25 May 2006

"the main thing to remember is that writing happens by doing the writing.”

When I sporadically attempt to write fiction, something beyond the normal self-absorbed crap that comes fairly easily to me, I can’t write the unsettling. I can’t really handle writing about sadness, or rather, writing about ugliness. Maybe someday I’ll be able to, but I can’t manage it now. I can handle writing about sadness, sometimes, but not very often, and it’s far more than I can do with ugliness. When I took creative writing, we would do writing exercises, and our teacher would have us write about the unsettling. Once, she told to create a thoroughly unlikeable character, and I was so bad at it. I wrote for awhile, it was an in-class exercise so I had to do something, but the result was ugly, and not in the way it was supposed to be. Maybe someday I’ll be able to do it; that will be a good day.

I hope one day I can write the unsettling like Mary Doria Russell. She’s able to write about the worst of humanity, write a passage that makes me want to cry pages after I’ve finished reading it. Even when I’m not reading the worst of it, when it’s only a memory or a sense of foreboding, it’s still there with me. I finished reading The Sparrow today, and I felt like I was on the brink of tears the entire time.

It’s science fiction, although it doesn’t read like sci fi, if that makes sense. I won’t ruin the story by giving away even a little of the details because Doria Russell uses foreshadowing and the slow revelation of details both major and mundane better than any author I can recall at the moment. I can’t remember the last time I was so invested in a book, so moved by a story. I can’t even explain why I’m so moved. I don’t think the theology really struck me as much as it did some of the reviewers whose blurbs are on the back of the book. I think I was just moved by a well-crafted story, the fully developed characters and arresting story line that Doria Rusell created.

Anyway, that’s enough sincerity for me today. Click on the link and buy the book; you’ll enjoy it and I’ll get a commission from Amazon.com (somewhere around $0.05, which will really turn things around for me).

4 comments:

  1. Anonymous1:25 PM

    The most difficult thing about writing is having the discipline to do it !

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  2. discipline, or lack thereof, that's my problem. and thank you for commenting. :)

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  3. Mary Doria Russell is currently my favorite author. I read A Thread of Grace at Christmas, and I still think about it nearly every day. he two science fiction titles are really, really good as well, but didn't have quite the same impact on me. I liked Thread of Grace so much I bought a copy to send to a stranger who I thought might not only like it, but inspire others to read it.

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  4. I think I actually liked "The Sparrow" more than "A Thread of Grace," although maybe that's just because I read "The Sparrow more recently.

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