Lurking Just Inside…

I’ve received a request. A young writer wrote and asked me to reveal why I write “like that”. Strangely, I understood the request and even stranger, I felt compelled to respond. I'm sure you'll be disappointed to hear that my mother did not drop me on my head, although I did spend more than a little time playing football without a helmet; however neither situation adequately answers the question. ‘You’ are basically nosy, I think; interested in knowing why I would be content with writing stories that contain little by way of socially redeeming value, why I seem to lack the desire to force my prose into tightly structured little boxes. I sense you sitting there in your chairs, expecting me to write something you might be interested in reading… it’s always about you, isn’t it? It isn’t enough for me to merely make some statements about some innocuous event, person or situation and expect you to assign value to it without some credible context because you have needs, man; you don’t want to waste your valuable time on tomfoolery, no matter how well-expressed it might be, am I right?

I’m aware that most of you consider quasi-versification outside the realm of ‘poetry’ heretical; and the presentation of alliterative or other roughly structured prosodic elements in the context of ‘prose’ unfit for the heterodoxy of thematic composition, except when it occurs as the result of bona fide attempts at poesy as a sub-text or stand-alone quote.

Rubbish, I say… for there exists within the beating heart of any prosemeister the occasional desire to cling tighter to his reins and challenge his inner steed to run with the wind, caring not whether the work calls for caution of enterprise or circumspection of intent, but riding closer to the edge and leaning over his flanks for a closer look at the abyss before returning to the safety of convention. Only then, nostrils flaring and hot blood coursing through expanded envelopes of pseudo-reality, can unfettered art find a home on its canvas.

So chide me if you will—mock me if you must—but somewhere within, you know I’m right. If you’re interested, I have one piece of advice for any writer: Leave the safety of acceptance and you will find a new world so complex, so appealing, so goddamn interesting… that you won’t want to leave. Never again will you be satisfied to tell someone else’s story in someone else’s terms; never again will you accept normality as a hallmark nor universal acceptability as a precept. Don’t describe a character’s life or actions, but help me experience his dreams. I promise your writing will fly like never before—with or without a few extra illusory similes.