Wednesday, March 10, 2010

Caged narrator

It's been weeks. Haven't written a word. I'm beginning to narrate things. I'm tempted to pull people aside in the hallway at the hospital and begin telling them short stories, the character-driven kind where not too much happens but there's all of this beautfil imagery and whatnot and it would get mentioned in an obscure literary magazine that only wrters read where it would receive honorable mention.

Do I want to be that kind of writer? The kind that only other writers know about, or the kind that kids groan about when they find out they've got to read it in school? I don't think so. I think I'd like to be sensational. Someone who churns out a novel every year and a half, and writes the kind of books that people can't put down when they read in bed at night. Somewhere a woman will be reading in bed and her husband will say, "Don't you have to get up early tomorrow morning?" And she'll say, "I'm reading The Kinky Sex Mutant Wizard's Disco Inferno by Genevieve Rheams. It's sci-fi, fantasy, western, romance and autobiographical. I can't put it down!"

But damn it, I need to start getting up early again and writing. And sending stuff off! But until I get my ass in gear about getting published, I need to atleast let the narrator out of my head. I love my job here at Ochsner and everything, but there's no writing involved, I don't want to write on work time (like I am right now - eeek!), and my writer's voice is going so stir crazy that if I don't let her out, she's going to chew herself loose of her shackles. There will be no saving the poor medical students in the hallway when I corner them and demand that they listen while I recite Eudora Welty.

"Who is that?" they'll ask.
"She was one of the greatest southern writers of the 20th century. Won the Pulitzer Prize."
"Oh. Do you know any Dean Koontz?"

2 comments:

Tom said...

"...and autobiographical."
You got me. Wasn't expecting that last one.



"Who is that?" they'll ask.
"She was one of the greatest southern writers of the 20th century. Won the Pulitzer Prize."
"Oh. Do you know any Dean Koontz?"

I don't know any Dean Koontz. Didn't he tour with Stevie Ray Vaughan for a while, though? Like, in his early years before he got big? Is it something they played on the radio? Maybe I can fake it.

Genevieve said...

Dean Koontz was a 17th century Irish political satirist. Pshaw! Call yourself a Liberal Arts major!

Let's see...if I was your English professor and I was assigning Eudora Welty, what would I put on your reading list? Oh, there's such gold! Delta wedding, The Ponder Heart, The Optomist's Daughter. Oh! And she has a book of photography. It's a damn good one.