One of my classmates, James, asked an interesting question last night:
To what extent do authors mine their own life for material in their stories?
The class discussed this at length. Seth said that he never uses his own life in his writing. His life is too dull. Also, since he mainly writes speculative fiction, his own life has no relevance.
I agreed that many speculative fiction writers create their stories wholesale from their imagination, drawing only small inspiration from their real life, but argued that much of literary fiction is derived from authors' experience.
Rick noted that it's something of a cliché that every author's first novel is autobiographical. (In some cases it's the author's second novel; it's often these authors who are perceived as having a "sophomore slump".)
Of the three stories I've written in the past few months, all of them are based on personal experience. Of the characters in these three stories, every character but one is based on someone I know. And, to one degree or another, I'm the main character in every story. (Even the story with the old man photographer — that's me.)
Is this good or bad? I don't know. I suspect it's neutral.
Perhaps one writes with less imagination when mining her own life, but one is also able to tap into rawer emotions, to fabricate characters that seem real (because they are real). The key is to be able to break away from the strict confines of biography in order to craft a good story. One cannot become attached to the actual events.
For example, my latest story tells of how my half-sister, Shelley, came to live with us. Much of the first draft is factual. (Or as factual as I can recall it.) It's not a particularly good story. Last night, based on comments from classmates, and on my own feelings about the story, I realized that I need to break from reality in a number of ways for my second draft. My brothers, Jeff and Tony, will be compressed into a single character. The story will become about my relationship with Dad and Shelley, how we try to learn the balance of that relationship (but never did in real life). As the story evolves from memoir to fiction, it will gain strength, and I will lose attachment to the main characters. I'll stop thinking of the protagonist as me. (He's very much me at this point.)
But the point is: I started with my own life and the story grew from there.
Pam once told me that weblogs are presumptuous, that the authors believe their lives are more interesting than other people's lives.
I think this is incorrect.
I think that every person has an interesting life, filled with stories that might be shared. It's a matter of how this life is perceived and acted upon; if you believe your life is boring and not worth sharing, then that's the story you'll tell yourself about your life. But if you learn to see the joy and humor in all the daily details, you'll find that there are interesting stories everywhere, just waiting to be told.
Webloggers mine their lives for stories, and so do authors. Proust's seven-volume Remembrance of Things Past was an extended re-imagined autobiography. Hemingway's books all drew from his own life. Steinbeck mined his personal experience. Dickens mined his. All authors do it. Even Stephen King.
The difference between an author and you is that the author truly believes his dull little life is filled with the stuff of dreams.
Though I'm not keeping my fitness weblog any more (I need to resume!), my diet continues. I've basically been stuck at 183 pounds (down seventeen since January 15th) for six weeks. Finally, this week I've been able to adhere to my 1200-1400 calorie per day goal, and the discipline is yielding dividends. I'm down to 181. I fit into size 33 trousers last night. (I started at size 36 and have been wearing size 34 for the past six weeks.)
But I'm hungry!
I can't stop laughing.
Kris filled some plastic Easter eggs with candy and goldfish crackers and yogurt covered pretzels. They're in a basket on the living room floor. Nemo has discovered them. He likes to dig in the basket with his paws, pulling one egg out at a time. Then he bats the egg around the carpet, onto the kitchen floor, down the hallway, into the bathroom. He bats it around until it gets stuck or until it cracks, spilling its contents onto the floor. Then he goes back to the basket and pulls out another egg.
He's doing this while we're in bed, trying to fall asleep. Every time I hear him playing with an egg, I giggle. I can't stop giggling.
Cats are clowns.
On this day at foldedspace.org
2005 — Moderation in Nothing I cannot seem to practice moderation. In particular, I've been playing too much World of Warcraft lately.
2003 — Break Time 10:00 a.m. is break time at Custom Box Service.
2002 — Burn Baby Burn Eventually I remembered that last summer I had made a rough draft (yes, I really make rough drafts of my mixes) of a mix I called the Happy Sunshine mix. It was full of bouncy upbeat songs perfect for taking a long, fast drive over country roads on a spring (or summer day).
I sometimes think my life is boring, but more importantly, I do not like sharing information about myself. I often to not post because I do not want to share that information even if it is with people that I will likely never meet.
As for the cat story cute. I am surprised that Nemo does not eat the crackers.