Now Make it Rhyme...

Writing is really personal. That seems super obvious but sometimes I think it's easy to forget.

When I write something, that's me. On the paper. Or the screen as the case may be. But it's something that didn't exist before and now it does because I created it. Nonfiction or fiction. It's all really personal.

Writing fiction is more personal to me than nonfiction. Which seems a little counterintuitive I think. I mean the nonfiction stuff is clearly my opinion, it's what I think about the world, how I see the world, how I view myself. And I'm kind of a diarist style writer with that. I often write really personal things. Much to the chagrin of the people who end up in those pieces. Or thrill, to be perfectly fair. Sometimes people are thrilled to be featured.

But even with how personal I am willing to get in my nonfiction writing, fictional writing is still more personal. Or maybe vulnerable is the word I'm looking for? It's vulnerable writing. Because I'm putting something out there that isn't an opinion, it's not something I'm doing in my life, it's a creation. It's wholly me. I made those people up. I made them do those things. I decided everybody was dead before we started on the journey and I figured out how to break it to you before the end, but not before you got attached so if I'm lucky I made you cry.

I mean...not that. That would be terrible. But maybe that.

But it is personal. It is vulnerable. This format isn't as interactive as the old method I had of posting but when I had the Facebook page for the blog and I posted a fictional story if nobody clicked like I was a little devastated. I just needed one or two to be okay, but nobody? Terrible.

But if it was a nonfiction piece and nobody liked it I just assumed it was an unpopular opinion but not unpopular enough to get people arguing. And I moved on. But no likes on a fiction piece and Brent heard about it.

Sometimes I would hear from someone who was pretty sure they were the person in my story. Usually they're wrong. Often they missed the piece where the character was SO based on them. We as a species are terrible at seeing how others view us. And writers tend to hide the real people who inspired their stories a little deeper than you the reader will look.

That's not to say that I don't write about situations that my friends have been in. Usually it's an inspired by thing. I wrote a story about a woman pulling into her garage and picking up a call between her husband and his mistress on the bluetooth in her car. That story came from the very real experience of constantly picking up Brent's work calls on the bluetooth in the car mixed with the story of a friend who came home early from a girl's camping trip to find her husband preparing the house for a romantic night. You know, a night she was supposed to be gone. (For the record she liked the story, the fact that the woman stayed strong and kicked his ass out helped) (double for the record I changed the actual story again there just incase anyone who knows both of us is reading and doesn't know how her marriage ended)

So anyway...writing is personal. Writing is vulnerable. Everyone I know who writes swings between thinking they are a genius who has created worlds to thinking they are a hack who should have their fingers superglued together so they cannot hold a pen or type on a keyboard. There are a few professional writers out there who don't seem to have that issue. Who understand that they are good and will tell you that they are good.

And man do people hate that.

We as a society hate confident people. We might say we don't. But we so do. Look at poor Timothée Chalamet. He went from everyone's favorite to everyone's tired of this guy. And why? Well aside from the ballet/opera comment it was because he said things like he intends to be the best actor of his generation. That he wants to win every award. He is pretty sure he's good at what he does and he's not afraid to say it. The only way people could have hated that more is if he was a woman. Then it would OV.ER. for him. Women are not allowed to be confident without backlash.

So anyway...

When I write it's a vulnerable state. Even for me who is not all that vulnerable to the court of public opinion. For the most part I subscribe to the "what you think of me is none of my business" school of life. Except when I write fiction, then I want you to like it. Not me, you can still think I'm overrated and a hack and delusional and opinionated and whatever else gets said about me. But I want you to like what I create. Because I do. Because I made it. And we all like to have things we made liked by others.

And all of this leads to the most vulnerable type of writing. It's April. April is poetry month. The hardest challenge I ever set for myself was writing one poem a day for the entire month. That was killer. Especially because I forced myself to do multiple styles of poetry. Including iambic pentameter. That was brutal. But I did it. And I will never do it again. Not that way at least.

I often tag my poetry with the #BadPoetry label. Because poetry for a lot of people is always bad and even if you like it poetry is the hardest to get right. We have some really gifted poets in the world and even they are not widely read because poetry asks something from the reader that other writing doesn't. You have to be vulnerable along with the poet. You have to bring yourself to the work as well. You have to see how those words fit into the nooks and crannies of your own experience. It's not easily accessible.

Unless it is.

Some poetry is just fun and bouncy and asks nothing from you except for you to enjoy the ride.

Poetry is hard. Poetry is easy. Poetry is deep. Poetry is all surface.

Poetry is my most vulnerable writing and part of that is because I know before I ever hit publish that most of the people reading it are not going to like it.

But I do it anyway.

So for those of you who don't like it, buckle up because all of the fiction in April will be poetry. Four pieces. Not thirty like I did way back when, but four. I'm not sure yet what style, probably free verse, probably some Haiku. But I don't know for sure just yet. I just know it's coming.

And some of it might even rhyme.