Have you ever done something crazy for your writing? Perhaps making a parody of someone you know or even doing something dangerous, just so you can make use of it on paper later on?
Photo by Alex Indigo
Write What You Feel
Most writing advice advocates: “Write what you know”.
But what if your life isn’t interesting at all? Many writers fall into this trap, believing they have nothing to say, as if all writers have the most adventurous lives.
The truth is the most ordinary thing sounds extraordinary when written beautifully. Moreover, it’s not about events, but emotions. In other words, you can always fictionalize the setting, characters, and pass the emotions you’ve felt on your skin, be it loss or love; being judged or judgmental, longing or betrayal.
Having said that, the more one experiences, the better. I’ve known aspiring young writers who embark on world traveling adventures, getting to know exotic cultures, or devote themselves to learning a completely new craft, just so they can write about it authentically. The avant-garde community usually indulges in vice behavior, thus presenting their revolt with how things are in society and expressing their rebellious nature. Heck, I was one of them.
“After the first glass, you see things as you wish they were. After the second, you see things as they are not. Finally, you see things as they really are, and that is the most horrible thing in the world”. Oscar Wilde
Imagination or the real thing?
One thing is for sure, writers do their research. On top of that, if you’ve personally experienced something, then there’s nothing better than writing about it first-hand.
For example, I’m very interested in psychological character development, so going to a mental clinic with my friend, who’s a social worker, and talking to the patients is something I’m looking into with great excitement. And I admit that after reading Coleridge’s Kubla Khan, morphine was on my mind as a means to take an exotic trip. That, thankfully, never came to life, and died as a romanticized yearning long time ago.
Writers’ imaginations can go far, and experiencing something second-hand in one’s mind can be very powerful, but I doubt it can be as great as the real thing (unless you’re Don Quixote).
Crazy or not, good or bad, experiences are what define us, shaping us into our special selves. Curiosity is our best tool in getting better at the craft: reading, writing, researching or bungee jumping from Kilimanjaro is a personal choice.
PRACTICE
For fifteen minutes write about a crazy experience you’ve always wished for and post it in the comments. Of course, if you’re willing to share a true crazy story that you’ve used in your writing, please go ahead. Let’s get those crazy stories rolling.
Joe Bunting is an author and the leader of The Write Practice community. He is also the author of the new book Crowdsourcing Paris, a real life adventure story set in France. It was a #1 New Release on Amazon. Follow him on Instagram (@jhbunting).
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I haven’t specifically done anything crazy for my writing. But I do love using the most powerful experiences of my life as inspiration. The birth of my children, moving across country, helping my neighbor escape from an abusive situation, and soon traveling to Serbia to visit a mental institution. The more I interact with people and the world around me the more I realize all of life is an adventure!
Beck, those experiences sound quite powerful. I’m particularly interested in your Serbia adventure and I hope you’ll share certain details when you come back. Definitely, those experiences, as with any other, will bring more insight to your life and how you see the world and improve your writing as well.
It sounds like you’ve led a very interesting life. Your writing shows emotional depth that makes it even more compelling to read.
Reality is stranger than fiction. If I did nothing but write about people I knew or were acquainted with, and the moments in their lives, I’d have enough material till I died.
There was the high school boy who wanted to marry a brilliant rich girl and faked a whole success story for himself for 6 years. Somehow, he even managed to “graduate” from UCLA and invite all her relatives to the commencement. At their engagement, he bought her a 3 carat diamond. A real one. How did he actually make a living – stealing! One of the things I want to explore is the girl’s POV. Whether she ever suspected anything. How she could trust anyone after he got busted and she was presented with the whole terrible truth. I can see this turning into a novel.
Then there’s the old lady I know who thinks her primary care-taker, her seventy year old daughter, is her mother. Everytime we visit, she presses cakes, tea and candy on us, saying the whole time, “Help yourself, mother’s very generous. Eat more.” This one is a nugget, a piece of flash fiction.
But you’re right. Sometimes, we need to do something wild, something way outside our experience. That’s what I’m playing with now in my practices. A friend’s husband painted their stairwell pink on his 60th birthday. Everyone was laughing how it was mid-life crisis. Then someone said to him, “Be careful people don’t begin to think you’re gay.” Voila… I had this idea. What if a happily married man does paint his staircase pink? What kind of person would he need to be, and in what circumstances, before he could credibly be perceived as gay. What would I need in the story for his wife to also begin to suspect that he’s gay. What are the social consequences. And what if the man’s not actually gay at all. So now I’m exploring. I started talking to gay men — Question: Would you know if a person wasn’t gay, even if the rest of society thought he was. I’ve been reading LBGT literature and poetry. I’ve been reading homophobic rants, theoretical pieces about gender, sexual preference, sexuality. And… I’m seriously thinking about the larger issue — How can you be yourself and not be pigeon holed into one category or the others.
