Still bored.
I am in the middle of revising a story from my fiction class. It is about two punks from SLC. Eventually Johnny moves on and Bobby moves away, but in reality gets left behind. They keep in touch by writing songs/poems/thoughts and mailing them to eachother.
I thought that while I was writing the rough draft I had more in common with Johnny, than I thought I had more in common with Bobby. I just realized that they are both me. The Johnny side of me thinks we should move on, or just find out what moving on is actually. The Bobby part of me never wants to change. In the story it ruined his life, so what does that tell me about myself and what I think?
The thing is I didn't come up with any of this until about two months after the first draft was done. It is really crazy how your sub-concious comes rolling out of you onto the paper when you are trying to write a story. I learn so much about myself through my own writing. Sometimes I don't like it because it makes me become so honest with myself, and other times it gives me possible solutions to my life.
A lot of characters have bits of the author in them, and some don't really have any. They will do things that the person who made them up will never do. Rob, lie, cheat, swear, kill, or on the other side of the spectrum: get married, move to the suburbs, go to church, be nice. The characters that take on a life of their own and do what they want are the best ones, I think. They force you to write it their way even though you might not want to. You can try to do it your way but it will never work. So this story now leaves me in an interesting position: These characters are me, not just bits. Some parts of them I didn't know were me until they showed me. What is the point? I am kind of scared to continue. I have to face stuff and stuff and some of the stuff I don't like. I am kind of nervous what I will come up with. The plus side is that it all should make for a very real and pretty good story in the end.
Here is the last letter that Bobby sent to Johnny. It is the very first thing that appears in the story (as of now, anyway). This idea actually inspired a post a bit ago. I am not sure if it came from me or Bobby.
When the snow comes I will be fine.
I won't need anymore and I can forget
about the other things that will make me happy.
I won't need them.
I will walk the park and write a song on the sidewalk
And watch the flakes fill it in.
