is it too jealous of me to not want to share him with drugs and alcohol? katherine 7:53 PM
Tuesday, May 06, 2003
i have a select set of stories that i repeat ad nauseum to crowds of acquaintances, inevitably shouting them over loud music to a drunken audience - my party stories - just cute little anecdotes of my childhood. they always guarantee a laugh or two.
i receive a certain sort of pleasure, of power, relating these stories. the power of the performer. anticipating emotion - stretching that power as far as it can extend, pulling prodding teasing until... release and everyone explodes into laughter or shock. playing god - suddenly i govern someone reactions, holding them in my hand.
yet it never fully satisfies me.
tell them about the time you got your stitches katherine
tell them the fountain story
it used to delight me to relate - not only the sense of performance - but also the script itself: a delightful memory pleasantly colored by that rosy haze of nostalgia. gone now. all that is left is a cheap, tawdry, almost artificial tale. the ultimate goal of my precious memory now is to illicit some easily won wreaking of beer laugh. a sudden [and oh so transient] glint of entertainment passing over some acquaintance's [probably insipid] eye. then it's over and the story has been displayed once again to a greedy [or worse yet uncaring] audience
the prostitution of my memories
every retelling cheapens the memory, the years of accumulated exaggeration in each subsequent telling renders the innocent simplicity of my experiences gaudy and garish. suddenly the anecdote is no longer my own- it's nothing more than a comedic fictional script. my need for the empowerment of performance paradoxically enslaves me: every performance i witness me giving a part of myself away to an audience tat doesn't really care for it anyway.
i'm so tired of grappling with words - turns of phrase, styles of speech trouble me constantly. my obsession with grammar overpowers my abilities of articulation.
i spoke with some man a week ago. he said something to the effect of "it's so much easier once you find your voice as a writer." Voice as a Writer - what does that mean? i am merely a conglomerate (is that even a word?) of all the authors i've read over my life. i have no autonomy as a writer. i stand merely as the compilation of millions of styles i have read - emulating that which i admire until it becomes impossible to sever these manifold intellectual influences from my musings. Tearing this influences from me will eviscerate me entirely as a writer.
tearing these influences from me will eviscerate me entirely as a person.
there is no autonomous, definitive katherine fowler. i have always been so ready to admire and emulate - so willing to mold my definition of self to resemble someone else. this romantic feeling of love (for the first time) merely serves to highlight my lack of identity. the first tangible proof of my dependence and visible adaptation grants me cognizance of the subtle prior sacrifices of identity.
what am i writing anyway? i'm entirely absurd.
I have an idea for a story - an idea for a group of stories. somehow i can't bring myself to write.
should stories flow forth from vague ideas - giving themselves birth in the progression of a creative act? or should they reflect hours of painstaking planning before reaching fruition - forced form, precontrived mood, designed imagery, formulaic metaphor? perhaps only the novice writer must carefully contrive their stories into complex intellectual entities. only the experienced writer can gracefully allow their story to create itself.
maybe my idea for a story isn't so brilliant anyway - another hackneyed example of an intellectually immature coed with delusions of aesthetic grandeur.
