Brutal. Spent some time writing and doing edits on some of my chapters today and it's been tough going trying to find my voice. I see glimmers and sparkles of brilliance littered among boring old generic prose and I can't help but feel like my stories are a bit like a panhandler working a stream, sifting out the sand from the gold. I don't want my reader to have to do that. I want the reader to get caught up in a story that is consistent in tone and keeps them engaged, not having to work through the trash in order to get at something worthwhile, it should all be worth their while.
All of it.
But I'm stuck, going from second-person, to third to first and wondering which approach favors me (and my audience) most, and now I'm realizing that I have to take the first-person. My strengths are so obviously in first-person that I don't know why I am banging my head trying to write any different. And I realize that it's because of the audience that is making me so unsure of myself. It's not really personal when I'm writing to solicit attention. It's personal when I am writing to myself.
Then again.. it's the audience that matters more. Isn't it? I guess if art is subjective, it has to come from a place of meaning but at the same time, prepared for public consumption. I think of men like Henry Darger who achieved fame as the face of the Outsider art movement. He wrote a 15 thousand plus epic, along with dozens of paintings and have not shown or even attempted to sell any of what he's produced. It wasn't until he died when his small apartment was cleaned out, that anybody laid eyes on his work. Darger didn't write or paint for money, he did it for himself. He lived a humble existence, rooted in a fantasy of his own and he knew better than to capitalize on it.
Maybe he was embarrassed about it, I don't know, but I do know that people found it fascinating. Would they have been equally as interested had he formally presented his book and artwork? I don't know, and it's possible that Darger himself felt unsure of what he was doing. But he did it anyways, because he had to.
He wanted to. Other people be damned.
This dilemma has been a pervasive one for most of my life, where I have to choose between my own voice and the voice I use when I speak to an audience. Should I die tomorrow, maybe someone will come across this blog, my stories and will see a new me to appreciate more than the me I already am. I don't know. All I know is that I want to do good by what I do. Yet I still have trouble coming to terms with the idea of having a marketable product, because while I do have to eat, I don't want to see my work as being anything less than heartfelt. It's so hard to strike the right balance.
Anyways, I wish I could write a book that would be well-received in THIS voice. The one I am using right now. I like how I write these blog posts, where I am honest and forthcoming and not too worried about any adverbs, descriptive paragraphs, subjects, nouns, verbs, grammar mistakes.. It's so easy and effortless and it brings me a welcome relief from the rigors of having to write well enough to impress. I don't want to impress, and I know I don't have the technical ability enough to do it either, but I do want to share my thoughts and get paid for them... It's such a mess going through what my head and heart has left for me to clean up. I guess I do want to impress people after all, but how? And how do I do it honestly without resorting to dance around for their amusement?
I don't know. I am such a contradiction. I love myself and hate myself equally at all times. I can't seem to draw forth the man I want to be and present to the world without some ugliness cropping up from inside. Maybe the ugliness is endearing in it's own way, but I am ashamed of it. I don't like feeling vulnerable whenever I pour my emotions out and yet, I need to take responsibility for them, which is not something I'm comfortable doing given how I seem to be in an endless tug of war with myself.
Well. Suck it up I guess. There is no other alternative but to keep hope alive.
Otherwise there's nothing left.
