Aspirations of Writing

Nothing good happens inside my head. I tear my friends and loved ones down to distance them from myself, I rip myself to shreds, and I make plans that have no chance of working out so I can rake myself over the coals later for not following through on them.

Decent things happen here, on formerly blank pages and screens. Contrary to the recommended wisdom, I’ve actually enjoyed stories I’ve written. I think that if you write often, you see the flaws in past works. If you write sporadically, you see something finished and have the odd feeling of being envious of yourself.

I’ve been trying to formulate a plan to come back here for a while. I’ve been trying to figure out what to write. Not just on this blog, but in general. What do I want to write? When will I write? How will I write?

Other people fantasize about writing The Great American Novel. I’m just after The Great American Life Regiment, where everything is safely in its place on the clock, and I Do It All, including write. But it turns out that there is no brilliance rattling around up here in my head. I don’t have enough knowledge, experience, or intuition to formulate a plan, let alone the plan.

But some things have made their way out on here, in this space, that I do like. Things I couldn’t have planned. Things that got their genesis in a writing prompt, or a stray idea, or the commitment to fifteen minutes a day of writing and the driving motivation of “Fuck, I have to put SOMETHING here.”

I don’t know if I want to write, what I want to write, when I want to write, or how I want to write. But I think there’s something to be found here, even if it’s the end of a story rather than the beginning of one. If I ended a post with “And now I know, writing is not for me,” and I felt confident in those words, I’d be happy.

by Nick Mercurio

Run. Run fast. Run far. Run wide. Don’t stop running. Don’t fucking stop running. They are faster. They are stronger. They have more stamina and better tracking skills than you. There is nothing to do but run, hide, and try to drink more liquid than you piss away out of fear. 

But you will not stand and die. You will not quit. You will not hesitate. You will not make their job easier. You will not be easy prey.

It was the sound. Always the sound. She had long since learned not to see the violence, like commuters in New York City learn to pretend the homeless simply aren’t there. But she had never learned how to relegate the sound to background noise. It had never faded, never blended into the general din. Instead, it ripped through anything and everything else in existence, seemingly making its way straight to her. She had tried plugging her ears. She had saved for months to buy an old CD player, and a few weeks more for headphones. But the music did what the sounds of screams and bludgeons had never achieved—it had faded, and quickly left her alone again with the suffocating noise. 

Without silence, she could carve out no place for just herself. She felt as though she were drowning, and began to lose her sense of who she was. She eventually discovered that the only way to drown out the screams was to scream louder. But the thought of adding to the noise horrified her more than drowning in it. 

It was a canvas for ideas and a landscape of indecision. It was thrilling and terrifying in the same breath.

He felt that it hated him. He knew that he hated it. Every day it challenged him to be his best self. And every single day he came up wanting. Somehow his ideas—perfect in his head—turned to shit as soon as they landed on it. His stunning epic turned into mundane garbage. 

The blank page was poison to ideas, yet it was the only place they could become solid, tangible, real. But they also became flawed. So very, very flawed. He didn’t know how they became so flawed. 

When they lived with him in the realm of his imagination, they were magic, so incredible he would stake his life on them. But when his ideas were on the page he didn’t recognize them. They embarrassed him, and he wanted nothing to do with them. 

After a time, he stopped chasing ideas and instead started chasing them away. Because if he followed them long enough, they tried to make their way to the blank page. 

“'What happened?' What do you mean 'what happened?' And why the hell do you sound so accusatory?”

“Cool it! I'm not so much accusatory as you are defensive. What the hell happened?”

“How about 'Are you alright?' Why don't you take that one for a spin?”

“Listen asshole, clearly you're alright. Let's go through the checklist: Are you visibly wounded? NO. Are there a set of metal bars between us? NO. And I don't know if you saw something emotionally scarring, but the way you're acting you damn well better have.”

“Alright. Alright! I got picked up.”

“What do you mean?”

“I got arrested. I did drugs—one time, one fucking time in the park!—and I got arrested for it.”

“Marcus, what the hell were you thinking?”

“I was thinking--”

“Trick question. Clearly you weren't thinking. At all.”

“Dammit! Let me talk! I was thinking that I'm tired of being 'the good kid.' Jesus I am. I'm goddamn fried. And I'm pissed off.”

“About what?”

“About everything! About having my craziest story from high school be that time I pulled an all nighter before a big exam. About the thought of me as more than a friend not even crossing your mind because I am the most boring person in an excruciatingly boring town. I'm fucking bored. And I have nothing to show for my time on this shitty planet except the wonderful possibility of being able to one day pay a ridiculously exorbitant price for college—and now I don't even have that! I'm sure I have some sort of record.”

“First of all, relax, you don't. First time possession of less than 25 grams is just a fine in NY. Trust me.”

“How do you know it was pot?”

“Because what else is it gonna be? We live in bumble fuck. You didn't snort cocaine. Second of all, we're glossing over the relationship thing for the moment because, well frankly, because you're wrong, but I don't feel like talking about it right now. Third, cut the shit. You made up a lovely, poetic, heart-wrenching tale about poor little you. You're a fucking idiot. You feel boring? Go to a party. Find something awesome to do in the City and go there. Ask someone out instead of writing your own personal Shakespearean tragedy in your head. Don't go to the park with whatever moron you can find and get high.”

“...”

2 parts bad day

3 parts desperation

1 part ability

5 parts tunnel vision

6 parts fear

A pinch of righteousness

Put it all in a container large enough to do some damage.

William Gibson

"William Gibson, The Art of Fiction No. 211"

Interviewed by David Wallace-Wells