I told someone the other day - I cannot write fiction.
I have tried, sure. I have tried, but not very hard. I have tried, but there has never been that spark of imagination in me that makes for the truly wonderful stories. I cannot see them in entirety, the stories; the stories like complete bubbles, free to coalesce with others outside and inside and beside. I can think of nothing new, nothing, and it is not just in the writing.
(what is anything worth if you have nothing new of your own to offer?)
I do tell stories well, though. I can tell you stories I know. Stories I imbibe and refashion to make them, in my head, lighter or snappier or more interesting.
I can make things read well.
I just cannot write them.
I won every inter-house creative writing competition in my school. Perhaps it was because of my flair for words.
(I do have one, don't I? I do, don't I? Oh, someone please say yes.)
My stories weren't ever original. They were, almost all of them, stories about mysterious and malignant dark forces à la every trashy horror story I'd ever read or watched. I always used themes from things I'd read, or seen, or heard. People say all art is imitation, but I couldn't write without themes. I couldn't write a story unless I had a boundary within which to fit it - a first line, a last line, a title. I needed hints, or I didn't know where I was going.
I want to believe this does not make me any less of a person, I do; but I can't. What is the use of anything if you can't imagine? What is the use? People who cannot write can think of stories that have so much potential that I burn with jealousy and futility and impotence.
All I have ever imagined has already been in here. So tell me.
Why bother wonder at all?
I have tried, sure. I have tried, but not very hard. I have tried, but there has never been that spark of imagination in me that makes for the truly wonderful stories. I cannot see them in entirety, the stories; the stories like complete bubbles, free to coalesce with others outside and inside and beside. I can think of nothing new, nothing, and it is not just in the writing.
(what is anything worth if you have nothing new of your own to offer?)
I do tell stories well, though. I can tell you stories I know. Stories I imbibe and refashion to make them, in my head, lighter or snappier or more interesting.
I can make things read well.
I just cannot write them.
I won every inter-house creative writing competition in my school. Perhaps it was because of my flair for words.
(I do have one, don't I? I do, don't I? Oh, someone please say yes.)
My stories weren't ever original. They were, almost all of them, stories about mysterious and malignant dark forces à la every trashy horror story I'd ever read or watched. I always used themes from things I'd read, or seen, or heard. People say all art is imitation, but I couldn't write without themes. I couldn't write a story unless I had a boundary within which to fit it - a first line, a last line, a title. I needed hints, or I didn't know where I was going.
I want to believe this does not make me any less of a person, I do; but I can't. What is the use of anything if you can't imagine? What is the use? People who cannot write can think of stories that have so much potential that I burn with jealousy and futility and impotence.
All I have ever imagined has already been in here. So tell me.
Why bother wonder at all?
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