How long does it take me to process real-life events into pieces of fiction?
None of my characters have ever been stroke victims or mothers of stroke victims, even though Buttercup’s stroke was more than eleven years ago. My characters are rarely married, but neither are they unmarried parents. Their fathers are always present in some fucked up kind of way, yet my own father is as loving and unfucked up as most good fathers.
Although I deeply appreciate the sympathies expressed here and other places, my final thoughts and remembrance of my grandmother will likely remain private. I don’t draw on my own experiences in a straight line. I do believe that, if you imagine my personal experiences as a three-year-old’s line drawing, my life would be represented in my stories by the seemingly inattention to detail, colored without regard to boundaries and lines, as well as the requisite orange cow grazing beneath the green sun spiked with pink crayon strokes.
My life is on the pages, but you are distracted by the signature boasting the backward “s”, the backward “n” and the funky capital E.
I don’t think I’ll ever write a fiction piece based on my experiences with Buttercup and Little Man. I’m completely uninterested in my life as it stands. I don’t mind the bowling and the grocery shopping and the holding of breath while checking my bank balance. But I prefer to color my characters with my internalized traits rather than the externalized. Even if I paid preschool tuition with proceeds from my porn film weekend festivals run from my living room. Good story, but not one I’d write, simply because that would be putting my life in paper and I just don’t want to do that.
But if you have some crazy shit going on and you’re not using the material, send it my way. Writing about the lives of others–I have no problem with that. You’ll barely recognize yourself once I get to the final draft, so you don’t have to worry about embarrassing your mother-in-law.
[one-word reader prompt: remembrance]
Next one-word prompt in comments. Don’t forget to leave me the tattered details of your life so I can exploit them to my personal benefit.
[three missing comments]
