On the writing end…

The Blood Gowns are soaking right now!

An unidentified dynasty has evolved into a very demanding disaster they have forged onto the front lines, I must appease them!

And my “Story” of 88 is still smoldering… I say story-it was dictated un-“Characteristic!”  I do not write the “formula”, I’ve discovered. 

I don’t really follow a program.   I don’t go by the “plotted points, the path to follow, the crumbs to the conclusion…”

Ask me for a character, I will give you a dozen.  And you will decide which one  to like and follow and love.  I won’t make that call for you – well not so blatantly!  I don’t follow a view – I follow a story.  What is it you all want to hear, really?  A story!  Gossip!  This and this and that, and who and whom and – all of it!  A story!

…I had no clue that was… “Wrong”?

🙂

Is why I smile.  It was recognized.  Of course it was unhappily recognized, but it was recognized.  For exactly what I had wanted.  “I was not sure who to follow,” I was ‘instructed’.   And I reread it.  And sat back… And laughed.  “I don’t want you to know who to follow,” I wanted to write back, and what I tell everyone else, “Follow who you feel to follow.  That speaks so much more, I think.  In the end, to be sure, you will definitely understand my sentimental conclusion-agree with it or not, yes?  It will mean something to you!”

Bungle has many times asked me, (of course in making his point!), “Can you describe how it is you write?”

“How?” I would snort at him.  “We all write the same!”

“No,” he would wisely smile at me (which always makes me mad), “How is it you write.  I am not asking how they write.”

“I’m no damn different!” I would begin to argue.

“You are the biggest advocate of style, personalization, ‘one is what one writes, feels, projects!  Are you discrediting your own theory?”

“Well…”

“Do you tell a story or invent a character?”

“Both, many-what?”

“Are you cookie-cutter?”

“!!”

‘It isn’t the same, is it?”

“No.”

“[And] Is it bad?

“I don’t think so.”

“Understand yet why I say you have to explain yourself?”

It’s then my turn to sagely smile.  “My Darling!  It’s about money!  I have to be plotted!”

😉

I say that mildly.  Teasing, even!  Because I don’t honestly ever say that.  I laugh and say, “It’s a business.  It’s about what works, and why not?  That is a shaky industry, print.  They’re doing what they need to do to keep a condo.”

No… After that dissection I at first was confused by, I now realize was accurate, but not… Badly.

I’m a story teller.  Not a character stalker. 

I’ll give you a handful of them.  Like who you will, follow who you will… But I will give the ones I prefer their justice, and I will destroy the ones I deem deserving.  It’s just that they are all twisted up in one overall idea and notion, and it is never so cut and dried. 

Well, is it ever?  It’s that grey area that always fascinates me.  So you get your character – I always want the other faces.  The other sides.  The other “views”.  Introduce my nemesis, what I think is my nemesis, what I will reluctantly begin to understand! – but never tie me down to one.  “Story”.  Which is not, of course, The Formula. 

Hmm.

I can see why Bungle said what he did.  It made perfect sense to me.

You know which writers I love to read work by?

The ones that weren’t put into a college.  Or a program.  Or an idea.  Or a … Thing.

I like the ones that don’t know shit about the “industry” that give me something honest and raw and unpublished and most always clumsy.

It’s real, and raw and I can always see the thoughts, the process, the “person”.  Not a character.  The Writer.  Their Story.

I see them.  Which is really what I in the end appreciate.