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12/3/2004 10:32:14 AM
The well of creativity, the same old silt
If you would like to know what happened to my attempt at National Novel Writing Month, I will just tell you. I will simply confess. I did not finish. I found a job, an apartment and a semblance of an existence in Chicago instead. I gave up around 5,000 words, which is 1/10 of the number of words needed to actually qualify as a complete-er. But I did get, in those first 5,000 words, a taste of what happens when you do what that famous man said, slash open a vein and see what pours out.
See: The same things keep pouring out, whenever I try to create something, and I don't know why. Let us inspect three very different things:
1) A short story I wrote in 2001 as a final project for a creative writing class that I took when I was studying abroad. I wrote it in just a few days, on autopilot.
2) My NaNoWriMo story, written in just a few days, on autopilot.
3) A game in improv class this week, in which we sat on stage alone, as a character of our choosing, and were interviewed by the rest of the class. I created this character on the spot, on autopilot.
People just don't understand.
1) It was about a creative, sensitive 16 year-old girl (Lydia?) who skips school and hooks up with her brother's roommate. "This is an excellent coming-of-age story," my creative writing professor wrote. Those words, "coming of age," hadn't crossed my mind at all when I wrote it. She's misunderstood by her family.
2) Featured as the main character a creative, sensitive 19 year-old woman (Charlotte). Good lord -- what does that mean? Must I always write about slightly younger female characters who grow up a little? She's misunderstood by her family.
3) A creative, sensitive 12 year-old girl (Cindy), with a lisp. She's misunderstood by her peers.
My parents are missing and/or crazy. Where are yours?
1) Lydia's mother was in a coma. Her father had moved to California. She and her brother were raised by their aunt.
2) Charlotte's mother left them. Her father went crazy. She and her brother were raised by their aunt.
3) Cindy's parents died in a car accident. She was raised by her grandmother.
Boys? We're scared of boys.
1) Lydia has a knock-down, drag-out fight with her domineering older brother. And a pretty messed-up encounter with her brother's roommate.
2) Charlotte has a jealous, tenuous relationship with her younger brother.
3) Cindy is afraid of boys because she was once knocked down and de-skirted by one in school.
It frightens me, and frustrates me, that this is what spews out when I'm not looking. I don't normally think of myself as a misunderstood, parent-less and male-phobic person. Well, that's because I'm not. But somewhere in there, that's what's waiting to come out...