#jbvincent

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All My Characters Come From Dive Bars

Pretty much any fiction writer will say their characters are as important to them as their kids. Character development is one of my favorite things about writing and I recently came to an interesting conclusion about my process – a large portion of my dramatis personae are inspired from people I met in dive bars. That’s easily where you meet the most interesting people. It’s not the clubs or fancy restaurants or fund raisers or through your college buddies. It’s in real low down places where humanity goes to seek out that which they are looking for – whatever it is, or maybe nothing at all. It’s also where people feel free to show their real selves. There’s no veneer in a dirty, rundown joint that serves the vilest of swill to those either hurting in their souls or merely trying to shake off the weathered skin of real life for a few minutes or hours. Dive bars are where the bedrock of humanity chooses to display their whole beings.

The Anchor

The Anchor – New Haven, CT  – One of my favs – unfortunately gone forever.

I didn’t start frequenting dive bars until my mid-thirties. In my younger days I maintained the public face of a pretty spoiled prick. I would only patronize those places wherein only the crème of the professional crop go slithering about – lawyers, politicians, business people, wannabe business people and that lot. I still go to those places but now it’s with a somewhat jaundiced eye. Those people are a bit boring and ubiquitous in as much as literary interest is concerned. How many different ways can you write folks like that? Desiree became a successful attorney after working her way through law school stripping and tending bar. Conrad always wanted to be an entrepreneur but was only able to afford tuition to the school of hard knocks and had to sell his left shoelace in order to afford the apple that inspired his idea to manufacture left handed apple corers and finally hitting it big.

Barf.

Give me Tanya; a single sixty something diminutive black woman I met in New Haven, CT who grew up as poor as poor could be but somehow saved up her money and scored a gig working at the Social Security office in San Francisco in the early seventies and then after reaching pension age, moved back to New Haven and became a librarian for Yale. Why is that more interesting than the aforementioned people? Because someone like Tanya will give you their real story and let you knead through the clay that made them what they are and what they believe in. Tanya was grateful for everything that happened to her and although I would argue it was all her – she would say it was luck and happenstance. Try finding a lawyer who would say that! Tanya possesses no ego and practices life on a common sense platform. Except for her trip across country to San Fran, she’s never really been anywhere else. Once a year she takes a vacation – thirty miles east of New Haven where she stays in a Howard Johnsons motel for three days (she takes a train by the way, never got a driver’s license) and eats out at a Friendly’s restaurant. If you’re not from the Northeast – Friendly’s is a step above McDonald’s. Tanya’s advice to everyone is that if you can’t afford to spend twenty bucks when you go to the dive bar – stay home until you can.

Does Tanya’s life sound boring to you? Then you’re not a writer. I could build a hell of a character around her life and a great story as well. Her life is full of good stuff to play with. It has morals, in term of morals to the story and regular morals as well. It shows character, strength, quiet rebellion but rebellion nonetheless and humanity. One could make a nice, quiet heartfelt story about Tanya, the kind you could shop to Reader’s Digest or some fluffy literary rag. Or, if you’re like me, add in some darkness and struggle, shore it up with a few lurid relationships along the way and ending up with her alone, but content and willing to go off into the afterlife with little fanfare, but also no regrets. How about this; a fictional historical chronicle of life as a quiet, but astute young black woman making her own way in the drastically changing United States of the seventies. With a little research and some imagination you could have a Gore Vidal-ish novel to beat the band.

What’s the point of this diatribe? I don’t fucking know. I guess I was thinking about my characters and how they were born and felt like passing it along. For all you writers; if you’re in a bind and need to go and toss some character attributes into your arrow bag then take a little respite to your local dive and spend some time talking to real people. Sometimes your imagination needs a little kick in the ass and nothing is as good as taking cues from actual humans. For readers, if you’re enjoying someone’s work keep in mind the arduous process that goes into creating your favorite made up people and understand it’s about as hard as squeezing a watermelon through a hole the size of a lemon. (See what I did there?)

