I had kind of an epiphany

I've been trying to wrap my head around this stuff I kind of want to write

It's all about America

And I kept wanting to make it a mystery

And I kept wanting to make it very complicated and you know postmodern and whatever

But you know when I pictured myself writing a novel when I was younger when I would actually try to write parts of a novel anything that I ever felt really good about was written as though I was talking to the reader it wasn't you know this complicated structure and plot and whatnot it was kind of a direct connection to the reader and whenever I start trying to write the way I think I want to write

I hate it and I hate doing it

So since I wanted it to be a mystery I was listening to all these mysteries

And I came to the realization that the thing I like about the mysteries isn't really the mystery it isn't really the structure it's really the getting inside of the character and you know I don't really know what to call it exactly but you know it doesn't have anything to do with the mystery I don't give a s*** who killed the person

And you know I heard a thing well I make it sound like it just appeared in front of me no I looked up a video and I don't remember what I was looking for but what I found was Stephen King and I'm pretty sure I was not looking up Stephen King because even though there are things about his writing that I really really like a lot of his stuff there are things I don't like about it

And although I recognize that he is a very successful American writer and maybe the fact that he has been so popularly successful is part of why I have this kind of block against him and I say things like oh Stephen King is a hack but it that isn't really true I don't really think he's a hack exactly and he's got talent

But I'm just saying this because I want you to know that I was not specifically looking for advice from Stephen King but in fact that was who gave me the piece of advice that after I shoot on it for several days or a week finally led to my epiphany

I'm going to tell you some other stuff that he said too people were asking him you know how do you write so many books and he's like well you know I get up and I write for about 3 hours a day and that gives me six pages and six pages is a book in too months

And they're like no it's not That's enough pages to be a book but surely you don't just sit down and write it in its finished form

And he's like yes I do

I think it all out in my head I don't keep a journal I don't take notes people are always asking me why I don't do that I don't do that he's like the good stuff sticks around and this stuff that falls away wasn't that good anyway now I don't know if I 100% agree with him on that but that is the way I have always written

Even when I was going to write like a paper for school I would think about it I would run it all through my head and I would think about what I was going to say and all the angles and everything and then I would sit down and just write it I didn't write a first draft and a second draft I mean I would write a draft and then I would go through and proofread it and change you know spelling and grammar and anything I screwed up on but it was you know 99% the same

And I'm not saying that you know I could write a novel that way I don't know if I could write a novel that way because I haven't done it but that does match the way I've always written and it was interesting to me that that's how Stephen King writes because he would not have been my role model

He would be someone my mother would have liked to have be my role model and she was the one that was always making me not want to write

But the thing that he said that actually led to my epiphany was you know that people don't care about plot and structure they care about your characters and you shouldn't let he didn't say it exactly like that he it was a lot more of an off-handed comment but it was like you shouldn't let that plot stuff get in the way

He's like you know I didn't think that the shining was going to end the way it was going to end That's just where it took me

And he didn't think Salem's lot was going to end where it was going to end either

So I mean

I guess you'd say that he's a pantser

Rather than a outliner

But I probably still have made the epiphany clear The epiphany was that what is important is the connection with the character not all that structure and complicated literary stuff I like the complicated literary stuff but that isn't enough for me You know I'll start reading something and I might love the way it's written but if I don't connect with the character then it doesn't matter

And just now I had an epiphany this is the epiphany

I'm all trying to be Thomas Pynchon

When who I am is a lot closer to Sarah Vowell

And what I'm trying to write is not a mystery mean it is a mystery but it isn't a mystery like who done it it's a mystery like what the f*** happened to America but then maybe it isn't even a question of what the f*** happened to America maybe America's always been like this and I was just diluted and I didn't think I was diluted I thought I was super jaded

So what I decided over the course of the last few days that I've been working on it I mean it's gone through a bunch of iterations and I've got stuff but it doesn't need to be a big complicated convoluted structured thing that's horrible

Would it needs to be is individual pieces that are connected to the theme but are individual pieces and they need to be something that is kind of an essay kind of a short story kind of a monologue kind of a stand-up routine

Where I'm using metaphors to talk about what I'm talking about and I'm talking directly to the reader it seems to me that that essentially is what I do well if I do that well but it doesn't make sense to say hey I have this thing to express and so in the expressing of it what I'm going to do is make it into a thing that I don't know how to do

That I have to completely learn a new way of being to execute

I will grant you that is the kind of way that I think but you know I mean how s***** is that to myself I mean what in essence I'm saying is that everything I've ever done is crap

Or maybe that's not what I'm saying but it feels like that's what I'm saying like I have to write some great American novel and it has to be some sort of literary standard and so it has to be this complicated thing that I have to create the wheel for

But why does it have to be that

Nobody wants to read that anyway

I mean am I such a pretentious little turd

Did I have to write the kind of book that only a very small percentage of the people would want to read

So no

Not going to do that

If I'm playing to my strong suit which I don't see any reason not to I mean how does it make sense to not play to my strong suit

Then what I need to do is you know what I do

And yeah it's kind of crazy and magical realism me because my life is like that that isn't like some s*** I'm going to have to make up That's how I see the world

How I see the world is weird

And that's the thing that has value

So I don't need to make it weirder it can just be the normal amount of weird

Life in the time of grackles

Golden America

Night kitchen

The future: reality TV

Then I don't really know about the one with the people in the desert I'm not sure exactly what I'm trying to say with that yet

And then there's another thing that's like how come nobody wants to buy the world a coke anymore oh my God what decade are you from

And there's more it's bits and pieces it's not connected yet what I need to do is figure out what all of the things are that I want to say and then say them

I always find it a little frustrating when it takes a really long time to come to a very obvious realization