A funny thing happened on the way down Memory Lane

[randy_byers]

So as I was writing about Joanna Russ over the weekend, I thought it might be cute to find the paragraph of hers I'd mimicked and post it along with my version. So last night I pulled out the ancient folder containing the story I did this for, "Singularities". It smelled of mildew, although the paper all looked clean. Notebook paper with handwritten text, typewriter paper with typed text. There was the Seal of approval that carl had drawn for me when I was feeling down about the quality of what I'd written. And here were two different versions of the paragraph I had based on Russ. Loooooooong paragraph. Starts off well, but uh-oh, quickly becomes pointlessly weird and stilted. So I looked at the second version, which takes it more in the direction of the story I wanted to tell. Well, there's more story there, the weirdness is more pointed, but boy is it stilted and disconnected and inhuman. I read the first paragraph of the finished story, and it was so horribly over-intellectualized that I immediately stopped. This was bringing up bad memories.

So I pulled out the slightly-less-ancient folder that contained the novella, "Recognition", which was the longer version of the same story that I wrote after I moved to Seattle. Started reading the first paragraph, which was completely different from the original opening -- and boy was it horribly precious and confusing and over-written. I looked briefly at the notes that Victor wrote after he read it, and his first point was that the shifting verb tenses was a bad idea. No shit! What the hell was I thinking?

I put the folder away, and I spun out. I got really upset. I had to leave the house. And I was surprised by how upset I felt. I thought I'd put my dream of being a great writer behind me. I thought I had found a niche of amateur journalism that made a lot more sense for my personality. And I think I have. What I didn't realize is that moving on didn't mean those old feelings of failure, disappointment, and self-loathing from the era of trying to write fiction had been resolved. Wow. I can't say I missed those feelings! What a cesspit.

So I went down to the Pacific Inn and ordered a two-piece fish and chips. I drank a couple of pints of fine local beer. I watched NBA basketball for an hour and exchanged quips with the bartender, Bobby. And I went back home, and I read a few pieces from Dave Kehr's collection of movie reviews, and everything was fine. Ugly feelings back in the folder, back in the file cabinet.

I know this is kind of a cheat. There's more I could say about why I failed as fiction writer, and particularly about how over-intellectualized I was as a young man and how much work I put into learning how to feel (one of the insights I gained from reading Russ was how much work it is to feel clearly), and how much help I got from my friends (and from a counselor) doing so, how much I still fail on that front (c.f. romantic relationships). How much the learning process led my writing in a different, less ambitious, direction that is a much better fit for who I am. And there, that's my outline of a deeper self-portrait. I feel rattled even saying that much. Funny where a little fond nostalgia for the old days will lead you.

Comments

[voidampersand.livejournal.com]

When you can tell what was wrong about it, you're halfway there. The rest is just a simple, repetitive and brutally painful process of keeping at it.

[randy-byers.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I definitely did not have the keep-at-it attitude. That's part of what made me realize that fiction was not my thing. Which is fine. It's just weird that I still have such strong feelings about it.

[fishlifter.livejournal.com]

What I didn't realize is that moving on didn't mean those old feelings of failure, disappointment, and self-loathing ... had been resolved

Had this recently, reflecting on my career as part of trying to apply for employment by my employer in future. A good outcome of this sort of unanticipated reflection is when it can lead you back not just to remembering how you started instead to do something 'that is a much better fit for who I am' but to feeling grounded in who you now are, and good about that. But I suspect it's normal for the regret (and the nostalgia) to hang around for who you might have been, and how it felt being who you were.

[randy-byers.livejournal.com]

Yes, part of what I'm getting from this is just how powerful that old dream was to me. Even in jaded middle age the dream apparently has the power to jolt me with its death throes.