In pursuit of the willing ovary...
Everyone seems to be on a short fuse these days. My dad, my bro', my friends. Even I, with my known tendency to anger, feel positively serene in comparison.
So, in a bid to avoid the wrath of late-summer blues-affected circle, I am retracting into myself and resuming my reading.
I'm currently reading "My Ear at his Heart", a memoir by Hanif Kureishi (Note: Anyone who has not read any Kureishi should go out and buy "Buddha of Suburbia" or "The Black Album" immediately). It's about his memories of his father, who was a failed writer, and the experience of reading his father's last, unpublished novel.
I lament, silently but persistently, the death of my writer's dream. In many ways, it is a dream that never really was - I never had the discipline, let alone the talent, to write with any substance. I once envisaged punchy novellas, effervescent with what would be considered by the critical press as the prevailing anger of the age. Now I'm rapidly leaking the venom of youth and all I'll be good for are half-baked comic capers.
A screwy idea is now burgeoning in my all-too-flippant thinking. Should I go out and have a kid, who I can one day hone into the writer I most probably will never be? Now, all I need is a willing young lady...
So, in a bid to avoid the wrath of late-summer blues-affected circle, I am retracting into myself and resuming my reading.
I'm currently reading "My Ear at his Heart", a memoir by Hanif Kureishi (Note: Anyone who has not read any Kureishi should go out and buy "Buddha of Suburbia" or "The Black Album" immediately). It's about his memories of his father, who was a failed writer, and the experience of reading his father's last, unpublished novel.
I lament, silently but persistently, the death of my writer's dream. In many ways, it is a dream that never really was - I never had the discipline, let alone the talent, to write with any substance. I once envisaged punchy novellas, effervescent with what would be considered by the critical press as the prevailing anger of the age. Now I'm rapidly leaking the venom of youth and all I'll be good for are half-baked comic capers.
A screwy idea is now burgeoning in my all-too-flippant thinking. Should I go out and have a kid, who I can one day hone into the writer I most probably will never be? Now, all I need is a willing young lady...
posted by nickwong8 at 8:03 pm
1 Comments:
Before I begin: How much do you hate it when people leave no clue as to their identity, but still feel it's appropriate to use comment space to their own ends? That being said, my recipe for a delicious curry vegetable dish is available for only $50 and an SASE. No, really, it drives me wild. Once, some guy tried to convince me to use my blog space to help him sell vitamins.
Now, please, if youre thinking about kids in terms of experiment... get a goldfish. It'd be a far greater thing if you molded a goldfish into a writer. Abby and I talk about the possibility of one day raising up offspring, but so far the only reasons we have for doing so are incredibly narcissistic--like "I hope it looks like me" and "I'll die if it listens to Britney Spears, or dresses like Britney Spears, or ANYTHING Britney Spears" and "What if I think my kid is a vapid whore jock asshole with shit for brains?" Abby just finished a book--"Something Happened" by Joseph Heller--and she said the strong point of the book was that the writer is very honest about his feelings toward parenting, bringing up his children, etc.
I doubt youre really serious about finding a willing ovary, right? So I can safely move on to the larger question, which is: Why should your writer dream be dead? Buckle down, bitch, if that's what you think you want. Maybe youll only write stupid crap that you wont let anyone read. And maybe youll keep doing that until finally you produce something that you think ought to be shared (this is a distinct possibility as you are, after all, a habitual blogger). We're young, Wong. I dont think we really can write anything that's THAT good, because we dont have the wisdom or the distance or the experience to do so. It'll come, but you have to court it.
My best friend can turn her attempt to find a parking spot into an epic saga. This calls to mind one of my favorite sayings in life, my jazz teacher used to have this displayed on a wooden postcard in his office: "Stories Happen Only to Those Who are Able to Tell Them"
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