Why must I feel compelled to write about everything that happens to me or my family that is even remotely out of the ordinary? For example, my wife called me at work the other morning and the first words out of her mouth were, “I had an accident.” Being that we cycle to work, I immediately thought the worst.
My mind sprinted to visions of a mangled Bike Friday and Yvonne lying in a hospital bed in a body cast (I do realize she probably wouldn’t be able to talk on a phone in this state, but you’re not really rational at that point, are you?).
Luckily her next sentence was, “I slipped coming out of the shower, landed on my elbow, and had to go to the doctor to get some stitches.” Disaster averted (not that this isn’t a disaster in its own right).
So, this barely warrants anything worth writing about, right? People slip in the shower and get stitches all the time. So why did my thoughts turn to trying to figure out what kind of angle I could take and what profoundness I could tease out of it?
It reminds me of a sentence David Miller wrote in a blog post a while back called I want to write short stories. It starts off like this: “Even when it gets wall-punching or wineglass-throwing bad I’ll think how things we’re screaming would sound in a story.”
Writer’s curse. That’s what I’m calling it. Every goddam thing that happens I feel like I have to find the deeper meaning in it and write about it. Sometimes — probably most times — things are exactly as they seem. There is no hidden meaning. Nothing esoteric. Can I live a normal life again where things just happen and that’s that? Or am I doomed to constantly wonder how this or that “would sound in a story?”
(Oh, by the way…Merry Christmas everyone!)
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I think this is all something we “suffer” from. For me, the thing I most struggle with is reading a book for fun. I feel like while I’m reading, I’m always over-analyzing everything in order to understand word choice, consider tone and rhythm, etc. So much for the days of curling up with a book just because!
Carlo, I’m the same way. It’s why we write–I think to make sense of these moments? No? Like David said, even if people are yelling etc., you can get a story out of it.
When I was a senior in High School five years ago I took a “Memoirs & Personal Writing” class–okay, so I =knew very little about writing/what it is to be a writer, but I wrote one piece about my passion for writing that ended with: “I could lose myself in any good book, but it’s in my writing that I find myself.” Sometimes, I think its kind of, well, sick that we utilize every crisis as a subject, but at the same time, it’s a coping mechanism. I don’t really comprehend the bad until I put it down on paper and dissect it. Good post – glad to know I’m not the only one who does this!
Hahaha Carlo, I know exactly what you mean. Sometimes I put myself in ridiculous situations thinking “this would make an excellent story.”
You do this so the rest of us won’t feel alone.