These days, I’m writing a lot: notes on getting killed by fiction.
The men were not alone. Never. They wrote like they had nothing. The fiction of horror, sex, romance, poetry, lust, revenge, mirages, waters, food, everything but only on paper. They did write like they had nothing. And they didn’t; except for their fiction. Nothing at all. Ha-ha.
Writing has always given pleasure. But how long to when it dies?
The origination of sentences always amuses me, where they come from and how they’re formed has always been a surprising ride for me. I remember my classroom of the 4th grade, damp and unhinged. Intellectually lost, 2 doors one closed, sometimes. One open, always. Good friends. White tiles that has become dull from the chaos around, black and calamitous from shoes running around. Smut and grime on the wooden benches. Steel to hold them. The nostalgia is often melancholic and confusing, just like people in my class. Because in the end these are the people that I grew up with, they’ve changed and so have I. This holds no value to what I was going to write; but this is the magic of language, of oration and understanding. It confuses you, stalks you, forms to build meaning and breaks to surpass it. Thomas Bernhard, Austrian playwright and novelist had this theory; Growing up his life was really hard, he was surrounded by Nazis and he was surrounded by catholic fascist ideology. His novels are really dark but they have in them a strange sense of humor. Often it comes out as a response to strange, difficult events. In the popular culture now people have understood the significance of taste, of aesthetics and people love things ironically now. I mean how do you now know, the song of a bird that has now come to love its cage?
These days, I’m writing a lot. I’ve been reading a lot. Researching a lot, I’m currently on the first act of the play that I’m writing. This is the 4th time that I’ve started it, currently on the 4th page with no story, (4failed stories*) Stories can be extremely reactive to whatever the fuck that you may be going through in life. I found it the hard way, whatever comes on to the page is thematically very same to what I’m going through, sure good stories come from heart but am I a good writer if I can’t exhibit fiction on the page? I call myself a playwright, call it vanity; I don’t care. It is what it is. The burden is more on my versatility than it is on my creativity, all the literary weeds that I’ve explored. I completed my first play in June 2022 (Exhausting piece of work but worth every pain) I wrote and directed my first film by September. Wrote a ton of essays and poems in between, and have started my second play which I intend to complete by the end of November. The idea is always simple, there are no hard and fast rules, but the process confuses me every time for e.g. I can’t remember how I completed my first play or even my first film. I surrender it to my hands to make good love with the keyboard and hope that my mind orgasms. Vividity is a tricking thing, it’s like magic it makes cheap things look good. But if I try consciously I can make things different writing wise, like this essay might sound and seem strange from what I generally write. This is for you dear Rujal, David and Shweta who were kind enough to mail me for my confusing style of writing essays. Thank you. This change in my writing style is for you. Call it vanity; I don’t care. It is what it is.
I remember being transfixed after reading David Foster Wallace’s one piece and then eventually hearing him go “Rebellion today is quiet, individual, and not so ‘Sexy’” The power of words is hypnotic I remember reading Saunders “Fiction is a vital moral and ethical tool” That it helps us only to understand how to think and not what to think, pointing things on a piece of paper to make you realize where you live, and make you demand how you live.
To take you into distraction, I’ve exerted myself to write in a way that makes sense, something I would never experiment with stage or screen writing; Writing is personal. I’m not slouching towards Bethlehem or writing about the lobsters; but I’m baying anger, pain and my distrust for life. Oh once a romantic, always a romantic. I’ve not figured it out. I’m still a cringe, very much so. If you confuse this oscillation between love and hate for literary understanding, I don’t know what to say to you. I’ve done my job. It is late now, I must sleep; I’ve to wake up 5:30 tomorrow and write the play, but how can I say no to Chekhov? I’ll read few pages and then sleep, ok? Goodnight.
