On being a writer

I couldn't sleep last night. Not one of my usual insomnia nights when I wake up after a few hours and then am unable to go back to sleep until 30 minutes before my alarm goes, but one of those when you're just about to fall sleep and then all of a sudden you're wide awake and that's it. Could be because I felt really stressed as I had a shit weekend from a writing pov (pardon the pun) - I spent maybe one hour tinkering with a chapter - not accaptable. I need this novel to get to the end so I can move on and start the next.

So, anyway, as I'm lying there I started to think about a blog post I read the other day about writers and mental illness. This is of course nothing new, that writers are often thought to suffer from depression. Like PC so quickly pointed out when I sent him the link "As we all knew..." (He then went on to tell me I'm a "genius - obviously" when I told him the title of my next novel; he's a very clever man.) The post talks about how writers think too much and how we turn our reality into plot and the people in our lives into characters. And to be honest, haven't I spent my entire life doing this? Maybe this is why I'm so fickle - nothing (no one) ever comes close.

This made me think about Howard Jacobson's Zoo Time, which is a novel about a novelist. There are a lot of things in the novel that I can relate to, like when the novelist talks about his characters and how they have to take on a life of their own, surprise you, but like people in real life can turn out to not be what you thought they were and you can't stand them. (I've had that problem with M all through this novel - she's just not doing for me so, fickle as I am, I just can't be bothered.) I've read half of it so far and think it's an interesting novel is for a writer (though I'm finding it hard to get through actually - I've even had to put it aside half way and read another book for a while; I didn't find this with The Finkler Question but that could be because I read it during a period when I was preoccupied with Beshert and Jewish...um... stuff...). 

One of my favorite bits in Zoo Time is this:

The impulse to write is an impulse to alter the conditions of your childhood. Not to falsify them, but to make the world other than the hellhole it looks to you when you're young.

For me this really sums things up. I'm not saying I had an unhappy childhood. But looking back, it's was one massive hellhole. I don't even have to look back - I was emerged in a hellhole daily. I wasn't depressed - it was just... Not interesting enough. 

Of course I don't think all writers are depressed (drunks) - some writers are successful without having the neurological similarities of someone who suffers from psychosis (but here I'd like to say then we need to look at what they write about). Likewise, not everyone who thinks too much and suffer from depression has an urge to write. But as I was lying there, sleepless, I wondered for those this applies to:

Do we write because we are depressed or are we depressed because we write?

Words

So, after being screamed at like I'm an 8-year-old - which means in less than a week I was compared to an 8-year-old because of the book I am currently reading, for dropping my new iPhone, for buying the Spooky Sticker Book and - for not backing up my work, I have now done so. It's all safely stored in a Dropbox, on a server that will no doubt collapse and break and every word I've laboured over and every sentence I've crafted with care - gone forever. And then I'll come after you guys - you know who you are...

Exciting! I've started rewriting chapter 1. I figured the time has come to get the beginning right, to tally up with the middle (which is right) so that I can get to the end. I know what I need to do: what needs to go where, what has to change, what ideas need to be pushed further and come through stronger. Only, there are so many sweet sentences in there I don't want to take out so I'm trying to make what I'm writing fit around what I want to keep. Not sure this is going to work... I might just have to rip it all out and sacrifice my words in order for the new ones to make sense. Very difficult indeed.

I'm thinking this especially after the disagreement I had recently about my love for some of my own sentences, in which I was told I have to stop marvel over my words. But it's difficult sometime to not look back and think, wow that's a great sentence, did I really write that? Or like yesterday when I had my ego stroked in a workshop where the stuff I love most about the chapter I had shared was indeed the things they picked up as being great. Which makes me wonder: shouldn't I like my own work? I don't mean in a self-satisfied, smug way, but why would I write what I do if I didn't like it? Shouldn't the words I choose, the way I put them together, say something that feels right in my mouth, that tastes honest and real? 

Because only I can write the words that I have. Maybe they don't fit you, but to me they are pretty tasty.   (And saved in a Dropbox!)

On Time Wasting

"You're nothing if not a catch" I was told the other day. In all fairness, it was in agreement to my exclamation that I am a catch, but all the same. And seriously, I am. There are endless words describing just how awesome I am. How about funny. Witty. Intelligent. Intellectual. Cute, sparkly, quirky, insane, charming, hot. And of course awesome. (And not modest.)

But despite all these great qualities I'm still not being caught. In all honesty though, I don't think it's necessarily that no one's trying to catch me, but rather that I don't want to be caught, or I don't want to be caught by the people trying to catch me. And I suppose that's fair enough.

However, there seems to be an epidemic rippling through society; it's like women nowadays have become as emotionally retarded as men. It's all about protecting yourself from hurt and disappointment. And we don't want to waste time on someone who's not worth it. Of course, that's understandable. But at the same time, we're allowing what little time we have to get wasted on waiting for something.. I don't know... Better?

I have so many single girlfriends - don't think I've ever had so many single girlfriends at the same time! And they're all great and would make some man a good wife (calm down, it's a joke!). But the excuses - "I have lost my confidence"; "I don't think we have anything in common"; "he had something stuck in his teeth"; or even worse, the ones that are in some sort of holding pattern with some dude: "I'll wait and see what happens, maybe he'll be more available after they've signed the contract". When did we all stop living? Is this what getting older does to you? You have to consider things x100 and lose all hope before you dare to enter? Making excuses for why we don't do things.

We're wasting so much time, waiting or being scared and not wanting to get hurt again. NEWS FLASH! Life is suffering! What's the point in being semi-dead for the next 40-50 years just to make sure that your precious feelings don't get a little frayed? At least then you know you've lived. Of course as we get older, we know what we don't want, but probably still unsure exactly what it is we want.

Because the truth is it doesn't exist. It was made up by ad guys to sell stuff, which we happily buy in to. We want to be told what love is supposed to look like, so we recognize it when we see it. But we'll never find that one perfect person because that person will never exist. So isn't it better to stop thinking so much and grab happiness where we can find it? Stop wasting all this time in an effort to protect our little feelings? Isn't life supposed to be a bit of fun?!





Author's note: This is a general pondering; I'm not talking about myself. I know exactly what I want and where to grab my happiness. 

Kisses

I’m trying to remember my first kiss, but it eludes me, the memory. How sad that such a fundamental experience has disappeared - no doubt due to excess alcohol consumption. I wonder how many kisses I don’t remember because I was too drunk or they were too insignificant.

                     

I do remember the boy I used to kiss during break times when I was 15. And there was the kiss which ended a friendship. The kiss that happened just because the guy was so tall (and I was so drunk). The kisses with my big love, who proclaimed that our lips were a perfect fit. I remember the pain of our last ever kiss. But I don't remember the kisses.

So many kisses and so little meaning.

In my mind I still see the surprise on your face as we kissed that first time. There have been other kisses between our first, and our last. But my lips, they remember every kiss. I wish ours had at least some little bit of significance.

I don’t want to be kissed again, now or forever. I want to remember at least this kiss. And I want the last imprint on my lips, the DNA, the saliva mixed with mine, to be from your kiss.