#divebars #newhaven #jbvincent #theanchor #bukowski

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Fearless Writing

The audio version of this post appears below. Just click on “play”.

 

 

I’m a pussy when it comes to writing. I really am. And, it gets worse with age. I like raw…like, exposed nerve, mind-boggling, “can’t believe it went there” kind of raw. Human character boiled right down to its component parts – darkness, fear, topics too weird to think about, explosive revelations about otherwise seemingly normal people that shock and make you really have to think and wonder how you could have been so wrong about them.

 

I love to read raw and I like to write raw. But, I hold back and would bet, hell, I know other writers do the same thing. I truly believe that there is a very small percentage of writing out there that really represents what goes on in the mind of the writer. I read so many books where I think to myself – man, this author could have gone so much deeper and I bet they didn’t for the very same reason I don’t – fear.

 

If only everyone could be like Bukowski – fearless. Bukowski was completely unaffected by the notion that people would find him to be nothing but a drunk, womanizing, sadistic bum. He didn’t care what people thought at all. I need to do that, but I’m far too afraid. Too much of a pussy.

 

My fear stems from the notion that you are a piece of every character you create and there are some pieces I don’t want my readers to know about, or that just don’t exist, that were born from my imagination, but that I worry people will think I have direct experience with. Here’s a for instance: hookers. I’ve never engaged a prostitute before and certainly never will. However, I do have experience with hookers through my former career as a private investigator. I worry that if I write a largely accurate portrayal of a scene with a hooker and bring my readers into that scene, then people like – oh, I don’t know, my mom, the mother of my children and everyone who knows me would think that I have been a participant in the oldest profession. Stupid, just stupid, I know it is, but I don’t want to have to explain myself every time I write something racy, off color – raw.

 

And, that’s just sad. I always have a couple of novels brewing and throughout the process I send passages to my trusted advisors Rose and Holli, whom I’ve mentioned in this blog before. For this one supernatural novel, I have a very graphic scene that takes place in Hell and involves a priest, a little girl and the Devil. The writing is probably some of the best I have ever done. And, when I passed it on to Holli & Rose with a very small exception – I think it was word placement or something, they thought it should stay in and not be changed. Guess what? That paragraph will only see the light of day after either me or mom is safely six feet under.

 

My intention with that scene is to put the reader directly in front of it and instill terror, repulsion and abject hatred. It scores on all of those points. But, my fear is that someone will read it and be like “damn, that JB Vincent is one fucked and twisted individual that he can come up with shit like that.” I realize Stephen King never had that problem and that’s why he’s so rich and famous. I feel like I have to filter my imagination so that when people see me walking down the street they don’t quickly walk to the other side. Or, friends and family will think: “how come we didn’t realize he was so mentally ill.” Unlike Bukowski, I actually do want people to like me somewhat, or at least not be repulsed.

 

So, what’s the solution? I honestly have no idea. Like I said, it’s getting worse with age – there are my kids to think about. I can just see them going through my things after I take off for the unknown. “Wow. Daddy was sure one weird dude.” Perhaps I just need some yoga, more absinthe and vodka, or maybe I need to lose the confines of my conservative being and just go for it. I’m going to have to keep you posted on this one.

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Being a Ghost – It’s a Thriller

The audio version of “Being a Ghost – It’s a Thriller” appears below, just hit play.

 

 

I’ve never really thought about ghost writing before. Well, that’s not true, I have thought about it, just not very seriously. It was while reading The Ghost by Robert Harris a few years back. Great book by the way, you should read it. The movie? Meh. Anywho…while I was reading the book it occurred to me that it might be kind of fun to dive into someone else’s soul and try and figure out exactly what makes them tick on whatever level it was they were trying to achieve with their particular project.

 

In the case of The Ghost, the main character is a ghostwriter who writes biographies for small time celebrities. That seems kind of boring to me, and I dismissed it straight away. It doesn’t seem like any real fun could come out of getting into someone’s actual life. But, being able to infiltrate someone else’s fiction ideas while trying to create some kind of symbiosis with another would be author could be very entertaining indeed. Then I finished the book and those thoughts just went away.

