No, I do not want to read the first 2½ chapters of that insipid vampire novel you’re writing. It is not good, it is not original. “But F.F.,” you may say, “this vampire novel is totally different from any vampire novel you‘ve ever-” No no! No. Not good. Not original. Get that vampire novel away from me. Get that vampire novel away from me, I said. In a few years, you’ll regret all the time you spent on it anyway. Don’t believe me? Let’s try this: Why don’t you take your totally awesome, totally original vampire novel, and put it on a shelf for a while. Then, get on a train. Doesn’t matter where to. In fact, it’s better if you don’t know. Get off in the first big city you come to and get a bad job in a bad part of town. Live in an even worse part of town. With someone who’s totally different from you. Ideally, they won’t even speak your language. Learn their language. Fall in love. Not the kind of romance you see in the movies, either. Let it be real. Have fights. Throw stuff. Toss furniture out the window. Go on depressed coke binges and sell the TV. Have passionless sex. Break up. Break up six or seven times. Go and live on the streets. Breathe your city’s air. Suck in its soul. Spend a month living under a bridge writing poems from your heart and throwing them in the water. Spend another month fasting and meditating till your barriers pop and the starlight sounds like a hurricane. Rip open your chest and let the Universe in. Ask big questions. Resolve to find out who you are. Fail. Join a convent or a monastery. Fail there, too. Watch someone die. Get addicted to something. Let it take over your life and damn near kill you. Feel it. Feel it all. Go home. Pick up the totally awesome, totally original vampire novel you were working on, and read everything you’ve written, from beginning to end. If you still feel like finishing it, then I’d be glad to have a look. Or, if you prefer, we could burn it, scatter the ashes to the four winds, and go dancing with the gods. We’ll run out to the sea, and I’ll show you the hammerhead whales. I’ll make you a crown of exotic feathers and a necklace of human hands. Words will spill from our throats, and we’ll play in language like a gargoyle garden. Or we could kill each other. Or whatever. You’re so young.
Yeah, you heard me. I just decided I hate narrative. I hate everything about it. I hate watching it, I hate reading it, and I especially hate writing it. [peeweehermanvoice] This happened, then this happened, then this happened, then this happened! And the moral is... [/peeweehermanvoice] Man, **** you. That's dumb. Time and space are illusory. A single instant contains eternity and infinity. [I just got up and used the bathroom. I'm back now, though.] There's magic everywhere. A story is not necessary. Just let the magic talk. There's a baby girl giving birth to an old hag. Oh! Hey! A butterfly!
...since I drank caffeine way too late tonight. It's silly to have any thoughts whatsoever about something so sacred, but here are a few anyway, as they stand at this moment, subject to change without notice: An artist, whatever the medium, should approach his work as though he is the first person ever to attempt to create any art of any kind. The ultimate medium would allow an artist to take total control of all of the audience's senses and mental faculties; not just what they're hearing and seeing, but all of their senses and what they're thinking, feeling, doing, and what they can remember, too. Technology doesn't allow for this yet, so writing is a distant second, because at least a reader can imagine all of those things. It has been my experience in my experiments thus far that the best thing I can possibly do for my art is to relinquish as much control as humanly possible and let Creation take the wheel. I just keep silent and let whatever wishes to emerge bubble to the surface. If nothing comes, I keep silent. It's important to resist all temptations to pervert the things that come with my own will, my own thoughts; I accept them just as they're given to me. When I'm writing, I feel more like an archaeologist digging for treasures that are already there than someone who's creating something. I just try and brush away all the dirt so that it can be seen fully. When I'm finished, I wonder more than anyone else where it came from. Well that's it for now. Go explode something. -F.F.