Scouring my brain for stories, I'm about as valuable as a mechanical pencil without lead. I'm not thinking about any story. I'm trying to make sense of THE STORY.
MY STORY.
I decided to become a semi-famous author last night, so I'm trying to figure out the story I want to tell. My first task of vulnerable valor:
CHECKLIST:
1) Write something that matters.
I think in order to write something that matters, it has to make sense as well. Oh the sensibility of cohesiveness; my natural writing abilities arch nemesis. I've battled this demon before; the horror of story structure. Creating predetermined outlines and plot points and climaxes. Ugh. English 101, how you kill all that is magical and taunt my inner dreamer.
Actually, I can't remember which English class they teach you that stuff in. It has been a while since I've attempted to dabble academically... I tried to sign up for an English class a few years back, but due to my academic probation from many years previous, I had to meet with a counselor and I ended up finishing my college degree on accident. Which didn't include any more English classes, unfortunately.
There's a reason why I've spent the majority of my life writing simple nonsensical no nothing's no one ever need see. Including my first book, which I was completely OK with locking away & not showing a soul. That's also I believe what they call, "the easy way through life". A true coping mechanism; acting like you don't care about anything. Protecting yourself from failure and judgement, a true coward like the most of us. Damn shame, our tendency to live a life of sloppy corner cutting listlessness.
If I think strong and honest, I don't think God gave me the inclination to write in order to write about nothing all day.
I just can't seem to create an outline for a story, and I can't seem to free write randomness into a worthy structure either, though. My free writing always gets me the same thing that any free thing gets anyone: nothin' worth having.
"How do you write a story?", I google. "writing tips", "how to improve your writing", "the rules of writing". I'm searching for something to help me navigate what feels like a vast new world. I've acclimated to industries before, but writing? It's as if I'm tackling God himself.
Maybe even tougher. You only have so many options with religion. And part of what I have found to be true in faith is you don't have to understand it all. It's very paradoxical. Realizing you don't understand it all is a key to understanding it. God's magical mystery is simple in that tough regard, and that I can appreciate.
Writing, though. Wowzers. There's more genres than religions, and so many styles within the genres. Making hundreds of pages out of your mind that someone else can not only pick up and make sense of, but actually enjoy. Maybe like picking a Church, I suppose.
With writing, you're not showing up to someone else's rendezvous, though. You are the rendezvous; made from intangible scratch.
I consider my stories these seemingly disconnected trials and tribulations and trophy moments from different periods in my life. The memories are all kind of a mushy blur, actually, if I'm completely honest. My stories are like little highlights engulfed by mashed potatoes. Some even have gravy oozing about, my memories are that messy.
Yet I have this deep burning. As if there's something truly wonderful hiding deep within the mash that I dare resurrect to say. If only I could get out of my own way.
How do I narrow these mashed potato trophy memories down to plot points and climaxes? I feel like I'm attempting to structure art, and that feels unethical for me. Or at least extremely difficult.
It's like I have a painting in me, but before I can start on the canvas I have to:
CHECKLIST:
1) Decide on the framing
2) Find a buyer
3) & Figure out where it will be hung
How backwards.
Plot points and climaxes.
Protagonists and antagonists.
The predetermined nature of it all. It's a real mood killer when you're standing before those blank pages. As if telling the greatest story within you was as easy as filling in the blanks of a mad lib.
I guess writing a book is different than painting in that regard. You can't really just start writing. Everything the google has revealed to me has confirmed that it just doesn't work that way.
All these faded mashed memories I feel the need to resurrect and somehow connect. Too bad I'm not gifted in painting. It feels more honest to remember your past with blobs of color. Safer, at least.
Once you start naming things and trying to bring back the details, well that's where my wheels fall off. I want to get great at telling remarkable stories, though. About saying the things that I think God created me to say.
That means I need to resurrect the mashed potatoes, though. Round things out and make them full again. No one wants to hear a half remembered tale. Nothing remarkable about that.
I've just got to learn how to make stuff up, I guess. To find peace in what I don't know. I must find a way to stitch together the silver lining of the lingering mash.
