How are authors "stuck between floors"?

Writing is a lot like being on the floor of a pool and looking up: you can see the real world above, but it’s beautifully distorted. Below the water’s rippled surface life is slow, magnified, willing to allow additional movement to create a complex still-life shot. As author, below the surface you have permission to create your own concept of time, transforming the monotonous to miraculous.

It’s easy for a writer to get stuck between her real life and the lives of those she creates. Because one is an extension of the other, it is impossible not to be touched by an aspect of something, someone you’ve personally created; likewise, your characters have been bestowed with unlimited knowledge of your own life experiences. How many times have you written your neurosis and tics into a character? At a basic level we are parrots, mimicking the environment around us. Because words become engrained in the psyche, I feel it most natural to have literary heroes and villains through which we model certain aspects of ourselves after. From an author’s standpoint, because I so readily and often feed from my character’s truths, I find myself eerily comfortable residing in the “between floors”. However, I think you’ll find that most authors have a perfect chair sitting in that subtle space: it’s well-worn, there’s a warm pipe on the side table, and A Little Night Music blossoms in the jasmine-studded air.

Introduction of Self as a Writer

A few months ago I had the thought, “I can write the next Great American Short Story.” And it felt so natural, like anything I wanted the world would serve up on a palm frond in Tahiti. Pina Coladas. Good Rum. The way life should fall into place…. Paradise. Why not? I work hard for the money, Donna. Do I not believe my human soul is destined to shine bright and loud because I know I see the world differently? I can bring that. I have no doubt that what I see, no one else does. We each have the capacity to capture our own experiences of existence, but…I’m different. You’ve got to believe me – I really am.

I Love Life.

I am achingly in love with every molecule, every whisper, every 4:30 pm Autumn sunset, every conversation with my mother (and conversations with my mother consist of raising the yellow flag 15 minutes in advance to signal my impending exit because that’s just how long it’s going to take her to get off the phone.) I love it all so much that I will most certainly die if I don’t put pen to paper and share these quirky explosions of the ordinary with the rest of the world. My love affair with writing is a lifelong one, and even if no one ever makes a freakin’ peep in regards to what I have to say - Who. Cares?

Well, okay, I do - I’m a writer. I may not be the world’s most audible person, but in my head you cannot shut me up. You cannot put your hand over my pen and tell me no. My mind is a constant flood of observations and single-sentence song lyrics. Plots and theories and adjectives and women. Men. Folded into the mix are lusty sex scenes and an ever-present sound-track (right now? The Indiana Jones theme song. Yes, yes, John Williams, of course, brilliant stuff, but why today? Why??) When I ask myself why I write, I get all giddy in that space that houses my heart and lungs. Bliss to the nth power. What else feels as sexy as a really fine pen dragging deliciously against the faint scratchiness of good paper? The physical act of writing feels so damn good, so damn right. I adore the way my mind enunciates the longer words and phrases, measuring the syllabic weight of each like the most intoxicatingly exquisite mouthful of dark chocolate I’ve ever held fast against my tongue.

Writing is placing the empty Styrofoam cup under the faucet and filling it to the brim with inflections and syntax, the resulting marriage of words and space flipping on its back and transforming into this, this pen-to-paper love affair. Words are liquid gold; they fill my mouth and spill down my chin and try as I might I will never catch everything, but if I’m passionate – and I AM PASSIONATE – I will catch the good stuff. The really good stuff comes later when least expected: the writing equivalent of finding – on the poorest of poor days - $20 bucks in your jacket pocket. It’s that kind of good. The good that feels lucky, gives the hope that maybe, just maybe, hell – YES! the Universe looks out for ME, goddammit! These types of epiphanies usually sustain me for a week or so, then it’s back to movin’ and shakin’ and bringin’ Life’s everything up to the surface to pluck from.

But essentially writing is what it is, and, like writing, the songs, the thoughts – solid gold. *tink tink* Why? I don’t know. I just know.

Starting, Part 2

I'm taking a Writing Fiction class this summer so I thought it would be the perfect opportunity to post my projects. =) Just because...I feel like it. lol

But seriously, I think it will be important for me to post my work. Personal validation is a fabulous thing. Thanks for listening!