The profound power of fiction

I have a safe place.

Sad that I need one but the truth is I am rarely qualified to manage my own affairs these days. I am not too bad around other people currently. I can pretty much shift into my old self mode around them as long as no triggers arise. (God damn; to hear myself talk like this! For years I assumed myself immune to this crap.)

But alone my mental idle hands are tools of the devil.

NaNo has provided a solution; perfect or imperfect; who knows. The writing has provided a complete escape. And I like what I’m writing. There are flaws but I shall trust that they can be fixed much later. There is not enough conflict early on. There are a lot of very nice characters being very sweet and nurturing to one another. Go figure eh? It is like a gentle therapy to me.

But it’s much more than that. I feel very positive about the project. I must keep at it until it’s done; then edit it courageously and thoroughly and try finding it a home in the marketplace if applicable.

It is fiction in its most useful form: a legitimate lab experiment. It is a lot of characters who to me are vivid and interesting and who are motivated very properly: by the spark of a single event and its cascading causality, powered by a hands-off writer who does not need anything to happen other than the characters to have the freedom to be themselves. The events unfold organically. The writer’s instincts are at work, channeling the understandings which come from a long period of integral observation and contemplation; providing the conduit to legitimate causality.

Given the September meltdown I’d decided to write the full story of Neo come November but no - it’s too emotionally perilous this soon.

How surprising to find myself endeavouring to write Y.A. material instead; and even more so to find myself attempting an adaptation of sorts!

Having a nephew has inspired me to aim at younger audiences. It’s a learning process. I have much “regressing” still to do.

As a habitual storyteller it is hard to watch a film without imagining how you would change the story (often prematurely and unwisely). I suppose it’s no surprise to find that the same can happen watching a documentary: One that focuses on a small cast of “characters”.

I found myself wanting to re-tell this charming story from a Netflix documentary but with some poetic liberties. And now here I am. My efforts to make it Y.A. though, are not holding together very well. There is only one young character. Adult characters and adult themes have poured into it through a hundred cracks.

I don’t care. The process is good for fiction. It is taking on a bit of an epic feel. This may be a very long book with a lot of themes and sub-plots. And the process is good for me. Besides the lack of initial conflict starving the story for tension, I am also sitting on the fence in terms of subtlety. At some point I should make a commitment to make the story depend on it (show don’t tell) or else to allow some tell (thus Y.A.-friendly).

I guess for now I am hoping for a universal sort of audience; a cross-over; for adults and teens? It doesn’t matter. I am still a writer trying to perfect his craft. The marketplace should not be my concern.

So I will stick to this process and see where it goes. I am throwing a multitude of ingredients into a pot and it is a delight to see what culinary smorgasbord comes out.

And every time I write, my problems disappear. Escapism or not; I’ll take it.