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Writing Practice

Tying it All Together

First things first.  We need an interruption.

“Hey dad.  Can I use the computer?”

“I’m pretending to write.  What do you need it for?”

“I have stuff to do.”

“You can’t do it on your laptop?”

He grunts something unintelligible to emphasize his frustration and tries to leave the room.

“Hey… wait up.  Have you read any of the stuff I asked you to?”

“What?”

“The pages I printed.  Did you read them?”

“Some.”

“It wasn’t fucking long.  Just read them.  I need feedback.”

“I read some.  Don’t swear at me.  I didn’t really like it.”  He turns again to walk out.

“What didn’t you like?”

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“It’s not really fiction.  It reads like your life, but with a woman as the author and weird psychosis-induced dream sequences.”

“That might be what I’m trying for.  My life to this point has been mostly fiction.  Perhaps it provides the pico de gallo of all material for creative writing… You know, the beak of the rooster.”

“Sounds like bullshit, dad.  You are grasping at straws… ghosts… crap you’ve done – because you can’t think up original shit to write about.”

“I don’t think that’s fair.  Plenty of the things I’ve written about fall into the fiction genre.  For example, I really do enjoy internet porn…  shit… no… that’s the counterargument… give me a sec… {The writer rustles through some papers on his stately desk}  Well, I recognize that I am not the sum of ‘infinite interactions.’  The interactions I am a sum of are actually quite finite.”  I feel like I’m flailing.

“Look, dad… I get it.  You had a splinter when you were little.  You didn’t feel like anyone noticed.  You didn’t listen to me when I that age either.  Who the hell listens to one-year-olds?  Do they even talk?”

“What about you?  I don’t even have a son.  If I weren’t writing fiction, how the hell did that happen?”

“Oh for crying out loud!  I am sure I’m just some tired plot device or allegory.  Perhaps I’m some long-dead homunculus twin that was subsumed during grandma’s LSD-inspired pregnancy.  Maybe I’m just in your head.  That’s not fiction; it’s called mental illness.”

He looks smug.  He’s probably right, but I can’t let on.  “Homunculus is a great word.  I may steal that for a story I’m writing – it’s a dialogue with my fictitious son.”  I stammer a little.  Perhaps I should not take this further, but I can’t help myself.  “Plus, if you were my subsumed twin, how could you be my son?  Wouldn’t that make you my brother?  Are you accusing grandma of incest?”

“Fuck you dad,” he says as he storms out.

With the interruption out of the way, I turn my attention back to the task at hand.  I doubt I really know how to tie these loose threads back together.  What elements do the ghosts of walls, the institution of pornography, and vague memories of my childhood have that can draw them together into a coherent and entertaining storyline? 

Is the common thread the color beige?  That color of all things fried!  That hue which all things take on as they age and decay!  I can’t remember the color of that wall on day five, only its filth, but this is fiction.  It could have been beige. 

On the other hand, the first color I think of when I consider the porn from day four is certainly not beige.  Who looks at the drapes in the motel backdrop for the shoot?  It’s not really believable, but it may be the best I’ve got.  The drapes were beige, I’m certain of it, as was the paint on the door of the little cupboard where the brooms were kept on day two.  Huzzah!  Fiction, motherfuckers!

Oh… I almost forgot.  There are tribes and bureaucratic indoctrination on day three still to draw into the narrative.  Maybe if I ignore it nobody will be the wiser.  Maybe they’ll think I thought it implied that the color for the battle standard of tribe bureaucrat is beige on a beige background.  Yeah.  Sounds plausible.