This morning started with coffee, andouille sausage, scrambled eggs and a random movie from 2002, Orange County. It was actually a pretty endearing story, once you look past all the dysfunctionality of Shaun Brumder's family life. There was a moment where he gets to meet the writer he's obsessed with, whose story changed Shaun's motivations from settling for being just another surfer kid with no aspirations in life, to wanting to be a serious writer himself and attend Stanford. And this writer tells him something that resonated with me the moment I heard it:
It reminds me of my own hometown because while I love the place, I could never move back there. Mostly because of certain things that trigger painful memories that I've spent a long time trying to forget. Having to deal with that every day would constantly drain me emotionally and I can't intentionally do that to myself. Anyway, I don't know if I'm a great writer, but at least this makes me believe that I'm on the right track! 😏Every great writer has a conflicted relationship with the place where he [or she] grew up.
I think the quote from the movie is definitely true for almost all writers. Myself included. I'm not great, but I'm not horrible either. And, I truly enjoy writing in various forms. There are a lot of things from my childhood and hometown I'd love to never revisit, but I often look back to those memories for inspiration when I write stories. Somehow I manage to turn those experiences into something twisted and positive at the same time to give my characters more substance and make them easy to relate to.
ReplyDeleteYep, I completely understand what you mean. I draw from my own personal experiences as well when writing, and in doing so, I feel like that's what has inspired the very best writing I've ever done. I hate reliving the experience, but I guess that's also why they coined the phrase "tortured artist."
DeleteAnd you ARE a great writer. ;)
Great writer or not, I can't seem to beat this writer's block and finish my novel. It's driving me crazy, sitting there, over on the shelf all like "write me." It's taunting me (LOL).
DeleteFor most writers, the bad experiences help produce the best writing. The reason for that is because there is so much emotion that goes with each experience. Not to mention, though you want to forget something, you always recall it with vivid descriptions. Hence, you write it and it's great.
ahhhh, i hate my hometown too. very bad memories in high-school. prime suffering years for me. hard to say where my writing/art comes from. i'm very interested in knowing but i can't seem to pin it down to this or that. chaos is definitely part of the process.
ReplyDeleteAW, sorry to hear that. :/ Mine come from directly after high school, mostly from mistakes I made in judgments of character of the guys I dated. And seeing certain places around my hometown brings all of that back, every time, it never fails.
DeleteIs anyone in your family artistic in that way? I think I get my creativity from my aunt (my mom's sister) who used to paint a lot and was really good at it. She only does it now occasionally though. But she's always been incredibly artsy in other aspects as well.