Sunday 9 June 2013

Writers Block



By far and away the most annoying thing to a writer is never having enough money. But, then that's just symptomatic of being a person born and raised in a capitalist society, so not really a choice, but no, the really annoying thing to a writer is when one has a story to convey but cannot form the words. They flit in and out of the mind, chasing themselves around the ears, and the writer, he chases them and just when he thinks that they've been caught...poof...and they've vanished, escaped into the ether, disappeared into oblivion....and new ones form instantly and the chase begins anew.

Don't get me wrong, it is annoying, but it can also be fun, trying to find the right words to put down, because it's challenging...how does one convey meaning that is easily understandable? Who is my audience? Do I even have an audience? Sometimes, yes, often I write for myself because it's a form of therapy, it does a boy well to just get his thoughts down, in words, in front of him...and realise that he's a little loopy. But then are they my thoughts? Or am I subconsciously editing in order to present a version of myself to the world that is truly me, but is not all that is me...because how could I? Every little thing, every little fear, or desire, feelings, senses, or whatever else, with just words because words are limited, words have phenomenal power, but always the words are interpreted from the reader's own view point, not the writers. So any insight of me you glean through these nonsensical words and suppositions are filtered through your own eyes (literally and figuratively), and so will be true, but truth is not always what a thing actually is.

Mostly, I'm bored. Hence this nonsensical short piece. It's called writer's block, because I have writer's block and I find that what best helps with that is just getting something down, anything down. Writing for the sake of writing, forgetting about correct spellings, the correct application of grammar, any semblance of order except for that which is innate. It's just an exercise in getting the words to flow, and what better way is there to do that except by flowing some words out there. Doesn't matter, it's not a piece that will be marked, or examined (and if it is, well, who does that say more about, the reader, or the writer?), just purely for my own amusement. 

Like, originally I was going to write a zombie story to get out of this little rut, because zombies, woo! But every short story about zombies seems so cliché, so hackneyed and I realised, zombie stories don't go anywhere. They never do. Basically a zombie story, whether in a book or film, is a slice of life tale...it's about survival, the day to day grind of living. It's just that instead of worrying about being hit by a taxi every time you're in city centre, it's worrying about hordes of the undead...it's about just living and coping with danger, but mostly it's the living. And then there's always some grandiloquent speech (or it is shown as a laboured point throughout the piece) that it's not the dead a person should be wary of, but the living instead...and it's always such bullshit! The living can be scary and monstrous and be capable of harm at times, that's true...but the zombies are scary and monstrous and capable of harm all the time! So often they try and raise a philosophical point about the inhumanity of humans, and that's great...if it wasn't tacked onto a piece about a 50s b-movie stock monster having taken over the world! Can you imagine it if it were tried with "The Blob".

"sure, it's a monstrous entity from outer space that can't be reasoned with, and that given a chance would consume everything in its path, but in the end, we didn't want to die, so we killed it in self defence...but really who's the real monster..."

But yeah, that's really veering away from my original dislike, which is it's just...life. There's an adventure in living, sure, but zombie stories tend to have protagonists who don't really adapt, who don't really change their lifestyles to meet the demands of living in a zombie world. And I don't know if it's the rigidity of writers themselves, or whether they're writing to meet an audience's expectations, but almost every zombie story I've read, the zombies don't have to be there. They could be replaced by soldiers, feral children, for some reason all the electronics on the planet stop working, just...anything, it doesn't matter, because people will just be people, living their pre-zombie lives, but instead of worrying about terrorists, will worry about zombies. Actually, I suppose that's a massive indictment of the human race, we adapt by making things disinteresting and trivial. In short, the driving force for humanity is survival, and the best way to survive is by adapting a general sense of apathy toward what is interesting.

And speaking of apathy, I now tire of writing, so yeah...

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