The Wisdom of a Navel Will Set You Free...
In telling a story, unique organization always grabs me. Though there is always a fine line between unique and gimmicky.
Someone was recently telling me about a book by Nick Hornby (who I am not generally all that fond of, but...) called The Polysyllabic Spree that is essentially a memoir of books bought, books actually read, books abandoned halfway. It is organized as a monthly memoir of the proclivities, habits, and indulgences of a reader, and manages to fold in additional personal details along the way. Unique organization. Not gimmicky.
Maybe we are getting mired in the details (the symptoms?) of what is a compelling story. A compelling story is one that captures a feeling that its reader can share, and the words applied to paper are such, that they end up joining the reader and writer in this mutual exploration of this particular feeling.
So being honest in your writing is probably not about being entirely soul baring, but probably just honest enough. Honest enough that you can get close enough to that feeling you are trying to capture and to hold on to it.
To be wholly and entirely honest with oneself and the world is a lovely aspiration, but the more I think of it, the more I think it is an impossibility. Perception is reality. And if that is the case, then honesty is what we make of it. Yes?
Oh, I know. I should be getting woozy about now for spending so much time up here on my high horse.
I know nothing about anything, but I do know that I like to read things I relate to, and I read a lot of different things about people in all sorts of circumstances and there has to be a reason I like them. So I am assuming I must recognize something of myself in all of them. Isn't that why Shakespeare's works are so timeless?
I love Augusten Burroughs. His life is completely the opposite of mine, and yet his inability to harness his feeling and the destructive behaviors they engendered strike a chord with me on a fuindamental level.
Okay, seriously. Stopping now.
Wish I had a burro to lend....
Someone was recently telling me about a book by Nick Hornby (who I am not generally all that fond of, but...) called The Polysyllabic Spree that is essentially a memoir of books bought, books actually read, books abandoned halfway. It is organized as a monthly memoir of the proclivities, habits, and indulgences of a reader, and manages to fold in additional personal details along the way. Unique organization. Not gimmicky.
Maybe we are getting mired in the details (the symptoms?) of what is a compelling story. A compelling story is one that captures a feeling that its reader can share, and the words applied to paper are such, that they end up joining the reader and writer in this mutual exploration of this particular feeling.
So being honest in your writing is probably not about being entirely soul baring, but probably just honest enough. Honest enough that you can get close enough to that feeling you are trying to capture and to hold on to it.
To be wholly and entirely honest with oneself and the world is a lovely aspiration, but the more I think of it, the more I think it is an impossibility. Perception is reality. And if that is the case, then honesty is what we make of it. Yes?
Oh, I know. I should be getting woozy about now for spending so much time up here on my high horse.
I know nothing about anything, but I do know that I like to read things I relate to, and I read a lot of different things about people in all sorts of circumstances and there has to be a reason I like them. So I am assuming I must recognize something of myself in all of them. Isn't that why Shakespeare's works are so timeless?
I love Augusten Burroughs. His life is completely the opposite of mine, and yet his inability to harness his feeling and the destructive behaviors they engendered strike a chord with me on a fuindamental level.
Okay, seriously. Stopping now.
Wish I had a burro to lend....
posted by CLC at
5:09 PM
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