 

Recently, I fell into a project whereby one of those would be authors made contact and asked if I’d be interested in putting a rough story into some kind of readable form. I figured “what the hell”, I was bored with my own stuff at that moment and needed a distraction. Now, this person isn’t exactly what you’d call communicative – which I suppose is the whole reason he/she (I have no idea which, as this person always refers to him/herself as “we”) is going with a ghostwriter in the first place. I’m provided very little in terms of substantive content to operate on and the emails we shoot back and forth are very word heavy on my part and very cryptic on theirs. I was given a one page sheet entitled “background” and a couple of chapters consisting of about three pages each (when I was done each chapter was about 30 pages) which were not poorly written, just lacking in any kind of filler or character development.

 

Even though this person contacted me, I had to compete against some other authors in order to get the gig. So, to be totally honest, I really didn’t invest myself in the story at first – in fact, it just kind of rolled out of my head and my attitude was “if I get it, great. If not, screw this person.” I submitted what I wrote and got this response:

 

“We love what you did with it. Still reviewing other authors.”

 

That was it – nothing else.

 

I sat looking at the words indignantly. If “they” loved it – then what the fuck is with this “other authors” crap? If you love it, you love it – I should be in. Then I did something that is so diametrically opposed to my shitty attitude, that even I was amazed. In my mind, I basically begged for the job, by asking if there was anything “they” wanted changed, or edited. Keep in mind this is like, no money really, and heaven only knows if it’s going to really be published (I was assured it would be), so there’s not much at stake. But, that doesn’t matter; I wanted to do this thing.

 

I got this response:

 

“No. No changes needed.”

 

Oh, well, hell, thanks for that. So, I waited. Months. In fact, my self-righteousness and ego subsided and I forgot about the project altogether.

 

Then I got an email with “Remember Us?” in the subject line. It was asking for another chapter. A little shiver went through me. I went back and read what I had written for the first few chapters. Suddenly, I really wanted to know where this story was going.

 

It’s hard to explain this kind of thrill. I always refer to writing a story as the same kind of excitement that comes from reading one, because you never really know where it’s going or how it will end. But, the one thing remaining constant is that it’s your brain the stuff is coming from, so the continuity is always there. This, – this was something completely different – it was an amalgam of the fun of reading and the thrill of writing, all wrapped up in a hot little package.

 

For the first time in ages, I blocked out a chunk of time, told everyone in the family to go to Hell for a while, and I wrote the fuck out of that chapter. I stopped once to get another cup of Dark Magic, but that was it – I even held my bladder until the chapter was finished. I did like, three edits – all spelling. I read it once, and only once and hit the send button.

 

My mysterious friend doesn’t have the latest version of Word, something I’d forgotten over the months, so he/she (“they” rather), didn’t get it on the first shot. I had to re-format. Can I tell you? I nearly exploded when it didn’t go through the first time. I was so anxious for “them” to see it. Especially, since the “client” I guess you would call “them”, used the phrase “dying to read it”, when requesting the format change. I changed that format and sent it so quickly I thought the enter button on my Mac would request some time off.

 

“They” loved it.

 

So, now I wait, impatiently for the next chapter. I have no idea why I find this so exciting. The only near parallel I can draw is its like some kind of intellectual voyeurism. Trying to figure out what it is someone else’s mind is creating almost as it’s happening is a crazy, crazy feeling – and, apparently getting it right is a high I cannot explain. I imagine it may be the same kind of rush people get when they watch other people…you know, do it. It’s so intimate and something you are not usually privy to. Hell, I’m a horror show when I’m writing; I want NOBODY to see anything until I’m finished. My poor wife Amy has been abused so badly whilst looking over my shoulder when I’m in the zone, that’s its embarrassing – especially when I was finishing up 5 Tales for the e-book.

 

I could never do it. I would never be able to say to someone – “Here’s some ideas for a story – have at it.” It’s just not in my nature, its far too personal. But, damn, I’ll tell ya; if you have some good ideas and want them written out – call me, maybe.

