Writing Over the Wound

Artists suffer. Hell, all of us suffer. Isn’t it Plato who said, “Be kind for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle”?
Recently, I experienced a tough hurt, the kind that aches and gathers in a dull pool of trapped tears, weighing me down. The kind only a loved one can inflict. And in my desire to free those tears, to pierce the pain, I thought of writing about what happened.
But the problem is a living hurt where loved ones are involved doesn’t generally benefit from public airing. (Seems an inflamed wound would be that much worse.) I could write for myself, but that’s never how I write. It’s analogous to unshed tears. Or I could write now, save the product until everyone involved but me was dead, and then air it. But that’s a roll of the dice.
So I thought about writing over the wound instead of mucking about in it. Each sentence of something productive, in some work that matters to me might be a stitch, a tiny closure , which in multitudes would cover the wound. It’s not going away. But it might just close and form one of those really cool scars that make people ask if I climbed Mt. Everest and slipped, rather than just lived the mundane life of humans who hurt one another.

The Writer as Reader: No Escape

Like most writers, I started out as a voracious reader. Not the kid at the family dinner table repeatedly told to put the book away–that was my sister. I came to my passion for reading much later. As a single mom with three kids and two jobs, reading fiction became my escape from too many responsibilities, a daily mini-vacation. I was reading up to three novels a week, and gravitated increasingly to mystery and fantasy, widening the gap between my life as reader and my real life.
But when I began my own manuscript, reading took on a new and ominous slant.

Books now fall into three categories for me:

1. Books I Internally Edit
As a daily fiction writer, I am in constant write or rewrite mode on my own work. I find this transfers to all written text. Phrases that I perceive as cliched or repetitive jump out at me in books that, in the past, I would have found entertaining or interesting.
Reading these books now tires me.

2. Books I Would Emulate, If Only I could
Then there are the books that are in a style that I admire, but could never employ. For example, I love hard-boiled noir. It is among my favorite styles of writing, but it is not my voice and never will be.
Reading these books now makes me feel inadequate.

3. Books I Aspire To
Then there are the books by accomplished writers, beautifully written, in a style similar enough to mine that I can hope to get there someday. These include Kate Atkinson’s Jackson Brodie series (www.kateatkinson.co.uk) and Cynthia Harrod-Eagles’ Bill Slider mysteries (www.cynthiaharrodeagles.com).
Reading these books inspires me, but leads me towards my work, not away from it.

In short, the conversion from reader to writer, and back to reader again, has not been an easy one for me. Perhaps I need to accept that reading has become part of my creative process, and that I now need new, totally separate escapes.
Hang-gliding, anyone?

Channeling Eric Stone: Meanderings

Although I have written a blog for sometime in my “day job”, I have found it difficult to start one as an aspiring author. While I feel as though I have interesting things to share, they span the spectrum in substance from soft musings to hard facts, and in content from writing (and being a writer), to politics, art and even parenting. This apparent lack of cohesiveness has been enough to keep me from putting pen to paper (or more accurately fingers to keyboard, not a graceful expression), until I met Eric Stone at the Sisters in Crime California Crimewriters Conference in Pasadena last month. I attended a terrific workshop by Eric, and based on that experience, checked out his website (www.ericstone.com). His blog is titled “Meanderings”, and Eric introduces it by noting that
he writes “about everything from politics to sex; art to economics; sports to food; high-brow (well, more middle really) to low-brow…”
I enjoy his blog a great deal, and I figure if Eric can get away with it, why can’t I? So please stay tuned for my meanderings. I appreciate all comments, especially if you let me know which posts resonate and which ones aren’t worth the paper (screen) they are written on.
Cheers,
Kris