It started off with laziness.
You see, normally I make writing very, very difficult on myself. This is probably why I never finish anything. I think of stories that are related to obscure mythologies, or set in a country I've never been to, or in a culture I've never experienced, therefore to sound plausible, I need to research my ass off. Since typically I'm not writing against deadlines, this was no problem. I just never finished the damn things.
Then, I took a creative writing course in my last semester of university. Suddenly, there were deadlines.
Suddenly, there were problems.
I had a short story due in class the next day. The professor didn't care if it was just a fragment, but it had to be about eight pages.
In my last year of university, I was working like crazy on top of school. I taught music four days a week, volunteered, and did a bit of tutoring on the side. Unfortunately, the creative writing class fell on Wednesday, which, for those of you who are unaware, is the day after Tuesday, which happened to be my longest work day of the week. So, on the two hour bus ride home at the end of the day (9:00 PM), my tired little brain mulled over story ideas, tacitly resigned to another all-nighter. My usual material...the obscure mythologies, countries, and cultures...floated in circles, occasionally colliding with each other in a brief creative formation, only to pull apart when I would shrink from the idea of the research I'd have to do, and the speed at which I'd have to do it.
It was at that moment, on a stinking, filthy TTC bus creeping through one of the worst ghettos the GTA has to offer, that I had an epiphany.
Why the hell was I making this so complicated? Where was the shame in writing from what I knew?
There was no shame, came the answer loud and clear, except for what I was creating in my head.
Fuck mythology, and fuck worldliness, I was going to use this short story to embrace my admittedly narrow and uncultured world view. I was a white girl from the middle class suburbs, and for once I was going to take that sheltered identity and run with it. I always have and likely always will make things difficult for myself because I feel a lot of guilt about my life being too easy, but this time, the hell with it. I was going to take the easy way out like normal people.
So I changed the direction of my thoughts, and started thinking about things that I knew, inside and out, that I could somehow string out into a story.
From an old and long neglected corridor of my memory, my four, five, six, seven, eight and nine-year-old selves came charging out in all their frizzy-haired glory, and screamed to make themselves heard.
Phantom of the Opera...
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3 comments:
It's a popular misconception than an artist (writer, actor, musician, etc.) must suffer to create his/her art. Not true. In fact, I tend to think people do their best work in life when they are happy. That's certainly how it is for me.
So I don't think you need to worry about your life being too "easy." Very few writers in this day and age are living some overly dramatic or dangerous life that some feel is the mother of truly great work.
You can create stories that are just as good even if you're living in the slums of the T-Dot. Better maybe. :)
You are correct, sir. It's a self-imposed sentence. Indeed, I hardly live a dramatic or dangerous life as you say (I'm not L. Ron Hubbard) and I've no intention to set off bounty hunting in the Amazon. I rather enjoy this new way of writing. It saves a lot of wear on my G, O, L, E, C, and A keys on my keyboard.
And fewer librarians want to break my fingers.
But, old friend, you could be the next L. Ron Hubbard! You're certainly charming (and perhaps, creative) enough to start your own religion.
But you're looking for adventure, excitement and danger far greater than any you might encounter in the jungles of South America, might I suggest biking in the core of downtown Toronto at any time of the day? Surviving even a single ride through Bloor-Sherbourne during rush hour would make jaguars seem like pussycats.
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