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Lost in Translation: Storytelling

I write because I love to tell stories. I’ve always been able to spin a tale as I’ve had great characters move through my life who were larger than life, or just plain interesting in some offbeat way. Pulling from their experiences and adding in my own idea of where their particular story should head has always been a joyful labor of love.

 

But, I definitely don’t think all authors are born storytellers because they get way too involved in the “structure” and “how tos” of writing. I always feel like I can tell when an author has been burning the midnight oil trying to get his/her thoughts stripped down and massaged into such a manner as to gain the Hail Mary from St Martin’s, or Grammar for Dummies, or some other such boring ass manual. Or, they’re trying to fit into their publisher’s page limits. Maybe I’m wrong and it’s just my taste – I don’t know. I do know this – if I read someone’s story out loud, I can tell if they’re a real storyteller, or not.

 

As most of us who call ourselves writers know, you should always read your piece out loud before the final edit. Do I do it? Not enough, that’s for sure. I’m just about to do the audio book for 5 Tales and I’m going to do it myself. Thanks to some very talented people at the Atlanta School of Broadcasting – I’ve got the voice and the voice over thing down. But, to be honest, I’m a little scared. I’m worried that it’s not going to sound like when I tell a story verbally to a friend or acquaintance, and that would kill me. I write exactly the way I talk. Well, I think I do anyway, after the edits I’m never really sure if the message is lost or not. I also worry that suddenly I won’t like the structure or plot of XYZ story, and now that it’s out all over the place I can’t change it.

 

The biggest reason I’m intimidated to do this audio book stems from a segment I heard on the now defunct Dick Gordon’s The Story where Dick had Ron Rash read his short story Something Rich & Strange from his collection Nothing Gold Can Stay. It’s the most amazing reading I’ve ever heard. You cannot help but stay and hear the whole thing once it gets a hold of you – which happens immediately. It’s this kind of storytelling I aspire to and I think most writers of fiction should. I realize it could be his voice or his cadence, but I’ve listened to it so many times that I’m absolutely sure it’s the story itself. Give it a listen – you’ll be enrapt.

Here’s the link for Ron Rash’s Something Rich & Strange. You can thank me in the comments!

 

 

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Write Your Way Out of Depression

The audio version of this post appears below. Just click on “play”.

 

 

I’ve only been depressed once in my life and I hope to holy hell it never happens again. It was one of the scariest things I’ve ever been through and the worst part was I kept beating myself up for being what I saw as weak. I’ve always been a happy guy even though I kind of go through life with a surly façade and I never believed that people could really get depressed. I saw it as just a cry for attention from needy people and I often accused friends of being as such. I regret that now. Depression is a horrific sickness and I have nothing but oceans of empathy for chronic depression sufferers.

 

What happened to me was I acquired a psychotic stalker who is now in jail, thank the universe. This was a client of mine who developed an obsession and did so many unspeakable things; I don’t even want to go into it. Imagine that – me, of all people not going into dark horrific and sick details? Extraordinary, I know.

 

Anyway, after about a month of constant harassment, which caused me to re-think my business and where I was in life, I found myself in serious danger. I would wake up at night and pull my gun out from under my pillow and look at it. I was never suicidal, I have far too big of an ego for that – but, I’d look down the loaded barrel and think about it. This didn’t worry me – it was just a dramatic response. What did worry me was I didn’t want to leave my apartment. I’m a social guy, not a homebody. I like to go out and see people – anybody really. I’m an amateur anthropologist and once I found myself not wanting to take part in life I got REALLY worried.

 

I had no idea what to do. I certainly couldn’t admit my situation to anybody – that would be weak. But, I did finally tell my mom – and thank God I did because that was the first step to breaking out of it. I would call her and sometimes I couldn’t even get any words out of my mouth – I was paralyzed. We’d just sit there in silence. Then some really good friends of mine began to make me go out and do things with them. That was a big help and really pushed me to seek out a real solution.

