I don't talk to people very often. When I'm in public, I'm busy minding my own business; i.e. eating my lunch quietly, buying my groceries quietly, getting the fuck out of everyone else's way quietly. In my fantasy world, everyone else would act the same (news flash, they don't). I guess there isn't a whole lot of room for getting in peoples' business. So when a waitress asks me how I'm doing, I say, "Fine." Or when someone nods at me, as if to say, "Hey fuckass, I see you there and I acknowledge your existence in that physical space," I nod back and think the same thing. But how does anyone else have time to carry on a conversation about their toast, or their sweater, or their kid's soccer game, or the way the east side stinks like burnt pig shit seven months of the year?
So I guess it comes as no surprise I recently found out there are people who "create" things that aren't necessarily from the heart. They require some kind of steel framework, some kind of pre-set genre. I guess I hadn't really thought about it, which unfortunately goes to show just how shallow I am.
It was my understanding writers had the same kind of sickness I have - their sheets burn at night, their hair itches all day, their hands fidget, their eyes dart, their mind races; everywhere they go, all their characters follow, and they're stressing about the next story, the next book, the next unimportant interaction between two fictional people fighting in their head. And when they're at the store, they find a handwritten grocery list on the ground, and all they can think is, "I hope her kidnapper was gentle." Eventually, all of this comes together, and the writer creates something from the bottom of their soul - they describe a thing happening that defies all boundaries because it is an expression of pure fiction. It may be a mystery-horror story, or a romantic-thriller, or a violent, gut-slashing, skull-crushing romantic comedy. What does it matter? It's whatever story needed to be written, straight from the depths of the writer's sick head.
But I guess it's not like that. Writers DO have an energy, a certain vibration, where they feel the need to write. Yet, evidently, most writers use a framework in order to build a story like one would build a skyscraper. They have plans, designs, materials, references; they stick to certain building codes and conventions, they order their blocks in specific arrangements. These writers sit down and begin the process of writing a horror story. And when they are finished, whatever it is they put together will resemble a horror story. Or they specifically write an absurdist comedy with all of its trappings and foibles laid right out there, and when they're done, someone, anyone, can see it's supposed to be funny.
If you know me, you're probably aware I harbor a strange (perhaps even perverted) attraction to architecture. Well, in my years of researching buildings, I came to a realization, much like the one spelled out above, that many buildings are created with a facade; a false front built on the public side, which is designed with ornate flourishes, giving the building a beautiful look on the outside, with a specific utility on the inside that doesn't cost a fortune. Duh, right?
Shit, I thought the building was built gorgeous through and through. It hadn't occurred to my naive self that someone would go to all the trouble to design an ornate facade and slap it on some boxy turd. But that's just what they do - and that's what writers are doing, too. They spend all of their energy making a box full of cat shit and sand, but they put on a great facade so that their readers feel like they've enjoyed it.
Obviously, that's why no one reads all my godawful stories, and I'm remanded to preparing rambling, long winded blogs for my audience of one (me, duh). If I would get with the program, I could be sitting across a table from Tavis Smiley telling him how I was inspired by Ghandi's defiance against the British.
I mean c'mon, no one wants to take a fucking trip down Uncertainty Alley where all of the fist-fighting hobos burn telephone books to keep warm on those nights they don't have Listerine hangovers. They want to cruise down Well-Lit Boulevard, where you know what you're getting as soon as you turn down the street; all the lawns are mowed, everyone is white, and they worship a milky Son of God who ticks the "All Republican" box on his ballot every four years. Praise Jesus.
If you're reading this far, you're probably not familiar with the English language, and thus, you have no idea how bad everything I wrote above just was. I commend you.