Sorry Sophie… this is just a mind dump. But thanks for the chance for me to dribble on. 15 minutes up.
Hey, I asked for it, no worries. I have few gay friends and from everything I’ve discussed with them and also read aside, some situations are hard for straight people to understand, no matter how much you want to. I was intending to write a short story years ago from a gay’s POV, and it’s doable, but not easy, if you really want to go deep. I love what you said that reality is stranger than fiction and it often can be.
I think if you look at things that gay and straight people have in common as well as things that set them apart the characters will be more well rounded and you many avoid “pigeon holes” to some extent.
Hi Marianne.
Thanks for your comment.
Exactly, gay and straight people are just humans. In this story though, I want to explore how “external markers” like being too skinny, having too pretty a face for a man, having more feminine hobbies, gets in the way of this poor guy being perceived for the warm wonderful human being he is. It’s about the price society forces him to pay because he SEEMS different. And it’s about how he hangs on to who he is NOT GAY but with slightly on the edge “externals” despite that societal misjudgement.
Question … If you had a protagonist like that… it would make sense wouldn’t it that he doesn’t open his mouth to protest his “straightness” but just keeps being himself … until a climactic last straw of course?
Just in the plot and character development stage, so all input is welcome.
I see. That makes a lot of sense. What a great storyline. It sounds like a lot of work but well worth the effort. I can see that he might just “grin and bear it” until pushed too far. Good luck!
Thanks Marianne. Yup, I’m going to have him grin and bear it until at least half way through.
This kind of sounds like my life. I’m a straight man, married for 32 years. But I don’t fit the stereotypical role. I love music, musical theatre, chick-flix, cooking. Competitive sports bore me. At a party, I would rather talk in the kitchen with a group of women than sit silently in front of a TV with all the husbands.
I can remember as a senior in high school taking some kind of test to help us explore possible vocations. I was dismayed by the fact that the different interests were labelled and categorized as either masculine or feminine. Of course, most of my interests were labelled feminine and that has stuck with me for the past 40 years. I’m just now getting to the place where I’m comfortable with myself.
Thanks for sharing this Tom. May I ask.. did anyone come up to you at a party and just assumed you were of another persuasion? If they did, would you have protested loudly or just kept quiet because you didn’t care, as long as you were being yourself. Love to hear … really.
Oh, God.
Where do I BEGIN?
I’ve traveled from so many different countries: I’ve lived in North America and the Middle East. I’ve met good people– kind people who looked at my lost expression, who took me to where I needed to go. There were also people who noticed me, and made me mourn the loss of humanity. These people were prejudiced so badly; they literally did everything in their power to ruin other peoples’ lives. And it had devastating effects on those families. I’ve seen these families rise like phoenixes out of ashes. It wasn’t pretty–it certainly took quite a lot of blood and tears for them to recover. But they did.
I was once told that my family’s life could be made into a best selling book; I could certainly see that.
I still love to tell my friends about the time when I was at New Orleans during my mom’s job interview– right before Hurricane Katrina! Imagine that; I could have been living there when it flooded! Or, do you know that little island, that exists just there, right outside of North Carolina? Ocracoke Island (sp?). It, too, was flooded by Hurricane Katrina. Every year, three year before the hurricane, I visited that place. And to learn it was flooded! How about Atlanta Georgia? I lived in the little town of August; year after I left– I found out there was a drought there!
And so on and so forth.
I can say, truly, that I’ve had the pleasure to travel more than most people I knew. I can say that I’ve SEEN more than most people I knew. But, then, most people are less lucky than me. They don’t have food, water, or security–the very thing people (especially people living in the West) take for granted. I could make you weep with stories of the dead. But I won’t.
I can focus on positive things, though.
I can say that I’ve always dreamed of doing gymnastics. Watching the Olympians made me jealous of their elegance and strengths I’ve also been quite jealous of the people on this site. The writing seems to flow out of their pens elegantly. But then, that’s why I’ve signed up on here– to learn. To sharpen my pen, to allow my thoughts to flow faster than water.