 

I didn’t want to commit to a shrink because I felt that despite its debilitating manifestation that the depression was temporary and I just had to find a way through the tunnel. I had this acquaintance I knew from some boards that I sat on who called himself a Business Psychologist. I really liked and respected the guy but considered his title pretty nebulous and didn’t have a lot of faith in whether or not he could actually help. Man, was I wrong. It took a lot for me to admit to him that I was suffering and suffering badly. He asked if I thought I needed to be put on medication and I said no. I don’t even like to take Advil so the thought of some kind of anti-depressant made me even more depressed.

 

This is what he said to me: “Jason, I’ve known you for years. I’ve heard your public speeches and I’ve read everything you’ve written for our boards. You can write yourself out of this depression. It’s what I do and I’ve advised hundreds of people to do it and it almost always works to some degree. For you, I think it will solve the problem and if you ever find yourself depressed again, you should do the same thing.”

 

I was dubious, but I was also desperate so I tried it. It took a week, but goddamn it if it didn’t work! And, it still works. At that time, I hadn’t decided to become a writer, but I do think the fact writing burst me out of that funk has something to do with my chosen profession. I ALWAYS feel great after a day of writing – even if I end the day frustrated or I’ve written absolute crap. Now, I can’t attest to whether or not writing has kept me from depression all these years because as I said, I’ve always been a pretty happy person, but I’m willing to consider it.

 

Don’t take my word for it because obviously I’m not a professional, but I would strongly suggest that if you feel a depression coming on or are chronically depressed, you should at least give writing a try. Here is a great guide on how to start:

http://homepage.psy.utexas.edu/HomePage/Faculty/Pennebaker/Home2000/WritingandHealth.html 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Writers: Ditch Shakespeare

See ya Billy Shake

See ya Billy Shake

 

Enough Shakespeare.

Christ, how long has the guy been dead? I know he was an amazing timeless classic, but criminy how many more books, movies, poems, plays, tv shows, etc need to be based on all those tedious themes of his? It’s time for something else. There must be other more interesting platforms from which one can launch their art, or how about this: your own platform. If I see one more modernization of a Shakespeare theme, I may have to buy a thousand antique copies of his works and burn them on the town square.

 

I’m picking on Shakespeare because his is the most prominent name out there for thematic abuse by artists from the last four centuries. There are plenty of other examples out there with Dickens being one of them, but I chose Billy Shake to rant about because his stuff seems to scream be laborious with your words and situations and beat every scene into tedium as best you can at those who choose to base their art on his body of work. It was bad enough we had to suffer through it the first time let alone having to relive it again and again in the work of many millions of copycat stories throughout the ages.

 

So, what set me off on this tirade on surely the most famous author of all time? I was chatting with some stranger at my favorite watering hole in Woodstock, VT near where I live. The woman sitting next to me started up a conversation and we exchanged the usual “what do you do?” niceties and she said she was a writer. Now, I never tell anyone I’m a writer straight away because I like to study people and once you launch that missive I’ve found people tend to tighten up a bit and not be themselves. I usually use the stay at home dad thing, or go the retired private detective route.

 

The woman seemed pretty interesting so I asked what she was working on and found that she was just about done with her first novel, which was very Shakespearian in nature. Made me want to puke. The worst part being she mentioned a fear that the story may be too recognizable as having its genesis in Hamlet. “Bartender? Check please.” I don’t ever like to be rude and said nothing and instead listened briefly to her outline while waiting for the bill. She was worried for good reason and I really was dying to say something to her about coming up with her own thing, clearly she was smart enough and everyone has their own story in them and blah, blah, blah… But, I really didn’t have the energy.

 

I would rather have heard her say something like: oh, it’s a basic good vs. evil story, or it’s a Cinderella type love story, it’s a rags to riches thing (just don’t say Dikens-like), it’s a supernatural thriller, mystery, self help, calculator manual, Swahili translator – whatever, anything but, its Shakespearian. God, it makes my freakin’ teeth hurt. It’s time to ditch the Shakespeare. There is so much talent out there and so many great stories that surely we no longer need to rely on this dead fossil to be the foundation on which to build our own work.

