#whyiwrite

[kleenexwoman]

--get money, fuck bitches
--beats a real job
--if I have to have all this crap floating around in my head THEN SO DO YOU
--i'm good at it so it gets me attention. it's not like i can sing or play football

epicycles alerted me to the presence of this "why i write" thing on bbcwritersroom on twitter. (btw, I only noticed you retweeted me after I deleted the tweet 'cause I thought I screwed it up. SORRY) The retweets tended towards the pretentious and metaphorical side. "Because it is a writer's need to cloak the invisible in words."

There are definitely a lot of writers who say stuff like this--who act like it's some kind of sacred artistic duty to write to reveal THE TRUTH to the quasiliterate masses, like being a writer is the only way you can get across some kind of larger insight or connect to people. It makes it sound like a sacrifice, and I really hate that. Yes, good writing can reveal deep truths and connect with people in unexpected ways, but that's a by-product of writing, not what you set out to do. Peoples' reasons for writing are usually a lot simpler--because they like telling stories. Because they're good at it and it's a good feeling to do something you're good at. Because they've got stuff in their head they're not sure about and they want to see if anyone else relates. Writing because you want to send a message or explore a specific abstract theme or reveal THE TRUTH to the waiting world almost never results in anything that feels real or relatable; it's too self-conscious.

This is why I never ended up going to grad school or really trying to. I like poetry, but I do it on the side, and there's no grad school in America who would seriously let me do genre fiction, which is what I want to do. (I'm probably more mainstream than I'd like to admit in regards to poetry, but that's OK because there's really no mainstream in poetry anymore.) I fear losing touch with the kind of writing that brings me joy, which is still mostly genre fiction. I love the idea of inhabiting a world and creating adventures in it, which is all I want to do, ultimately.

Segue into me whining about how I'm artistically blocked and am not sure what I want to start on for NaNoWriMo--I have the option of rescuscitating and rewriting one of two novels I started in previous years, turning one of those into a different story altogether, starting on a full-length fanfic, or saying fuck it all to the novel thing and working on a script with anivad--maybe even novel AND script if I don't have any other obligations. I want to do all of them at once.

Now segue into me adding that I'm disenchanted with Michael Chabon. I liked him very much a few years ago because I felt he was trying to legitimize genre fiction in the literary community, but the more I read about him the more I feel like the literary community likes him because he is a litfic writer who's slumming it with genre conventions, not because he is a genre writer who's transcended the expectations of genre. (Kavalier and Clay was clearly the former. Yiddish Policeman's Union was more of the latter, like a cross between Isaac Bashevis Singer and Raymond Chandler, but the overall reception of Chabon hasn't seemed to have changed.) It's sort of the same with Lev Grossman, the other litfic genre Jew I admire--even though The Magicians and its sequel stuck right in my heart and had some amazing concepts, it still seems to me that it's not fantasy with some deep ideas that he's writing, it's deep ideas with some fantasy as a framework.

If I did that, I'd feel like I'd lost my soul. I feel so much more like Joanna Russ, who started out steeped in SF, writing Conan the Barbarian type stories, discovered feminism, and started to write SF stories that happened to be feminist and happened to express her own ideas and anger.

Comments

[wolf-heart9.livejournal.com]

There are actually MFA programs that focus around genre fiction, but apparently, they're HARD to get into. I expressed an interest in doing that to my prof down in Corpus, and she said I could try, but they're so much in demand that you might be on a waiting list for-fucking-ever. That's one of the only reasons why I went with poetry, and I kind of regret that I did in a way. I love poetry. I love to read it, love to write it, but I'm starting to burn out on it because of the pretentious attitude I've encountered here. Now I just want to keep my head down and finish this program so that I can get out into the world and work and write what I want and if the opportunity presents itself, teach creative writing. My way.

[kleenexwoman.livejournal.com]

I might have to find one if I ever have the money. I feel like a genre fiction program would have a total lack of pretentious attitude.

[wolf-heart9.livejournal.com]

Really, only worry about that if you EVER want to teach creative writing. I mean, my MFA is still a Masters degree, but it doesn't mean I've honestly mastered poetry. It means I've gotten better at it, and it means that I can officially teach creative writing.

[epicycles.livejournal.com]

Glad someone else was equally irritated by all the pretentious #whyIwrite nonsense. If they can't write a convincing tweet I'm not encouraged by the thought of their novels. And I think you have the right of it, when it comes to writing to tell a story versus writing to reveal THE TRUTH. It rarely works, and even when it does it often fails at truly connecting with anyone the way an incidental truth does.

And I didn't go to school of writing for the same reasons you didn't go to grad school -- it isn't the writing I do, at all.

Michael Chabon I love, but I've only read two of his books -- Kavalier and Clay and Gentlemen of the Road. I didn't really feel like either was slumming litfic, like I did for Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell, which annoyed me deeply because it was so intent on being litfic that it totally failed at being entertaining/interesting/thoughtful genrefic. I felt Chabon was writing the stories that interested him, in the way he wanted to (particular Gentlemen of the Road, which is a quirky little thing) but YMMV, obviously. I hate how litfic-with-genre-trappings has become a Thing, and how people are using to be even more obnoxious about genre fic. "Yes, I like The Passage, but that's because it's not like those OTHER vampire stories. It's LITERATURE." FUCK YOU ALL. (This is also why I hold a grudge against BSG, for all the people saying they watched it because it's not REALLY science fiction.)

Ha, maybe I should use this comment as my NaNoWriMo, LOL. :D Sorry for the ramble. I hope you do something for NaNo, I'm hoping to resurrect an old novel and maybe finish it this time!

[kleenexwoman.livejournal.com]

If they can't write a convincing tweet I'm not encouraged by the thought of their novels.
This is it exactly. The way a writer talks about their writing is going to reflect the way they actually write. If they can't engage me in 140 characters then I doubt they can engage me over 50,000 words.

I should reread Kavalier and Clay. My memories of it are that it reminded me of a Paul Auster novel--not a bad book by any means, just leaning way more towards litfic or realistic fic with some superhero themes surrounding it.

I hate how litfic-with-genre-trappings has become a Thing, and how people are using to be even more obnoxious about genre fic.
It's so sneaky, in a way. I blame Margaret Atwood a little. It can be really frustrating to pick up what looks like a cool book and get 50 pages in and realize that the time travel in it isn't really time travel, it's just a metaphor for loneliness. Or something.

Oooh, I hope you can resurrect your novel! I've just about decided upon starting to work on a new idea--I don't entirely trust myself with old ideas in NaNo.