If you could read my thoughts, you would see pictures. Maybe of a garden. Maybe of that extremely tall mountain with a very narrow trail that I’ve had the greatest displeasure of driving on. My father did the driving, but it didn’t stop me from feeling as if I was standing at the end of the abyss. If you looked into my memories farther, you would find the disturbing picture of a giant mountain looming in your face in Banff while you attempt to drive on a long road against the approaching darkness of the night.
But I guess you can’t read my mind, huh? You won’t know that some things make me boil in anger– they anger me because people are too ignorant and can’t be bothered to find out. You won’t know that some people make me envious of their kindness. You certainly won’t know who I am, beyond what I choose to give you; but can I know you?
=========================
Rambling around, much? Oh well. There’s what you get for letting me ramble on and on for 15 min or so. Thanks so much for this chance! 🙂
This is so personal and honest; thank you for sharing all of it. Glad you’ve found this place valuable and I’m looking forward to see more of you. Maybe then we can get to know you better, or at least what you give us, like you’ve said.
Thanks, Sophie! 😀
Honestly, sometimes I just ramble on and on and on… now what was I rambling on about? 😉
Really, I am happy to have found this place. I am hoping to start a literary career and feel quite out of my depth. I look forward to the little push this site can give me, and I especially can’t wait to see where the interactions of my peers here can take me! 🙂
We all need that push. Welcome on board 🙂
I wonder sometimes, I wonder about how your voice would sound like after all these years. I wonder if you’d approve of me by now. Successful, in the arts world, writing music, getting tons of money from it, teaching it, doing everything that you pretty much despised.
You wanted me to be a doctor. You made the rule in the house simple – NO ARTS, NOTHING UNDER ARTS was ever acceptable, to you it was science… science moved the world forward, science was the reason why we were able to eradicate small pox from the world. I argued with you, almost every other night about how art made big bold political statements, how arts encourages creativity and creativity is the reason why we were able to conceptualise gravity, how it is good for cognition and imagination, etc, etc, etc. Idealistic, I know. Your stubbornness was frustrating but it taught me that I could never change you.
When I was younger, people always told me that I needed to work really hard to prove to you that you were wrong. People told me to give it a few decades, to let money and ‘success’ prove to you that I was able to make a living in this world.
If you were still around, maybe you’d laugh, maybe you’d apologise, maybe you’d say you were wrong. Or maybe you’d tell me again that I’m selfish because I don’t give a damn about developing a cure for cancer. I don’t know.
I was there when your head rested. I was there when you were close to your eternal slumber. I wrote your eulogy and recited it at your funeral. I cried for you. All you did was shoot my dreams down and toss me money every so often. You really did a bad job as a parent… or maybe I expected too much from you. I don’t know.
After all these years, in spite of the ‘success’ I’ve earned… the last thing I want to do is show you how great I am. No, that would be too juvenile. I just want you to know I love you… I know you tried, I know your best was not really the best, but you tried and I suppose … when you are gone and buried, I can’t bear a grudge against you anymore. So, I forgive you.
seems I took this exercise the wrong way, I thought of a fantasy and then decided to project it through character prose/narrative writing …
That was very powerful, Rebecca. I could feel the angst and the hurt and the despair caused by this deep parent-wound. Are you saying this is pure fantasy, as in fiction, or is this fantasy of what you would love to be able to say? Either way, it was very good.
I agree with Tom. Even if it’s a fantasy, fictionalized inner monologue, it’s very strong and flushing emotions on all sides. Great portrayal of parental marks on a child.
Thanks Sophie, I really appreciate that.
Thanks Tom. It’s fantasy in the sense that it’s what I’d like to say all of the above.
This description of a fight for autonomy is good mainly because of the details. I think if you added a few more it might hold together better. You could describe what the person teaches in the arts for instance and you could make a case for how great is it to be cured of cancer if the saved life is not brightened and understood through the arts.
I have been tempted to chuck it all and go homeless, or to move to New York City and live a new identity. I’ve also considered hitch hiking across the country with my trusty lap top and blogging about my experiences.
But I think this has all been done before.
I realize my motivation towards these fantasies is more about escaping my reality than it is about a writing project. Sometimes these fantasies pop in my head after an argument with my wife. I’ll get in my car and fantasize about driving to the coast, then turning around and driving to the other coast. But I always end up back in my driveway before the next meal.
I’ve also had these fantasies while leading worship in my church. I hate to admit this, but it’s true. After 30 plus years of dealing with spoiled narcissistic church-folk, I have a compelling, recurring vision of running down the aisle, flipping them the finger and taking off.
