Is She Still Talking?

I can't blog today. I can't spend another minute listening to my own voice. And the book that Kirsten recommended, Three Steps on The Ladder of Writing, has arrived. As Milo would say, "Bye bye, mama."

But I am here to fulfill my posting obligation. For anyone who comes here because these posts make you think, here are a couple of topics to think about, on the subject of writing. And, if anybody else wants to talk for a while? Please, feel free!

1. Can I Get An Editor in Here, Please?

Hurrying to get dinner started, I felt like yesterday's post went out before it was finished. Then, reading it back, realize that it is too personal for me to be able to tell. This is like my experience with playwriting; at some point it gets too close for you to be able to see it anymore. I'm not comfortable with that. It seems like an editor would be of use.

And...I didn't mention this at the time, but about a week ago I had a very strange typo. I think I tried to make up a word. Nobody said anything, and I noticed it and fixed it a couple of days later, so you can't go looking for it now. But I wondered: Does anyone notice these things? Or do you assume that I know what I'm doing and that it was just a word that I knew and you didn't?

2. The Second Impulse For Fiction.

I talked in Exit, Pursued By a Bear, about the impulse to fictionalize in order to entertain the reader. Now I'm feeling an impulse to turn to fiction to satisfy the writer. To put it crudely, now that I've used my mother's death, on the 18th day of my blogging month, I might have just run out of material.

What I'm preparing to do is not fiction, but it isn't documentary either. I'm accepting that I need to be at home with the kids, so if I'm going to practice the craft of storytelling, the available subject is me. And I'm organizing me into something that is interesting enough to write about. On the page, this looks perverse. Why do I have to do experiments with my life? Why don't I just write fiction?