lumière des étoiles

What a drag it is gettin old
2003-12-18 10:26 a.m.

Oh fudge. I woke up this morning with the most beautiful opening lines of a short story called "The Seamstress" in my precious little brain. Who is this seamstress? What does she want? I don't know, it's nearly all gone. The phone rang, the guys at the garage across the street were yelling. I don't know any seamstresses, but I have a feeling "she", metaphorically speaking, of course, is a friend I stopped speaking to years ago and haven't seen since I was a teenager. Hmmm. Was probably a good one.

My characters torture me. They are sometimes such extreme projections of what I love or hate about myself, what I love or hate about a loved one, or what I love or hate about people in general that I begin to get uncomfortable with them - I feel I lose control over them. One of my Grad school advisors who is also an analyst said that he finds this "very interesting". But he never told me why. That was helpful.

It must be a similar feeling when someone takes a story you've written and made a movie out of it. You, the creator of this character, no longer have control over him/her, you cannot manipulate the situations as you wanted to, you cannot control everything to make sure exactly what you want to present is presented. I guess it's a good thing Philip K. Dick is dead what with everyone making his 12 page short stories into 3 hour movies that don't do much besides remind us just how cool and buff Tom Cruise and Ben Afflek really are. Pretty sad if you've read the stories and appreciate them for the richness and beauty they had as they existed in original form, before they were disney-ized.

What a frightening thought, but I guess writing is a little bit like playing God. You are the god(dess) of your own world - you can make anything happen, but you also have the responsibility of consistency, you have to shape fates and be destiny. Unless, of course, you're me, and your characters start telling you what to do, in a sense; your characters start ordering you around, even if only in your dreams.

Think I might have some issues with control? Oh good, me neither!

I keep a print of Waterhouse's Lady of Shalot near where I write. The wondering on her face, the deep contemplation mixed with utter confusion and longing is comforting. I'm not that original when I feel that way and shouldn't feel alone in how frustrated my writing gets me. As dark as her expression is, the Lady seems to be OK: She's able to navigate her boat, even though it seems the weeds slow her down. She's got a lantern, even though the light is dim. Of the three candles in front of her, only one remains lit. She's alone, maybe lonely, but that's just the way it's got to be so she fends for herself and stays afloat.

How frighteningly wonderful it is that we are all so interconnected. "Sanity is a cozy lie", says Susan Sontag. It's a beautiful day.

TALK TO ME!