Writing is believing
Great stories are written by fanatical believers; by passionate people who have deep faith in an idea. Faith is magical and it is underrated.
You are almost always guaranteed to find that badly written stories are spewed from the dry minds of non-believers. They don’t care about principles or exploring important ideas in their fiction. They just want to write a story. But their mistake - which they often make with an “artsy” pretentiousness - is thinking good stories are based simply on cute plot arcs and interesting characters. Good stories come from characters, environments and plots that represent some real aspect of our condition as humans. To get at this, you have got to have faith.
—In this immortal time and place I paid homage to George Michael.—
I find it enormously important to monitor the state of my musings on an almost daily basis to ensure that I am taking enough risks to stay honest. I need to rekindle my deepest, most esoteric ruminations in order to stimulate passionate stories. Those of us who’ve closed, bound and hidden away emotional wounds and intimate experiences should tear them open and allow the body to become a vessel for their torments. Just make sure you’re in control of your hands so they can write (or type).
james Said:
April 16, 2007 at 1:33 pm
“Now the war has come, bringing with it a new attitude… Youth has turned to gods we of an earlier day knew not, and it is possible to see already the distinction in which those who come after us move. The younger generation, conscious of strength and tumultuous, have done with knocking at the door. They have burst in and seated themselves in our seats. The air is noisy with their shouts. Of their elders some, by imitating the antics of youth, strive to persuade themselves that their day is not yet over; they shout with the lustiest, but the war-cry sounds hollow in their mouth; they are like poor wantons attempting with pencil, paint, and powder, with sheer gaiety, to recover the illusion of their spring. The wiser go their way with a decent grace. In their chastened smile is an indulgent mockery. They remember that they too trod down a sated generation, with just such clamour and with just such scorn, and they foresee that these brave torchbearers will presently yield their place also. There is no last word. The new evangel was old when Ninevah reared her greatness to the sky. These gallant words which seem so novel to those that speak them were said in accents scarcely changed a hundred times before. The pendulum swings backwards and forwards. The circle is ever travelled anew.”
P. 9 – 10, The Moon and the Six-Pence