Fiction

I enjoy the fantasy of someday writing a novel. Recently I came across a collection of story starts from over the years, and one, though totally unfamiliar to me, looked pretty recent. It's like I go into a writers haze, scribbling pages of a story from my subconscious in order to free my head for other thoughts later. Reading these little haze-induced products, I was fairly impressed with myself. But a collection of single page beginnings to stories, with no notes or indication of the intended direction of the story does not do much for my fictional writing career. Well, unless I'd like to publish a collection of story starters for others to use as writing practice. Hmmm.

The point is, I'm not sure I'd have the stamina to get an entire novel out. Plus, I fear any novel length book of mine would turn into She's Come Undone, and that book nearly undid me as a reader. I don't wish to inflict such earnestness and drama on anyone else, but my novel length ideas do head in that direction. Your life is dramatic enough, and if it isn't, then by all means revel in Wally Lamb's writings. Or Anne Tyler's books are in a similar vein.

Years ago a friend loaned me a small stack of Tyler novels. As I read, groans erupted involuntarily. I'd set the book aside, refusing to go on, then crawl back (I was on a long vacation with limited reading options). Tyler's writing is very engaging, and I held out hope that at some point her contemporary storytelling would bring with it a protagonist who wasn't totally nuts. Go ahead, form your own opinion. I don't think I'm alone in this assessment.

Okay, what was my point? Whatever final point I intended to make, another is becoming more and more clear: I should stick to my day job.