For many years, I avoided examining certain parts of my past too closely. Looking forward was much more important, and there was more than a bit in the past I wished to leave far behind me. Then I started writing this blog, and my past became a mine, a place I could dig into for material.
I got my miner’s lamp out and began exploring the darker recesses of my history. There were times on the road. Performing in New York’s Greenwich Village, and crazy times on the backside of Boston’s Beacon Hill.
Then there were and are places I avoid going to. I avoid them partially because they’re dark and messy. But also, because there are things I have no right to expose about other people.
Sometimes, there is more than a bit of frustration about having to find a fictional way around things. And other times, created characters are clamoring for a sequel to the story they appeared in two years ago. I remember writers years ago in the Cafe Rienzi telling me how much and so a character was clamoring to get out and wouldn’t take no for an answer. I thought they were making it up.
Years ago, a professor at Boston University tried to explain that sometimes writing is an exploration and other times a compulsion. He hurried to add, with wry good humor, that this did not mean it was good just because it was inspired. He was an author himself, and I am only now beginning to understand what he meant.
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People form a lot of theories about writing as ways to explain the challenges of their personal experiences trying to tell a story. It’s interesting to encounter them. I don’t really have any theories which is possibly a good thing (for me). There are stories I will not tell, though beyond the facts and the reason isn’t connected much to writing or even protecting the privacy of someone as much as “That was enough. No more.” So…my blog readers know there was an Evil X, that my brother and mother were drunks, that my dad had MS and died young, that my first marriage was awful. There are some really “good” stories in there that I will never ever write. I don’t want to give those “episodes” more space in my brain in some cases because the sadness is truly unutterable.
I understand your point of view. It can be impossible sometimes to seperate the good from the bad. Or in sepeating and talking about the good you invite your mind to revisit some really evil shit you’d prefer to never think of again.
But, oooohhhh, revenge can be sweet!!!!! I turned that crotchety old asshole of a father-in-law into a bumbling fool, and it feels soooooooo good!
I wish I could do something similar to dear old mom… 🤣
You’ll never know if you don’t try. I smile everytime I write a story with the old coot in it. He’d hatre every single word passionately.
My mom is a character in one of my novels. That’s all she’s getting…🤣
Ahhh…punishment by withholding attention…kinky!
Shhhh….
🤣