Down to the Bone

Morning parking lot session, then out to play with the little dude, then another writing session during his nap time. Such an intense one that after the last scene of the day I let my head drop against the back of the couch and nodded off within seconds.

This always happens when I get down and dirty with the writing. I dig in and let it spill. This post at Clarion by Mishell Baker explains it well. When you write down to the bone, you feel it. It's honest and true, and it's utterly exhausting. Baker describes it like this:

How do you know when you’ve picked the right topic? Because it will make you so miserable even to think about that you’ll feel it in your gut. Literally. It’s the one topic that has the power to put you off your breakfast in half a second flat. How is this a good thing? Because behind that initial revulsion is a window into a problem that you, better than anyone, will be able to stab in the heart.

I love this, because that's really what it's like. But every book I write has that effect on me because the things that really get to me on that level are the things that I'm compelled to write about. It's the reason I write. Thisis shit that means something to me, and I do spill my own blood onto the page. It doesn't feel true of I don't, and if it doesn't feel true, it feels too much like bullshit. And readers are smart. They know bullshit.

I'm glad she mentions Stephen King's Misery in this post, too. Many of his novels have the same truth to them. It's one of the reasons I love King so much.

But I'm talking fiction here. Not my real life experiences. But in the ficiton are the glimmers of truth. People. The way we are. The way we react to things. The things that make us human.

That's the stuff.

Goin' out to grab some food and then to a movie. Yeehaah! I'm getting out!