All the Horrible Girliness

O hai. As of this writing I am doing my half-laying thing in bed. I don't know if that's "laying" or "lying." I've decided not to care. It's one of those mysteries, the laying/lying thing, that I can't be bothered with. There are other things to obsess over, like how I'm going to die eventually, and what a waste of space and oxygen I'll be until then.

So funny, 'cause I wouldn't say I'm one of those neurotic writerly people who think they're really frauds and all that cuteness. I'd bang the gavel and say no, I've got it together, dear Lord; I have a voice and a style and I don't expect to ever publish or make money off of whatever I write and I just do it for the pleasure, the joy! of seeing the gooberous characters in my head come out onto the page, fleeing my fingers like -

- I can't write. It's just like I've mentioned before, about piano lessons. I took piano lessons for eight years. Eight! I can't play a note. I can kind of remember what it's like to feel the keys under my fingers. I had to practice every morning. I liked doing the rote stuff, the scales. That is, I liked doing the stuff I had down pat over and over again. Piano practice also taught me how to lie. My mother would ask if I was doing what I was supposed to be doing and I'd be all like, "Oh yes, he told me I needed to do scales for one hour and to ignore the songs for now. Don't ask me; that's his method." I'd usually have my teachers play me the piece I was supposed to figure out that week first. Once was usually enough for me to pick it out by ear. After a lot of him-haw and lying I would make the piece happen eventually, badly. Do not go presuming I was one of those geniuses who just didn't like the reading of music, who could play beautifully by ear. Like Yanni or something? Nuu. I'm not even as good as Yanni.

I'm like that with writing, too. I flirt along the edges of talent but mostly I cheat and lie and steal. I write like whoever I'm reading at the time. For instance, you can always tell when I'm re-reading the old Anne Lamotts. She's super easy to steal from. I do it constantly. And my actual stories, I can usually track them back to another story I read, sometimes years earlier, that I'm practically re-writing on a near-parallel. I wrote a story for class a couple years ago, whenever that was, about this woman whose kid hurts himself while she's doing some bad things in another room, and it was only after four edits and publication that I remembered that story's near COPY in my writing class' textbook. The original? Much better.

Who could forget my Palahniuk time? Oh god, my testosterone fiction was adorable.

Nothing reminds me of what a goddamn fake I am more than being around real artists and writers. What sucks is, I have never learned not to hang around these loathesome people. I married one. I am in love with and fascinated by the creative life because I do not fucking have one. I do love watching it, though, and doing its laundry, and driving it places. That is where I belong.

I wish I could take pride in that, because it always sucks so bad to find out that everyone's cute accolades have been just those who love you patting you on the head.

posted by Samus @ 10:43 PM