 

 

 

 

 

 

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You DO NOT Have to Write Everyday to be a Writer

The audio version of this post appears below. Just click on “play”.

 

 

 

 

As anyone who’s ever read this blog knows, I dig Anne Rice. I haven’t read every single word of her extensive offerings, but I’m pretty well versed in everything Vampire and witch and have never read a book of hers I didn’t love. But, it’s not just the books – its Anne herself. I’ve always felt like I could relate to her, as I’m pretty sure all of her fans do. For such a superstar in the literary universe she remains fairly accessible and communicates with a surprising number of her fans and followers on Social Media as well as in the real world at signing events and other appearances. She even answered me directly on a Facebook message. What I like the most is Anne carries herself not as a seasoned celebrity author, but as a real person who is constantly finding ways to re-invent herself, which she’s done periodically over the decades.

 

Thus, you can imagine my outrage over the years when I’ve heard various talking heads and armchair critics accuse Anne Rice of not being a real writer because she doesn’t write everyday. What kind of sanctimonious bullshit is that? Clearly, its ridiculous and Anne does address it quite often with the style and grace that is inherent in her personality while encouraging other writers not to take it seriously. I, too, have heard from many people that if you do not put pen to paper or fingers to keyboard on a daily basis, that you are a hack.

 

I understand for some people a routine is the key to success, but to suggest that a writer is not a writer unless their ass is stuck to the chair eight to ten hours a day is complete bilge water. If I did that, my stuff would suck so badly it isn’t funny. Most of my work takes years to put together. (5 Tales took four years) That doesn’t mean I’m not working on it everyday, I am. At any given point, I have at least five story lines swirling around my brain looking for an exit point. I write in bursts, as do many writers including Anne. You can’t force inspiration, and to do so just for the sake of keeping some kind of routine is only going to limit your work and probably will make for some boring content.

 

Possibly the reason I have chosen the hard way into this business – self publishing – is because I don’t want to be held to deadlines. Deadlines can do two things: 1. Make your work fantastic due to forced output, or, 2. Make your work suck moose genitals due to forced output. I won’t risk number two. I want my work to be organic so someday when I’m keeping the maggots company, my kids can read it and know the sentences I strung together in life were the ones I really meant. And, if that means there are huge stretches of time between writings – then so be it.

 

So, just like my rant about “killing your darlings”, I think the idea that you should write everyday in order to be considered a true writer should be filed away in the back of any writer’s mind as something some no talent ignoramus would spew from their frothing twisted visage. Write when you have something to say. If that’s everyday – great, but forced writing is obvious writing.

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Like it or Not, You ARE the Main Character

The audio version of this post appears below. To listen, just click on “Play”.

 

 

When I think back over the years at what kept me from actually doing what I wanted to do in my life – write, I realize that a big factor was not wanting to always be the main character in my stories – or, any character for that matter. It just seemed so trite and quite frankly, really scary. And, let’s face it; everyone who reads your work is going to immediately assume it’s you you’re writing about. Watch any interview with any author and almost always the first question from the interviewer is; “So, are you so and so?” After much self-deprecating bullshit, the author always admits there is a little piece of him/her in the main character.

 

There’s nothing wrong with that. In fact, I’m glad that’s the way it works because I want to know something about the author I’m reading. But, for me I always thought – hell to the fucking no. Presumably, my mom is going to read my stuff and I just can’t bear the idea that she would have insight into the darkest crinkly corners of my poisoned mind.

 

I lived a pretty cool life and I’ve had successful authors advise me to build my stories around the experiences I’ve had. I was a private detective in Connecticut for years; something I hid from friends and family (I took “private” very seriously) under the guise of just being a guy who owned a limousine company and was involved in local and state politics both in the front line and behind the scenes. So, I was out there in the public pretty prominently, but the real story was I working cases for some pretty serious folk in some amazing and dangerous situations. I had an incredible team of people behind me all of whom had their own very distinctive characteristics and skill sets. They blew me away everyday.

