Metacause is really just because. I had no right unloading that story on anyone, but it’s a catharsis. I’m trying to think about Professional Issues and the test tomorrow, but the text is whirling and dancing. Gonna be one of those “I can study in the morning” nights. My mind jumps to the shitty job I’ve done on my English assignment and how easily I am read but my papers are not. Cas was just here for the weekend, and the conversation turned to Mary. I tried to explain that I still miss her every waking hour and most of the ones in between, but found it hard to tell him I am also madly in love with Cindy, and have been for about twelve years. The idea of loving that much twice in one lifetime is incomprehensible to Cas, being a Lothario. We’ll be in St. Vincent this coming fall, the place Mary and I called our getaway, not thirty miles away from where Cindy and I were married, in St. Lucia- our getaway. I thought about how far I’ve come as far as not having to make excuses or reason it out with myself. Sort of Zen enlightenment. I realized I was okay with a naked soul, and wondered when that happened. I’ll never know when but I know why. Thanks Mary, and I promise I won’t write about you again. Cindy’s fair game though.
Catharsis is what my most naive student writers think writing is all about and their writing suffers terribly as a result. But, of course, if a writer is able to control his material and get outside his own head a little, then the reader is in for, at worst, a voyeuristic treat, and, at best, his own catharsis of pity and fear, the very stuff of classic tragedy.
ReplyDeleteSo, here you are, in control, satisfying the teacher, satisfying the reader, the writing certainly not suffering.
I always worry about buyer's remorse with a piece like this, though--once flushed of that material, will you start wishing in the morning that you had written about the three reasons you love Xmas or the three reasons you prefer poker to pinochle or some such?
Anyway, Capt Havoc, you are a tempest-tossed writer, lots of voices, moods, modes, shtiks, tricks, avenues, and back alleys. What would you like me to do to help you with your writing?