I’m tired of writers out there wanting to write their life stories. 1
There are people out there who deserve books, people who do incredible things, hurdle through insurmountable odds, break down barriers… or at least attempt something mildy interesting. People who spend six, seven, eight, twelve hours of their day in front of their word processors are not those people. Not usually anyway. I find that if someone is out doing something that’s worth writing a book over, being a writer is usually the farthest thing from their mind.
Fiction writers, including but not limited to, screenwriters and novelists, are usually fairly boring human beings. I find that most of them are white, middle class, somewhere in the age of thirty and fifty who live fairly domesticated lives. What would be so exciting in their lives worth sitting through an hour and a half of? Or paying twenty bucks to read?
My biggest obstacle today was mowing the lawn. It’s conflict was that I have Barbie’s Dream Mower and it chokes if it comes near grass. I persisted on, and mowed that grass, fulfilling my ultimate goal. My human flaw: I didn’t edge and the grass around the edges are still bordering on knee height. The ingredients were there, I had the challenge, the conflict, the antagonist, etcetera, but it would have made a lousy recipe. A metaphorical rice cracker, if you will.
Now, I’m not saying these fairly-boring-lifed writers are not talented, I’m just saying that maybe they should keep their life story (or a story “inspired by” their life) in their back pockets until they inadvertently cure cancer with Spell Check.
______
- For my purposes today, I am referring to Fiction Writers — of any medium. ↩
Entries (RSS)
Most people probably have enough screwed-up family issues to write about? haha