I love the fact that despite not going to school, Jaxon has more school supplies than me. This really helps when I'm writing and am looking for a pencil sharpener or white-out to better correct my drafts, for example. He's at the hospital at the moment, getting a day long series of injections for his temporary nerve condition. I consol myself by keeping busy with sentence structure, straightening the area rug, keeping the music down, and making comparisons with what doctors are doing to him to the content of quite a few underground pulp novels from the 60s. Yesterday I met someone for the first time and he asked me what my stories were about. I told him they were about people. He said that was vague. I told him it would be insulting to give him a pat answer. He then asked me if I had any reoccurring themes in my stories, and I said, "Oh, you know, people on the outskirts, not knowing what they want." I knew my writing prof would have laughed at this summation, and for good reason, but I kept my face straight. And silently prayed someone at the table would change the subject.
Posted by caroline at November 7, 2005 12:20 PMIt's frustrating, but at work I'm "the writer" and have to answer all the usual questions. For the most part, "Have you been published yet?" is up there, but what I write about is another. I never know what to say. Body horror, people who are failures, hairstyles, the madness of crowds--
Posted by: ben at November 7, 2005 2:54 PMseriously: WHAT ARE YOU SUPPOSED TO SAY?? A writer would never ask another writer that question. Unless they had a desire to be blacklisted or a simple death wish. which could very well be the case, though we all know there are much more glamorous ways to die, over a comma of our own devices and process, for example. It goes in in the morning and is taken out at night. It does this in a cycle until it gets clever, learns our tricks, and kills us.