Writing

I've stepped back into fiction.

I think most people have a few dreams floating around in their heads, and most of those people think they know what the realization of those dreams should look like. But sometimes there's a disconnect between what form people think their dreams should take and what they actually want to do.

Take me. For a long time, I wasn't writing any fiction. I had this idea that I should be writing some big important novel, or at least some wonderfully popular, dreary chick lit. Isn't that what female novelists do? Take all the details of their own lives, from the mundane to the terrifying, change all the names, throw everything into a blender and pop out something poignant and terribly tragic?

I also had this thing about plot. Like, "I don't do plot." Yet everything needs to be figured out before we start, because otherwise we'll end up with really disappointing Stephen King endings, and disappointing endings are not permitted in important novels or dreary chick lit. Everything's supposed to click together like a jigsaw puzzle, all at the appropriate time, like an M. Night Shyamalan movie. So if you don't know the ending you can't possibly even start.

You can see all the double binds forming here, can't you?

Anyway, I decided to approach the question another way. Maybe, instead of forcing myself to write something that is so painfully boring, maybe I should think a bit about what I like to read. I could just write something like that, just to get warmed up a bit. So what do I like to read? Suspense, science fiction, books with lots of humor and a light tone. Quick easy reads with a nugget of beauty in them, and absolutely no pretense. Because nothing makes me put a book down faster than an author who senses his or her own importance. Ah ha.

On Sunday, I decided I would start writing a little bit every day. Nothing special - writing for the trash. Three double spaced pages of honest to goodness story. Sunday was HARD. I struggled like crazy to give birth to those three pages. Then, last night, I had a really weird dream. Not scary-weird, just "what the hell was that?" weird. So I kind of wrote around that. And it was easier.

So here's to fiction. Maybe my garbage will arrange itself into something poignant, or not. That's okay. At least now I might be getting somewhere.