stories are the bones of everything
This guy. Augusten Burroughs. I haven’t read his novels yet, but based on the advice given in this short video, I’m going to.
Update: March 24, 2017 – [easyazon_link identifier=”B008O9BKGC” locale=”US” nw=”y” tag=”penfist-20″]Running with Scissors[/easyazon_link] is a crazy book.
Stop believing in it. It’s not real. It doesn’t exist.
If you sit down and stare at a blank canvas, something will happen. If that thing isn’t writing, it is because you are either (in order of likelihood):
I will address these conditions in reverse order and share the solution to each of them.
Impaired
If you suffer from cognitive impairment, seek medical advice. This takes precedence over “writer’s block” under any circumstances. Once your team of medical professionals deals with the impairment, sit back down and move on to:
Unmotivated
If you find yourself unmotivated, write down the three things you are most passionate about in this world. If you aren’t writing about one of them, start. If you write those three things down and don’t have a single idea of what you should be writing about, you aren’t living in the same world all the rest of us inhabit. Go back to step one. Otherwise consider that you are simply:
Scared
If can’t write because you are scared, hello. I’ve been you. Exchange the word can’t for the word won’t. Examine what you are afraid of and tell it to fuck off. Please feel free to replace the invective with something that appeals to you. But realize you’re wasting time. Meanwhile, telling whatever you’re scared of to go blow is the only way to move past the word can’t and realize fear of failure isn’t an excuse. True passion always trumps fear. Cowards are what they are because of choices they have made.
Writer’s block is an excuse to fail. If you heart beats for the stories you to tell, stare at the canvas until your hands start moving and your brain starts pouring words. If it doesn’t happen, you’re not a storyteller.
I wrote this to myself, but I hope it helps you, unknown reader who wants to be reborn a writer.
“Throw out everything you believe in.” It’s the kind of thing I’m likely to whisper to you in the dark. Assuming we’re ever in the dark together. However we got there, know that I’m an antihero.
antihero noun an·ti·he·ro \ˈan-tē-ˌhē-(ˌ)rō, ˈan-ˌtī-, -ˌhir-(ˌ)ō\ : a main character in a book, play, movie, etc., who does not have the usual good qualities that are expected in a hero
I’d fail miserably as a hero. My heart beats right the hell out of my chest when I’m faced with direct danger. My stoic’s poker face is good at hiding that fact. But I’m not running towards the bullets. I’m shooting back from behind solid cover, hopefully with vastly superior technology. Or, more likely, running away so the heroes can go in and get killed eliminating the threat.
You can only extract wisdom from a traumatic situation if it doesn’t kill you or fuck you up so bad you can’t function normally in society after the situation ends.
Speaking of which.
When I was about six years old, I observed a group of neighborhood kids holding down an unlucky child, for reasons I’ll never know. They forced his mouth open and made him eat donkey shit out of a Kentucky Fried Chicken bucket. He was screaming and crying. But it was five on one, so he was going to eat that pie. Chalk it up to cruelty. Imagine he violated one of the group’s mores. Maybe he stole another one of the group’s prize possessions.
I could have intervened. I had my bow and arrows that day. I was part of an untouchable caste. A white kid in Haiti. There would have been only minor repercussions if I had attacked.
I know, because I tried it once, on a different day, with a different group of kids. I got scolded by the yard boy, and he didn’t tell my parents I shot a kid in the leg with an arrow. He even got the arrow back for me. A hero doesn’t shoot a kid in the leg with an arrow and then not remember why he did it as an adult.
It’s weird. What I remember.
I remember making a vow to fight to the death before I let someone hold me down and force me to eat donkey shit. You’d have to bash me unconscious before that would be a possibility.
I like the idea of justice, but it seems to be a shifting target. One person’s idea of justice is another person’s abomination.
When I was working as a contractor in Afghanistan we drove around every day in our armor trucks pretending to be brave, and every now and then proving that maybe some of us were. But most of us were just bored. Which is why some of the idiots I worked with found it fun to see how many locals they could knock off bicycles using the side mirrors of our vehicles.
It was easy to get away with shit like that. Chaos in the streets of Kabul is an understatement. I didn’t like it when it happened, but I remembered that I was the kid who shot someone with an arrow and still couldn’t be sure why. Except people change.
I like the idea of justice, even if I’m not always sure what it is supposed to be shaped like. With all that malleability, and the fact that I’m not a hero, I usually watch quietly. Usually.
When my buddy decided he was going to play the mirror game, and knocked an old man right off the side of the road and into a bus, I told him if he ever did it again I was reporting him up the chain of command.
Then I told him if we ever got stuck in the middle of a riot because of his recklessness, I was going to put the first bullet in his head.
He didn’t do it again. And I wasn’t a hero.
He just pissed me off because a) the old man wasn’t doing anything to him and b) he put my life in danger. Afghanistan is a motherfucking volatile place and I had no plans to die there because someone wanted to bip people in the back with their mirrors just to see if they could get away with it.
Antihereos:
Sounds like a person I am.
One day, I’ll tell you about the time I played with fire. Or the trigger pulling game.