Au revoir

That’s it for me now. The blog sessions for Author Study are over. 

But before I sign out of this blog I need to admit how encouraging I have found it, as a writer. 

It is because of this that I will throw away the bowlines and sail away from the safe harbour – as next week I will be embarking on the Ephemeral Garrett.2. Here, I will be discussing upcoming projects, my general thoughts and opinions on writing, and analysing the process behind stories I have written in the past.

Au revoir reader.

Listen, smile, agree, and then do whatever the fuck you were gonna do anyway.

-- Robert Downey Jr. 

Torch Song - Joan arrives at Jack’s apartment to find him dead in his bed. What happens next?

Honestly? This may be a controversial concept, but I am of the opinion that Joan does not exist.

I believe that while Joan may well embody ‘death’ she is also the embodiment of the protagonist Jack (and Cheever’s) homosexuality, à la a certain character exposed in Chuck Palahniuk’s most famous title...

Whenever Joan is beat by her lovers, Jack does nothing because Jack is BEATING his homosexuality out of his mind – out of his conscious sight. He is ashamed and does not confront this shame but lets it trail alongside him, until it catches up with him. His marriages collapse and he ends up living out of various hotels after the war – on deaths door.  At which point he considers Joan (his own urges) have led to his death and despair.

While I could well be looking into the story too much, the definition of Torch Song is, ‘a sad or sentimental love song, typically about unrequited love.’ Jack describes Joan as a, ‘big, handsome girl with a wonderful voice’ whose face had a gentle beauty. But I couldn’t find clarification that Joan ever seemed to share an attraction for Jack. 

Cheever’s narratives rarely end ‘happily ever after’. Why might a writer choose to make their characters suffer?

I believe that Cheever’s narratives seldom had joyful endings, because Cheever didn’t see one on the horizon for himself. And as for him making his characters suffer; well, suffering forges character and characters in conflict make for a solid tale. Plus the man did once say:  

The need to write comes from the need to make sense of one's life and discover one's usefulness.

-- John Cheever

Writing for Cheever was to exercise one’s demons. Writing was a way to discover one’s worth. While Cheever created these rich, involving worlds and dropped the reader into his characters’ lives at sporadic moments; he was fully aware that his characters were just that – characters. He invented them. They may well be

adapted from fragments of his own psyche or the remembrance of a stranger, but Cheever knew full well that they were at his disposal.

So, I guess you could say that writing is a form of counselling.

After all, what is art if not an aid to better understand? We all suffer in life; some of different magnitudes to others, yes – but that doesn’t mean certain suffering is superfluous. So I think along with the writer trying to gain their own understanding of their own problems, they’re also putting it out there so that other people can do the same.   

Creating something is all about problem-solving.

-- Philip Seymour Hoffman

A writer should be ‘invisible’. Do you agree or disagree?

I think it should be a particular writer’s preference. Although – as the once ‘okay’ Shia LeBeouf has shown us – once you’re made visible, you can’t turn back on it (even if you do have some lame-performance-art-excuse to counter-act your plagiarism cases – but that’s another story).

In terms of preference, I personally do not feel I have the charisma to become the next John Green, though I do know students who could pull off a similar feat. If I were provided with a choice then I’d like to be not quite visible but not quite invisible either.

I’d like to be the enigmatic in-between – that distortion you see when rain patters against a reflection.

But that is not what current agents and publishers are looking for. If you follow even one of the smaller agents on Twitter then you’ll know that they’re all about their prospective authors embracing digital new media. This is so the reader can put a face to the work, should they want to.

Generally, I like the idea behind this. If someone wants to find you (outside of that outpouring of your soul that you've already offered up) then I think they should be able to. But again, that’s all down to a writer’s preference. Even a certain social-media friendly author once said,

Writing is something you do alone. It’s a profession for introverts who want to tell you a story but don’t want to make eye contact while doing it.

-- John Green

Email-Poem

Thanks for getting back to me
so quickly - Stephen.
I hope Salinger's people get back
to you - so quickly.

Continue the quality work.
I'll be keeping an eye on
proceedings.
Happy Christmas.

A protagonist that embodies the flaws and weaknesses of the writer distracts the reader from the narrative itself. Agree or disagree?

Personally, I feel that this would all depend on the exposure and regularity of the writers’ creative pieces. While reading John Cheever’s The Swimmer I was aware that Cheever was an alcoholic but this did not come to mind during reading. This was even the case when I read Cheever’s Goodbye my brother, though it is acutely obvious that alcohol is present. But just because alcohol is present in a number of his works, surely this doesn’t clarify as evidence in itself to suggest that he was an alcoholic, and thus distract you from the works? After all...

 The book creates meaning, the meaning creates life.

-- Roland Barthes

In line with Barthes theory on the death of the author, I treat the two as separate entities, and don’t find it at all distracting. If anything it deepens the piece because there’s a cornel of truth behind it. Take F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby, for example. I did not examine the text when in school and only lightly read it last year – thoroughly enjoying its tight structure. Even so, I only found out earlier this year that Fitzgerald’s narrator, Nick Caraway, could potentially be read as a homosexual. While there is no concurrent proof that The Great Gatsby’s writer, Fitzgerald was a homosexual, it is said that he was ‘famously sensitive about his masculinity’. This again does not distract from the narrative but merely adds another facet to it.

To conclude, I disagree with the above statement and cite that quality of a work exceeds the reputation of the writer – and that if prior knowledge of the writer is known, then this would enlighten rather than distract.

Dare I drop the bomb?

I have the ammo, the guns - the resources.

I have the knowledge of their deception.

You see, I have sources.

Still - They sit, not knowing I'm aware of their:

Underground networks, their boats, their choppers.

But I have my own - and they've intercepted.

Like drones of bees.

Yes - They've made it a warzone 

and war has casulaties - so

I think I shall drop the bomb.

Yes - I shall drop the bomb.

The bomb

The bomb

A bomb

A bomb

A

a

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