Summer of Death (flashback)
A word of advice to those who would follow in my footsteps,
or
'SEMANTICS ARE A BAD IDEA WHEN YOU ARE TALKING
ABOUT YOUR FRIEND WHO JUST KILLED HIMSELF'
"What happened to the story?" Dare asks.
He is playing with my hair, which is turning his hands blue. My hand are always blue. Anna says my fingernails look like those of dead people, which is terribly morbid considering how many dead people occupy my life right now. Five? Six? I don't want to think about it.
"You just mangled it. The idea-"
"Look, just shut the hell up. I already feel plenty bad about myself."
"The idea is great," he says, "what you you've been talking about... You vision... It's captivating. Hearing you talk about it made me excited to read it-"
"I don't want to talk about it. Maybe I'm just a bad writer. Maybe stupid people will like it... But I did accomplish what I was going for, I mean, you're pissed off at me, right? Well, that was the idea, you knew that from the start. I win!"
I laugh nervously.
"I'm not pissed off for the right reasons. I never got attached to the characters, so when they died it was just sort of anti-climactic."
QUICK! Rationalize! You can't beat a writer at their own game, and I'm not a writer like Dare is. I'm a meandering storyteller who can't tell her ass from her elbow when it comes to grammar, and I'm beginning to think I ought to just stick to writing in the first person, because he's right- I can't develop a character for shit.
"Life is sort of anti-climactic, doncha think? It's a commentary on life... Though I guess you're right, and if I want to write 'commentaries on life' I ought to just stick to that and not try to write bad fiction."
or
'SEMANTICS ARE A BAD IDEA WHEN YOU ARE TALKING
ABOUT YOUR FRIEND WHO JUST KILLED HIMSELF'
"What happened to the story?" Dare asks.
He is playing with my hair, which is turning his hands blue. My hand are always blue. Anna says my fingernails look like those of dead people, which is terribly morbid considering how many dead people occupy my life right now. Five? Six? I don't want to think about it.
"You just mangled it. The idea-"
"Look, just shut the hell up. I already feel plenty bad about myself."
"The idea is great," he says, "what you you've been talking about... You vision... It's captivating. Hearing you talk about it made me excited to read it-"
"I don't want to talk about it. Maybe I'm just a bad writer. Maybe stupid people will like it... But I did accomplish what I was going for, I mean, you're pissed off at me, right? Well, that was the idea, you knew that from the start. I win!"
I laugh nervously.
"I'm not pissed off for the right reasons. I never got attached to the characters, so when they died it was just sort of anti-climactic."
QUICK! Rationalize! You can't beat a writer at their own game, and I'm not a writer like Dare is. I'm a meandering storyteller who can't tell her ass from her elbow when it comes to grammar, and I'm beginning to think I ought to just stick to writing in the first person, because he's right- I can't develop a character for shit.
"Life is sort of anti-climactic, doncha think? It's a commentary on life... Though I guess you're right, and if I want to write 'commentaries on life' I ought to just stick to that and not try to write bad fiction."