I have to admit that this whole post could be construed as copying... my partner told me they were going to take on the 100-days-of-writing-about-writing thing from tumblr, in the form of their own blog, and here I am... but if you can't emulate the people you love most, I think you might be doing it wrong.
Preamble aside, here am I, thinking about writing-about-writing.
Ever since 90s TV taught me that sad girls with composition notebooks and ghostwriter-inspired flair pens were 'a thing', I've been a journal-er. In fact, I think I was doing it intrinsically before that, every time I was alone and quiet. Narration was -- and is -- a feature of my life.
It's also a feature of the stories I've written. In fact, I've been accused of writing stories wherein 90% of the action happens inside the main character's head... and personally, I'm okay with that. I have written a couple stories (mostly unpublished) wherein the main conflict would be categorized as 'man vs environment' by my 11th grade english teacher. (If you bristled at that 'man' thing, so did I, but it was 2002; no one felt obligated to include women in... well... anything... ) But besides those few outliers, my writing is mostly about the conflicts people have with themselves... the stories they tell when they can't face the facts... and the ways in which introspection leads to actualization.
I don't necessarily want to write into a pigeon-hole forever.
...but the fact that I'm writing this post -- writing about writing -- might mean I'm going to continue to do this in perpetuity. I alternate between loving and loathing that... which, to be honest, is exactly what my characters do, too.
Until next time...
Preamble aside, here am I, thinking about writing-about-writing.
Ever since 90s TV taught me that sad girls with composition notebooks and ghostwriter-inspired flair pens were 'a thing', I've been a journal-er. In fact, I think I was doing it intrinsically before that, every time I was alone and quiet. Narration was -- and is -- a feature of my life.
It's also a feature of the stories I've written. In fact, I've been accused of writing stories wherein 90% of the action happens inside the main character's head... and personally, I'm okay with that. I have written a couple stories (mostly unpublished) wherein the main conflict would be categorized as 'man vs environment' by my 11th grade english teacher. (If you bristled at that 'man' thing, so did I, but it was 2002; no one felt obligated to include women in... well... anything... ) But besides those few outliers, my writing is mostly about the conflicts people have with themselves... the stories they tell when they can't face the facts... and the ways in which introspection leads to actualization.
I don't necessarily want to write into a pigeon-hole forever.
...but the fact that I'm writing this post -- writing about writing -- might mean I'm going to continue to do this in perpetuity. I alternate between loving and loathing that... which, to be honest, is exactly what my characters do, too.
Until next time...
—
CB
P.S. Full disclosure: It is unlikely that I'll do this for 100 days in a row. ;)