I wrote today, for the first time in months. I wrote for fifteen minutes and was exhausted. Maybe I need to build up stamina? Today I also finished organizing all my old writing. I now have most of it contained in a portable, blue file, with some old old old stuff in a file in deep storage 'cause I'm NEVER going to let anyone see it.
I'm reading "Living by Fiction" by Annie Dillard. It's dense, but good. She's got me thinking again about something I've thought much about, and that is - why has so much modern fiction lost real, heart-pounding, adventure? So many books after WWI are about the mind, perspective, time, space, and relativity. I know that is where our society has been going, so our art reflects that, but what happened to great stories? You can find them, still, in best sellers like John Grisham novels and even the Harry Potter books. But these aren't considered real literature. I'm drawn to the idea of writing thrilling adventure stories, and striving to make them into literature. But here's something interesting - I'm interested in that idea for novels, but not short stories. Short fiction I want to be nine pages of quantum physics wrapped in a metaphor of chinese food and calendars. The more modern the better. It probably says something about my attention span more than anything.
Anyway, back to my favorite William Stafford quote: "If you can't write, lower your standards." Since I haven't been writing I'm going to knock back the daily thirty minutes I've been scheduling myself for to fifteen minutes. Work up from there. Hey, it's better than nothing!
(photo of john grisham)
No comments:
Post a Comment