August 02, 2004
My first existential writers crisis.
I am finding my writing as of late has to be excruciatingly boring. It vaguely reminds me of reading the lunch menu at greasy spoon in a hick town. Which is not a cry for approval, (In fact, please don’t) just a statement of how I feel about my writing lately.
The thing is, at this point in my life I HAVE to write. I can’t not write, if I try I just go crazy. Writing is the way that I process and deal with the world around me. If I can’t write about life, then I may as well just be a zombie going through the motions and not having any idea what is happening. I have turned myself into the writer, Bukowski describes. Someone who writes not because they WANT to but because they can’t really DO anything else.
And the real kicker to this is... I just don’t like anything I have written lately.
It feels dry and uncreative. I can sense a feeling of obligation in it when I re-read my own work. Like it is something I am forcing myself to do and my resentment over having to do it seeps out in undertones of.... boringness.
The up side of this whole thing is that I can step back and say, “Hey look, I am having an existentialist writers crisis.” Which is kind of neat in a detached sort of way. It seems like a very hip sort of thing. And I’m not terribly hip these days, so everything helps.
At least I am laughing at myself, which is always important.
Comments
and I'm betting that Samoa benefitted enormously from you being here Kalapu99
Actually this normal existence thing is really rather wacky for me. Back home I went to bad bars, stayed out all night and managed to get into lots of bad relationships and trouble. I thought I might try peace and serenity for a while. It’s working out quite well for me actually. Accept maybe in the interesting story realm. But it doesn’t really matter to much anyway, even if I was out finding trouble and high adventure here I couldn’t write about it much as… Big Brother is watching me.
Well big brother seems to be watching everybody these days...for our own good of course.
My intent was to point out that 'town' pcv's have a tendency to create a limited environment for themselves. Village volunteers are forced to function within the culture, while the townie 'professional' types can avoid most of the realities of Samoan life by confining themselves to their own subculture.
I don't know if that's good or bad. It is just the way things seem to work out in Apia. It is hard to live within a Samoan family and do a good eight hours of work everyday; at least for the average volunteer. But if one doesn't live within, or close to a family, then what does one really learn about the life?
The micro culture of Apia peace corps can be a refuge for many volunteers, particularly those who find they can not handle the realities of life or work in Samoa. But it is also numbing; and one can easily lose site of the wonderful strangeness and beauty of the Pacific.
If one has the intent of writing pacific fiction one has to get muddy feet and live deeply in the culture. This is not easy for a town based 'professional' volunteer.
Soifua
Kalapu
K, I’m sorry you don’t see (you only get a small piece of the whole picture here) that my life involves plenty of interaction with Samoans. I may not be in the midst of a village in Kua, however I think I am done discussing the validity of my cultural experience with you.
I thank you for your concern on my behalf but I am doing just fine without your opinions on my life or how I live it.
Thank you
D
Dorie,
My comments have been meant as things to consider and not as criticism or opinion of what you specifically are doing. But I can understand your response. Perhaps if you read some of them a year from now they might be more meaningful; perhaps not.
I may have meant to cause a grin or irritate, which is my nature, but certainly not to offend. I offer my sincere apologies.
Tu lou lava,
Kalapu
Well wacky fish I have not read anything very wacky lately. Of course having mum and dud around can do a lot to put the kabosh on any kind of creativity.
Then there is your absolutely normal existance. It is no true source of mind warping understandings either.
You need to do some night fishing, or all night drinking in bad bars, or three day hikes into the bush, or collect some sills over westec way. Anything to fall out of the totally acceptible role you have created for yourself.
You are in samoa...you are trying to live like you are in the bay area. That's ok physically,to some extent, but it won't due mentally; at least if you are going to enjoy your writing.
See wacky, be wacky, and stop bein a stick in the mud by telling the truth all the damn time. It's no fun. The secret word is farce and you are in a giant magnifying glass where the letters of that word shine from the mountian sides a hundred times larger than the hollywood sign stands over LA.
some of my best stories of samoa came from the smallest details or comments. It's where the illusion is tattered; in the petty things they are never glossed over. I know it's still there. That ass Rush saw it all the time, but he was too stupid, or just too ignorant and proud, to laugh.
But who am I to tell you what to do. All i ever did in samoa was get sick, get drunk, get laid and get the clap. There's to much PC in today's Volunteer for my poxed blood.