Bedtime stories
Jul. 20th, 2005 09:52 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
pjthompsonYou know, I read a lot of fiction that some folks would consider junk. I don't consider it junk. It's entertaining: characters that work their way into my geewhiz and stories that give me palpitations. Not particularly literary. And after a day of research reading and writing and The Job, I don't have much left over for literary fiction, anyway.
But I need my daily fix of fiction, so in my last hour of consciousness for the day, I try to read something just for pleasure. This is an extension, I think, of the fact that I've always told myself bedtime stories before going to sleep since...well, I can't remember a time when I wasn't telling myself bedtime stories.
There was a stretch of about four or five years when I didn't tell myself stories before going to sleep. This corresponded with a period when I found it impossible to read fiction for pleasure. I'd been studying and struggling with writing so intensely that in every piece of fiction I picked up I could see all the mechanisms and gears working. It ruined it for me. I don't think it's a coincidence that this was also the time I had one of the worst periods of writers' block in my life. And I don't think it's a coincidence that I started reading fiction and telling myself bedtime stories and writing again all at the same time. Some mechanism in my psyche apparently needs all of these things to feed each other.
And I'm not going to look into that too closely. These mechanisms are delicate, easily broken, and as long as the little machine of creation is purring along, I'm just going to accept it for what it is and enjoy the ride.
Which is what I eventually decided to do with fiction, too. I may still see the gears whirring, but I say to myself, "Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain," and move on.
But I need my daily fix of fiction, so in my last hour of consciousness for the day, I try to read something just for pleasure. This is an extension, I think, of the fact that I've always told myself bedtime stories before going to sleep since...well, I can't remember a time when I wasn't telling myself bedtime stories.
There was a stretch of about four or five years when I didn't tell myself stories before going to sleep. This corresponded with a period when I found it impossible to read fiction for pleasure. I'd been studying and struggling with writing so intensely that in every piece of fiction I picked up I could see all the mechanisms and gears working. It ruined it for me. I don't think it's a coincidence that this was also the time I had one of the worst periods of writers' block in my life. And I don't think it's a coincidence that I started reading fiction and telling myself bedtime stories and writing again all at the same time. Some mechanism in my psyche apparently needs all of these things to feed each other.
And I'm not going to look into that too closely. These mechanisms are delicate, easily broken, and as long as the little machine of creation is purring along, I'm just going to accept it for what it is and enjoy the ride.
Which is what I eventually decided to do with fiction, too. I may still see the gears whirring, but I say to myself, "Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain," and move on.