 

So, while I agree with my author friends that my files could generate a plethora of best sellers, I owe it to my old clients and the people I met along the way to keep their secrets secret. I don’t even want to fictionalize the cases because they are so specific, the people involved would instantly recognize the story as their own.

 

Thus, I made a deal with myself, which really is like making a deal with the devil. I decided to keep me out as much as possible but to employ a certain alchemy in putting together the personalities and characteristics of my clients, employees and subjects from my case files in creating my own characters. One of my favorites is Charlie from Station Vermont, which appears in my book 5 Tales. Check out the excerpt here on the blog. The guy who inspired that dude is a real piece of work.

 

Then I realized omitting my experiences, personality and character traits from my characters is nigh to impossible and after many years torturing myself by de-constructing and re-constructing my characters to lose anything I saw as me-ness, I realized its ok to put yourself in the story either in a big way or maybe just a wisp. I prefer the wisp, but I would encourage anyone getting into this world to let themselves go. Everyone has a story and what may seem banal to one person could be someone else’s Great Expectations. Be yourself, people want to read about it.

 

 

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I Don’t Want to Kill My Darlings – Screw You, Sir Couch!

I'm not listening to this old fossil any longer!

I’m not listening to this old fossil any longer!

The audio version of this post appears below. Just click ‘Play”.

 

 

I don’t want to kill my darlings. Quite frankly, I’m kind of tired of modern authors taking advice from Edwardian literary martyrs who apparently sacrificed their own time by doling out bits of wisdom to the less talented plebes and neophytes of the writing community of these past three centuries. The Edwardian martyr to whom I refer herein is Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch the progenitor of the phrase “Kill Your Darlings”, which was originally “Murder your Darlings”, something he was adamant about.

Now, I have a theory on why Sir Couch was such a vehement proponent of deleting one’s best work before publication. I think it was competition. Those Edwardian authors were notorious for hating each other’s guts and I believe he was trying to stack the deck in his favor. Every writer has a certain signature in their work even if they cross genres. The reason we read a specific writer’s work and become fans is because of their style and I relish that. I like that I can pick up any piece of work under the Samuel Clemens name and know it’s really Twain. I’ll bet a donut that if we were afforded the opportunity to read Salinger’s previously unpublished work without even knowing it existed – that we would know it was his unequivocally.

There are lots of habits I would love to lose – like my horrific habit of using the word “just” all over the place. (Fortunately, I edit the shit out of those after the fact – but still.) Or, my dreadful grammar, which at times, embarrasses me beyond belief. But, as for some of my inherent style sheets – hell no. I write because I love to write, firstly for me and secondly for the reader. And, I don’t want my favorite writers to stop being themselves either. It’s disingenuous and fucking boring as well. Who wants to read the same style, form, cadence, etc? And, who wants to write that way? Not me, my friends.

I’ve definitely been a victim of Sir Couch’s. I’ve killed, I’ll bet, thousands of darlings over the years and I’ll never get them back. A few years ago I wrote a paragraph so disturbingly raw that while I was writing the placement of the words didn’t register in my mind – it was just born from some passion for this particular story. When I read it, I got chills. Something told me I had to cut it – that it was just way, way too much and too over the top. I would never be able to look at my mom, hell – my whole family, again after they read it. I passed it to my trusty group of pre-screeners and all except one loved it. All it took was that one voice of dissent to justify my own thoughts. I killed the piece and have regretted it ever since. To date, that was probably my best paragraph.

I’m not doing that anymore and urge all fledgling writers such as myself to eschew this nasty phrase and write to your hearts content. To Sir Couch, wherever your bones may be rotting and restless with the worry of the genesis of better writers than yourself – I say this to you, Sir (in the voice of Sir John Gielgud from Arthur) go screw yourself!

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Poetry Sucks – No, Wait, Does it?

Annabelle Lee

Annabelle Lee

The audio version of this post appears below. Just click on “play”.

