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| Recall this great film? |
This will be brief. I'm in the midst of fine tuning all the recent short stories and putting them into an ms. As I reread them, I'm further convinced of their worth. I do worry that certain editors may not catch onto one of my stylistic mannerisms. I'm just realizing it myself. Life, you know, is not like a Jamesian short story or a classical idea of art that requires all elements in a creative piece contribute to a final sense of meaning. Many writers strive for such an effect. I loved James' tales, but after a time of reading them and his style, I said, "Enough. I get it."
My stories include disparate elements. My characters might one moment be feeling sad about something and laughing about something else in another moment. Like in real life. Thus I am not able to achieve that classical ideal of art as I first encountered it as I pursued my degrees in English and Creative Writing. I suppose such disparity might be allowed in a long piece while not being appreciated in very short fiction which most of my pieces are. But it feels calming to be back at work after an uncomfortable time of doubt.
Yesterday I finished the 7th rewrite of The Porn Writer, but the doubts are back, a swarm of squids on the sea floor of my imagination. Today I'm reading at the Black Rock on 164th Avenue, Vancouver. Twelve ounces of soy chai for $3.75. At Starbucks it's $4.39. I found a shiny dime on the floor just now. I'm making the mistake of reading Plimpton's book on Truman Capote: in which various friends, enemies, acquaintances and detractors recall his turbulent career. If you read it you'll conclude that you must be alcoholic or bat shit crazy to be creative. It's a picture of how I tried to behave and talk during my drinking years. I thought craziness equated to genius. At least two women in my past told me that the way I used language in those days was a sign of a mentally unbalanced mind. A psychologist who was leading a weekend group encounter session in the Huckleberry Mountains north of Spokane once told me I had a "quicksilver mind". I was quite proud of that, then he asked me if I was there to learn something. When I said, "Yes," he asked me to shut up and listen to what the others had to say. I kid you not, I fell over on my side and went immediately to sleep. That first session he'd put out bottles of wine to loosen us up. I was quickly very loose. The second time I showed up I'd quit drinking. During a walk down a mountain road, the psychologist told me he hadn't liked me very much that first weekend. He said I was now a very different person. I was, but for all my trying to behave like a creative person [my output is immense], I'm 78 [79 on October 20] and have little financial or public acclaim for my efforts. Sometimes I wish I could grasp even a fraction of the way my mind shot between metaphors and linked them in mad clusters of language when I drank. I can't even come close.
