Storyteller
Substantial material has been flowing from my 20th century pen of late, not least of which is not only tales but expositional material re the art and troubles of storytelling. This has been more than a minor success for me: I am a storyteller, there is little doubt; but there are doubts about how effective a storyteller I am and have been in times now past. Now, if there is any question remaining, it is tied only to the assertion that "The time has come," and thta it shall be important to fulfill it with courage and commitment.
I have enjoyed, fully enjoyed this exercise, for it has reminded me of mid-century now past when I spent up to ten hours a day scribbling on three-ring college ruled and in a variety of kinds of notebooks, putting down anything from poetry and short story to journalism and essay. I was inhabited by an irresistible force and luxuriated in that transportation and the visitations that attended it: I was glorified in those years -- probably twenty of them.
Over those years, I managed to collect a considerable paperweight of rejection slips that I used to suggest among friends would paper my bedroom wall. Probably not entirely true, not close to true, but the hyperbole made the point for us all. Then, in 1987, I stopped publishing almost anything exvept journalistic polemic and outdoor sports articles, largely because I STOPPED writing anything else: dead stopped, unto DEAD. Maybe I have been.
Indeed, if anyone might have asked me two years ago whether I had written 'anything' in the intervening years - that anything being poetry or short story ... I would have said no and thought I was truth telling. Then about a year past I happened to have reason to pull apart older filing cabinet materials and a set of cabinets, both of which stored - among other things - materials I had written 'observational notes' in or things that had made it into typewritten form. I had thought they were older. They were ... but only in part: pages that had been empty were filled with random materials I had written -- those observations and rhymes and statements and stories that had erupted into my mind during intervening years since 1987 and that I had taken the time to record rather than neglect.
Neglect has been my usual path during those years. NEGLECT - or a failure of courages ... or a failure of faith in my God-given talents that I denied but may have overcome me.
The reader may wonder at my joy or blink and ask why this matters. Writers are vulnerable creatures, not because their frail courage fills them with doubt, but because their telents, strength, and skills make them understand how essential it is to maintain a healthy openness to others, to experience, and to the world at large. I have written about this at modest length in another place - the abstract to my doctoral dissertation, and more recently in a planned introduction to a collection I am yet ... collecting, so I will not expand more upon it here; but it would be good were the reader to stretch the imagination in the attempt to embrace this concept: it is essential to comprehending the generic swriter (I'll get along without it for the moment but appeal for it later and in another place).
Joy matters.
I have enjoyed, fully enjoyed this exercise, for it has reminded me of mid-century now past when I spent up to ten hours a day scribbling on three-ring college ruled and in a variety of kinds of notebooks, putting down anything from poetry and short story to journalism and essay. I was inhabited by an irresistible force and luxuriated in that transportation and the visitations that attended it: I was glorified in those years -- probably twenty of them.
Over those years, I managed to collect a considerable paperweight of rejection slips that I used to suggest among friends would paper my bedroom wall. Probably not entirely true, not close to true, but the hyperbole made the point for us all. Then, in 1987, I stopped publishing almost anything exvept journalistic polemic and outdoor sports articles, largely because I STOPPED writing anything else: dead stopped, unto DEAD. Maybe I have been.
Indeed, if anyone might have asked me two years ago whether I had written 'anything' in the intervening years - that anything being poetry or short story ... I would have said no and thought I was truth telling. Then about a year past I happened to have reason to pull apart older filing cabinet materials and a set of cabinets, both of which stored - among other things - materials I had written 'observational notes' in or things that had made it into typewritten form. I had thought they were older. They were ... but only in part: pages that had been empty were filled with random materials I had written -- those observations and rhymes and statements and stories that had erupted into my mind during intervening years since 1987 and that I had taken the time to record rather than neglect.
Neglect has been my usual path during those years. NEGLECT - or a failure of courages ... or a failure of faith in my God-given talents that I denied but may have overcome me.
The reader may wonder at my joy or blink and ask why this matters. Writers are vulnerable creatures, not because their frail courage fills them with doubt, but because their telents, strength, and skills make them understand how essential it is to maintain a healthy openness to others, to experience, and to the world at large. I have written about this at modest length in another place - the abstract to my doctoral dissertation, and more recently in a planned introduction to a collection I am yet ... collecting, so I will not expand more upon it here; but it would be good were the reader to stretch the imagination in the attempt to embrace this concept: it is essential to comprehending the generic swriter (I'll get along without it for the moment but appeal for it later and in another place).
Joy matters.
posted by Duct Tape at 11:00 PM
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