Three nights ago, when I was lying in bed sleepless from said lung-puking, I thought of this great post to write about women authors who commit suicide. I thought it all out in my head, word for word. What I should have done was got my lazy ass out of bed and wrote it down, but I'm an idiot to the nth degree so now I can't remember a word of it. Apparently Winnipeg is prone to inducing amnesia now too.
So I'll try my best to live up to the title.
I was watching The Hours the other day when it dawned on me that most really good, awe-inspiring writers are completely off their rockers: Virginia Woolf; Sylvia Plath; Anne Sexton; Ernest Hemingway. They were so immured in their art that nothing else mattered. And when they couldn't produce to their own satisfaction, they offed themselves.
This is bad news for me and my writing. I'm not mad (well, citrusboy says I am, but what does he know) and I don't feel a great urge to do away with myself. To be so dedicated to your writing is amazing to me. I just don't feel it. I write trash, stupid little stories full of colloquialisms, while these great writers wrote, in such seductive language, about their tortured souls, their lives on the page for anyone to see.
So I got kind of depressed about that. But really, what sense is there in being depressed about the fact that you're not clinically depressed. Sounds insane. Maybe I'm on to something here. Or not.
Maybe I need to get some angst. See a therapist. Make stuff up. Pretend I hear voices. I'm not saying I want to kill myself, but does pen to paper really require one to suffer from nervous breakdowns and incurable depression in order to write really really well?
I guess I'll always be mediocre - unless I stick my head in an oven. Does that even work with electric ovens?
So I'll try my best to live up to the title.
I was watching The Hours the other day when it dawned on me that most really good, awe-inspiring writers are completely off their rockers: Virginia Woolf; Sylvia Plath; Anne Sexton; Ernest Hemingway. They were so immured in their art that nothing else mattered. And when they couldn't produce to their own satisfaction, they offed themselves.
This is bad news for me and my writing. I'm not mad (well, citrusboy says I am, but what does he know) and I don't feel a great urge to do away with myself. To be so dedicated to your writing is amazing to me. I just don't feel it. I write trash, stupid little stories full of colloquialisms, while these great writers wrote, in such seductive language, about their tortured souls, their lives on the page for anyone to see.
So I got kind of depressed about that. But really, what sense is there in being depressed about the fact that you're not clinically depressed. Sounds insane. Maybe I'm on to something here. Or not.
Maybe I need to get some angst. See a therapist. Make stuff up. Pretend I hear voices. I'm not saying I want to kill myself, but does pen to paper really require one to suffer from nervous breakdowns and incurable depression in order to write really really well?
I guess I'll always be mediocre - unless I stick my head in an oven. Does that even work with electric ovens?
3 comments:
Well. Your mom does make you pretty insane...
Hmm. That's true. Maybe I can revel in the angst that is my mother.
Ooo, that's a GREAT idea. I shall forever live in fear of mediocre writing, the pain of it burning me up inside, thus ensuring a life of brilliant writing. Yes, indeed. Sounds like a plan, man!
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