I understand what you're talking about. I submit stories to magazines, and to me, the self who sends them off is like a star in the sky, because by the time the editors read my work and judge it, I'm not the person who wrote the piece anymore. That person is me, but an outdated version of myself. Worse still, some of my older work I want to either throw away or overhaul, because otherwise it doesn't reflect how I think or write now, in the present. Writing in this sense gets a bit sisyphean, and it makes me feel a little crazy. As for how I think, that too is a trail of snakeskins I leave behind me. The process of me becoming 'the definitive me' will never finish.
This is an absolutely fabulous essay. A beautiful expression of the shifting sensibilities of a writer. Or even, a writer's search for truth (or some version of it).
Where do you stand on the issue of unreliable anecdotal writing? Is misdirection and shrewdly-applied exaggeration worth elevating a story? Or is it narrative sin?
I wrote this line yesterday: “I write what interests me, not what I believe.” A lot of what you wrote is similar to a digression I wrote in my forthcoming essay. Eerie.
I understand what you're talking about. I submit stories to magazines, and to me, the self who sends them off is like a star in the sky, because by the time the editors read my work and judge it, I'm not the person who wrote the piece anymore. That person is me, but an outdated version of myself. Worse still, some of my older work I want to either throw away or overhaul, because otherwise it doesn't reflect how I think or write now, in the present. Writing in this sense gets a bit sisyphean, and it makes me feel a little crazy. As for how I think, that too is a trail of snakeskins I leave behind me. The process of me becoming 'the definitive me' will never finish.
This is an absolutely fabulous essay. A beautiful expression of the shifting sensibilities of a writer. Or even, a writer's search for truth (or some version of it).
Where do you stand on the issue of unreliable anecdotal writing? Is misdirection and shrewdly-applied exaggeration worth elevating a story? Or is it narrative sin?
I wrote this line yesterday: “I write what interests me, not what I believe.” A lot of what you wrote is similar to a digression I wrote in my forthcoming essay. Eerie.
It is usually hard for writers to borrow money but very easy to borrow ideas, lines, quotes, paraphrased whole paragraphs and lie like a rug