Writing is as much a journey of hope and discovery as it is an exercise in craftsmanship. Great writing is almost always rooted in actual experience. But it should never be strictly limited by our experiences. Life should at some point bend to the requirements of art. Or, to put it another way, sometimes ya just gotta make stuff up. Mark Twain worked as a steamboat pilot, and Dickens worked as a clerk once. But Herman Melville never harpooned a great white whale, as far as we know. And I’m reasonably certain Agatha Christie never murdered anybody.
The opportunity to “make stuff up” is what drew me to writing 40-plus years ago. The writer is God of his creation, which is pretty heady stuff, particularly for an old introvert like me. And yet, even the most imaginative writing will only be strengthened if it is informed by experience. Writers are always looking for the kernel of truth in the stories they want to tell. The lucky ones start with the truth and go from there. That’s easier to do in an autobiographical novel, however, than in a story about dragons and elven princes. To a certain extent this reaching for the authentic flies in the face of today’s “Fake it until you make it” ethos. But I’m just old-fashioned enough to still believe in the value of authenticity.
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Came across something disturbing on Twitter today; more disturbing than what normally pops up there, in fact. A woman, who I will not identify but who is a constant tweeter of inspirational quotes (thankfully NOT one of the poets reviewed on this site recently), for some reason, and with no apparent sense of irony, tweeted a quote by…Benito Mussolini. What’s worse, someone (a twenty-something, assuming the picture is real and not an avatar) replied “Yes!” I’m refusing to identify either the tweeters or the quote, so as not to dignify the whole thing by perpetuating it here. But am I missing something here? Is this what we’ve come to as a society: quoting Fascist leaders? Who’s next? Generalissimo Franco? Hitler? When did this become acceptable? I understand the world is rather different from what it was 40 years ago. But this? Is Fascism now chic and sexy, thanks to the rise of Trumpism? I voted for Obama twice, but it never once occurred to me to quote Stalin, or attempt to glorify Lenin. Despite the nasty propaganda from the right, my heroes are not Marxists or even Socialists (FYI, Alt-Rightists: Mussolini started out as a Socialist), but rather men like Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Paine, Voltaire, FDR and MLK, Jr. Hitler, Mussolini and the rest of their Fascist ilk should be returned to the dustbin of history, where they belong. There is nothing about such men that is inspirational or uplifting. They are only of value as object lessons in the nature of evil. It is depressing to think that I may be in the minority in feeling this way. Yet, there it was, like a slap in the face to our parents (or, for you younger folks, grandparents) who fought against Nazism and fascism during World War II. Very depressing.