19 03:50:26 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
I like you Quinn, lets have a homosexual relationship. You buy the curtains and I will get the throws.