What are you writing?
- Thread starter luka
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mistersloane
heavy heavy monster sound
Dr Who is a cult that makes you gay.
Mr. Tea
Let's Talk About Ceps
A new part of a new 3-part story!
Here you go - it's called (yeah, yeah) 'The Dulwich Horror' after an experience I had there recently with another Dissensus regular. It's an attempt to synthesise psychedelia, Lovecraft, local London folklore, psychogeography and all that pretentious twaddle I love so much. Here goes, anyway:
(Edit: sorry, it's incredibly egotistical to go pasting huge swathes of writing into a page here when any interested reader could just go to the blog in my sig, so please do so if it pleases you. Note that the part order may be a bit cocked up. Comment welcome, as usual. Thanks.)
Here you go - it's called (yeah, yeah) 'The Dulwich Horror' after an experience I had there recently with another Dissensus regular. It's an attempt to synthesise psychedelia, Lovecraft, local London folklore, psychogeography and all that pretentious twaddle I love so much. Here goes, anyway:
(Edit: sorry, it's incredibly egotistical to go pasting huge swathes of writing into a page here when any interested reader could just go to the blog in my sig, so please do so if it pleases you. Note that the part order may be a bit cocked up. Comment welcome, as usual. Thanks.)
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slim jenkins
El Hombre Invisible
I'm unqualified to comment on the text, but I like the sound poem.
maybe twenty thousand?
slowtrain
Well-known member
I think when it can be printed as its own little thing, as opposed to being collected with other stories.
craner
Beast of Burden
I've forgotten how to write. It takes me hours to work out how to write an opening and hours to disentangle paragraphs, and then I keep grasping all the wrong words and having lexographic fits like Flaubert. It's a shame, because I've realised recently that the only thing I really, really need to do in my life, the only thing that really helps me make sense of things or mitigates the other acres of misery, the only real, actual medication I have, is writing. And I can't do it!
To be honest (and this is just me), I find I get very preoccupied with the form and the exact wordings of sentences when I'm not really happy with the subject matter. Sometimes I can force myself through. But when I get the subject matter right (what's happening, where it's happening), when that feels right at least, then I tend to forget about the intricacies of the words. This may have no bearing on what you said, but I thought I'd throw it out there.
craner
Beast of Burden
And the other great difficulty is motivation. I'm not pure at all; I'm more productive writing for an audience I'm aware exists, or cares one way or the other, and even more so if there is some other motivating factor, like lust or money. That's largely why I'm drawn to the corrupt, interventionist, exhibitionist world of journalism and magazines, and why I have no energy or will to produce poems or extended works of fiction. I could probably aspire to Truman Capote-style fragments, at best -- and I would be very happy with that, certainly. I am full of good ideas at the moment, and a yearning to act on them -- but that actual act is difficult, and then a failure. It's frustrating actually. I might force some things out, whether I'm happy with them or not, and see what I have produced at the end of the year.
slowtrain
Well-known member
Yeah I get the same problem - terrified of writing because i'm afraid that when i sit down to do some it'll be shite.
I found this interview with Fran Lebowitz a joy to read on that front though.
http://www.theparisreview.org/interviews/1931/a-humorist-at-work-fran-lebowitz
I completely (well, largely) agree with her, and it is really good to get a perspective on how someone else approaches their work.
I found this interview with Fran Lebowitz a joy to read on that front though.
http://www.theparisreview.org/interviews/1931/a-humorist-at-work-fran-lebowitz
I completely (well, largely) agree with her, and it is really good to get a perspective on how someone else approaches their work.
slim jenkins
El Hombre Invisible
I hear you, loud and clear. Although I find music to be good medication too. Such is the struggle, as always has been and always will be, unless you're writing by formula that's a proven success.
I was reading about Georges Simonen the other day - he knocked out hundreds of novels, by formula, yet was capable of great things too. Mickey Spillaine, another knock 'em out merchant. But the pulp boys were that kind of breed.
I gave up trying to write a 'proper' novel a couple of years ago, not only because of what I perceived to be my 'failings', but through complete disillusionment with the standard form. Even 'bad' novels take so much energy and determination to finish - as Lawrence Block said, any fool can write a poem, but it takes a special kind of fool to write a novel.
Perhaps it the post-modern dilemma...if you're an adventurous spirit, writing in order to reach a special place, you're burdened by the 'anxiety of influence' and damned to eternal frustration. But if you feel the desire, you've got to keep on trying anyway.