Ernest Hemingway, again. Apparently he liked bull fighting. As immoral as it was considered, even in his own time, he found he liked it.
He wrote he has an interest in suicide. He compared something like the nobility of the bull, and the tragedy of their death even as a sure thing, with suicide. I think that's what the comparison was. Books on CD tend to wash over me, giving the continuum of the colors rather than solidifications of facts and events.
Where was I?
He has a voice, on this book on tape - literally, and in the more Euclidean sense. His writing has "a voice." This isn't new. I've even understood this before, but I never identified it with myself.
These emergent properties in this experiment. Not the right use of "emergent properties," really, but they're emerging the more I write, and their properties of my writing, and writing in general.
Last night I finished a story. About 6 thousand words (we've been going about 6 days). Apparently we found out some time ago that in the middle of every story, whether the story is told by a character, a picture hanging on a wall, or an invisible narrator, there is always always a persona, telling the story. Apparently when this sort of philosophical revelation came about writers experimented and tried to write stories without this voice. I'm not sure, but I think they were unsuccessful. We can't separate the is from the who, no matter how we try. We want to personalize things.
My story has a voice. I mention Hemingway because as I listen, the voice that's emerging from there is sincere, and caring. He's talking about something he cares about. The voice that emerges from my story is witty, I hope, empassioned, I think, and often times sarcastic. I imagine a greasy old New Yorkian wearing a gristle-stained apron, sitting in the corner of a diner, smoking, and telling this story.
If I can talk about my feelings for a second (Hi, my name is Kevin, and I write sarcastically), I wonder if this isn't because I'm not quite comfortable with what I'm doing yet. I remember when I first started "acting." Yes "acting". I often times played the character angry, even when it was unnecessary. It was easy. It was masculine. And it was defensive. I wonder if I might be doing the same thing here.
3 comments:
questions to ask:
Is the voice the author?
Is the voice authentic to the story?
Is the voice inside or outside the story?
I have some things I'd like to talk with you about in regards to this. It would require too much typing and not enough response from you so I'll just wait for tomorrow and hopefully it doesn't all slip my mind before I see you.
Maybe you are, maybe you aren't. I've always believed that any writer is emotionally involved with their product, and as the writer grows older the emotion changes and adapts to their constantly changing perspective. That's somewhat irrelevant but I had to post something. ATS already said what I wanted to say.
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