On Writing
Tuesday, Jul. 22, 2003 at 4:22 a.m.


I'm sort of torn at the moment between this and trying to write a story. I wrote two sentences stream-of-conscious style, read them, realized I had no idea where they lead and deleted them. Faced with a blank screen, I pulled up my web-browser and started this to distract me.

I realized about a week ago that I don't plan my writing in terms of stories like I hear other writers describing; I move from moment to moment. Like what I was writing just a second ago. I saw a boy, early twenties, sitting on a porch that faces a driveway curving out into the night. It's after midnight. There's some space in front of him before a forest encroaches on his vision and the only light is cast from behind him in the house. He has a guitar sitting next to him but doesn't play it, even though he tuned it. The humidity in the air makes the strings sound different each time he picks it up, but he thinks he's probably given up on it since he only seems to play a few chords at a time. There are some mosquitoes in the air and small moths beating against the window behind him. Without planning it he's totally given into the quietness of night.

The location is a mix of that house my Aunt and Uncle used to have in Connecticut and how I imagine the house Baily White wrote about in Mama Makes Up Her Mind looks. The boy probably came from my current mood and the mellow Beck songs I have pumping into my ear through headphones (currently Lampshade). I know that the writerly thing to do is to animate this scene, this person. That if I only have this boy stand up and go somewhere or have someone else step out the door then something will happen, the story will begin. Or maybe I should give him a name or a father or an alma mater or pick an era for this all to be happening. The thing is, I just never get that far.

I took a fiction writing class almost two years ago (though it hardly seems half that long ago) and the three stories I wrote stand as the only ones I've brought to completion beyond some fanfiction I wrote when I was younger. Each time, as my professor mentioned, "nothing happened". The first story was well-written but boring. The second story was better, had interesting characters (one inspired by a man that I met at Naropa's Summer Writing Program in 2001), but some problems as well. The last went back and forth between two scenes: the protagonist having an argument with his wife and him in the bedroom of another woman. Still, nothing happened, just two conversations, some movement (the other woman lights a cigarette, the wife begins to cry) and little explanation of how this man will choose to react. My professor recommended that I enter it into Glimmertrain's short-short story contest, so obviously I had done something right.

I think this mode of writing comes from my being depressed. There are different levels that come with depression. Being the most depressed doesn't actually feel the worst, and in fact is pretty pleasant as an alternative mode of consciousness. After having been depressed for a few weeks solid, disengaging from all activities and the sense that these activities are necessary, everything slows. I know that things and people are moving around me but it becomes difficult to track them, and visually the world looks almost crystallized it's so clear. It's very beautiful, something to do with the fact that I can only experience one moment at a time and never all at once. Driving in this frame of mind can be scary because being this depressed slows my reaction time to the point that, no matter how hard I try to concentrate, I can't. Still, I have seen the most beautiful sunsets, snowfalls and really listened to my favorite songs at times like this.

I write moments like these, sometimes followed by another and another but often not. I'll capture something like the boy with the guitar and then stop, worried that I'll somehow ruin what I've already created but also because I have the sense that I'm already done. There's also the problem that most of my stories are stuck in the american gothic vain: solitude, highways and train tracks, backwoods and half-empty bars. I couldn't even name a novel or short-story that I like of this type (The Fires by Rene Steinke comes close, but she bit off more than she could chew in terms of plot), but I definitely have a visceral understanding of the genre. When I was a little kid in a suburb outside of St. Louis I imagined running away. I planned how late at night I would hatch my plan, what food I would pack into my backpack and imagine walking down Hanley Road. There was a subdivision that seemed very far away from my house that I remember being built and I didn't know what followed that. I wanted to keep walking until I found out what was at the end of the road.

I guess I still want to do that, but it only works if I'm sitting at home with my eyes closed.


I'm listening to acoustic, mellow Beck MP3s and then Sackcloth 'n Ashes by Sixteen Horsepower
I'm reading Glimmertrain
I want nowhere, since it's 4:30 am

Previous:
- - Thursday, Oct. 27, 2005
back yet again - Thursday, Aug. 04, 2005
Batman - Friday, Jun. 17, 2005
Just fucking around today - Sunday, May. 22, 2005
pre-birthday - Saturday, Apr. 30, 2005