 

I gave up reading poetry a quarter of a century ago, which is kind of ironic as the genesis of my writing passion grew from Edgar Allan Poe’s Annabelle Lee. When I was seven or eight, I made my mom read that damn thing to me over and over again. My mom was a real trooper as I spent hours asking her questions about what every single word meant and why Poe had chosen to arrange them the way he did. I realize that my love for a famous iconic poem doesn’t make me deep or intellectual, nor do I care. It would be far sexier if the writer’s spark had come from some obscure poet who killed him or herself by eating the only copy of their best opus and then aspirating on the vomit of their own words.

But, again, I don’t care. I just knew I wanted to learn how to string prose together like this guy did. Of course, that will never happen Poe was the master and I’m but a fan with a little imagination. As I went through school I suffered the same shit everyone does; Frost, Whitman, Yates…blah, blah, blah – searching for all the hidden meanings and trying to find some answers to life in general. I hated it. I’m not saying those guys don’t rock – I’m just saying it seemed a colossal waste of time trying to get into all these various heads.

At university I met tons of self-proclaimed poets none of which I became friends with. At that time, to me if writers were the gold standard of self-absorbed personalities then poets were the ones who set the standard. After awhile I coined the phrase “intellectual vapidity” and applied it to all the poets on campus. Then one night driving home from school, I heard some famous now dead poet on NPR saying how we all need poets to explain the universe to us. That everyone on the planet who was not a poet was somehow inferior and would struggle with our own existence until we take the big dirt nap. This guy probably thought we would struggle afterward as well.

Remember, I’m young at this point – twenty, or twenty-one at the most. So, I’m still impressionable and trying to feel my way up the slimy slope of life. I’ve never been one to judge too quickly or harshly and prefer investigating questions myself before rendering a decision on any given subject. Thus, I decided to write some poetry. I knew all the basic structures and understood everything from allegory to villanelle and since the white noise of ideas never shuts off in my head, I had plenty of material to forge into something hopefully readable.

After three weeks and exactly eighteen poems (I can still see the blinking MS/DOS prompt on my old Tandy computer), I re-read all of them and then called begging the NPR station to send me a tape of the interview with that nutty poet. I got it a week later, popped it into the player in my car on the home one night and listened to this guy’s pabulum once more. As soon as I got home, I looked at the printed out copies of my foray into poetry, neatly sorted them into a pile and placed the cassette from NPR next to them. I looked at the poems and said “you suck”, looked at the cassette and said “you suck even worse”, and then I ripped the pages into pieces and smashed the tape with a hammer, swearing to never attempt to write a piece of poetry, spend any time talking or arguing with a poet, and damning them all to hell. At twenty or twenty-one you feel like you have hell damning powers.

I’ve spent the last twenty-five or so years poetry free, being polite every once in a while when someone gifted me with a book of poems (usually Frost – easiest to find in the bargain bins, I guess) because the gift giver knows I love literature and trying hard not to grimace when someone told me they were a poet.

I’ve softened with age as one is wont to do and now have a still suspicious view on poetry albeit it a more embracing one. My good friend Ray Grant published a book of poetry a couple of years ago. You can find it here. Ray is someone I hold in the highest of regards, both as a thinker and all around Renaissance man. So, of course, I felt obligated to read his book (kidding Ray). I enjoyed reading Ray’s poems because I could relate the content to Ray as a person and my friend, and have gone back to his book on quite a few occasions. It’s also led me to be more receiving of other people’s works – although I do have to say, mainly of people who are not well known. I’m not sure what that phenomenon is, but I still find the classics boring and vapid. Maybe it’s just because I didn’t know those poets personally and thus couldn’t relate to what they were saying.

The point, if there were to be one is this: I’ve realized how personal poetry is and being the kind of person who loves nothing more than to entertain people with stories, I’m not ready to let the reading public into my most innermost thoughts and struggles. I’m giving poetry a stay of execution in my reading lexicon, but I still won’t be writing any poetry in the near future – or ever. Well, maybe as I’m about to take the dirt nap.