Man, do I sound like a freak! Just being real here.
Other times, my wife and I fantasize together and talk about moving to be closer to family, or the opposite and move as far away from them as possible. We even played around with moving to Cambodia to do mission work.
Then there’s my fantasy to write well enough to make it my vocation, so we could afford to live out our other fantasies, but that may be the grandest, most deluded fantasy of them all.
The rest of the time, 95%, I am grateful for my life.
I am incredibly blessed.
They sound like totally normal things to fantasize about – and I can totally relate to spoiled church folk.
Thanks, Rebecca. It’s always been a fantasy of mine to be told I have normal fantasies. Seriously, thanks! 🙂
Tom, I was thinking more about what you wrote today, I can’t help but think – those fantasies really do have great potential, I thought the scene of a pastor flipping out and giving everybody the middle finger was hilarious.
I just hope and pray I can fulfill this fantasy through my writing only. I don’t think it would be as funny in real life as it would on paper, but who knows. 🙂
What would life be if we didn’t daydream at all? Seriously, I think it’s a very good thing. And if a fantasy grows very strong, it can actually move us from the ground and make us do something about it, by clear visualization. You’re grateful for what you have and that’s all that matters. Thanks, Tom.
This was such a great post, Sophie. Thanks for the prompt and the challenge.
I concur, and Tom, has there ever been a pastor do that? It would be just so shocking! But would it change those “almosts”, pharisees and judges? Or give them more fodder to eat you with
Yeah, flipping them off would just give them more reason to justify their own self-centered behavior and to reject my leadership. Another idea might be to walk down the aisle, take off my shoes and wipe the dust off them before walking out. Even Jesus talked about doing that.
Tom – I know you get frustrated and I sympathize but the image of a preacher flipping people off as he runs out of church jumps out of this page at me as if I’m watching it in real life. I think you should do something with that. I love it. I do know it comes from a not happy place though.
Marianne, you are so sweet. I so appreciate having a safe place to write and get such great and caring feedback. You’re the best!
Tom, come with your wife to Ireland, to Killarney, rejuvenate your calling amongst really on fire people. Then go back and challenge your congregation w/out flipping them off – sned them off to the Church of the Offended.
You could stay with us – it is a bit like homeless with a roof. No hot water, kitchen is 5×8 feet so is the only bathroom. Total Plebville!!!! Mission to Ireland – I can see it now?
Suzie,
What a generous offer. Thanks for adding one more destination to my fantasy list. I’ll try to remember to warn you when I’m coming. I don’t want to just show up at your doorstep. Christmas in Killarney does sound tempting. 🙂
always welcome
Oh Tom… this would be such a good story… the minister running through the church giving everyone the finger. And with your voice, I see it as incredibly funny.
Sonds to me like you may have missed your calling … per se?
Now, this is an interesting question… the crazy things we do on in the course of becoming a writer. I have to harken back to hopping a plane to the East. To India. I was headed for an ashram famous for its radical meditations and explorations of “being”. I would surrender to it all, including having my name changed. So, I remember the flight over, and feeling that for a short while I was a man with no name. And that was just the beginning of the adventure.
Fast forward a few years and here I am a writer who has developed a new “theory of story”. Where did it come from? I traced it back through my years of writing screenplays, sure that that’s where I learned everything. But, no. In my notes, I see that my worldview was in place even then. Before I was a writer, I risked some crazy ordeals to see what truth underlay my everyday behaviour. My adventures (high adventure!) in that Indian ashram turned my head completely around, for which I am forever grateful.
I guess what I’m saying is that, however we interpret it, a Journey to the East is a crazy-valuable thing for a writer to do.
Now I really want to go to India. 🙂
For some reason my name didn’t appear in the preceding comment — I don’t mean to hide.
Reading this I though oh no I haven’t gone anything in my life to enhance my writing. Panic attack starting. Should I be doing something? And then I began even breathing and realised that:
Honestly (following on from Tom) I have done nothing to make a story. I don’t need to. Waiting to be told:ending up chest high in freezing mud on an orienteering competition (G4 challenge)the drug dealer’s gun at my temple because I went across the country to save my brother in law from said drug dealerBlind Pete selling his saxophone to me for a hit then hitting me till I gave it backDenise dying in dubious circumstances with law enforcement officers involvedOne for the Brits – this chap (friend-ish) I know who infiltrated an seditious organisation and all that he had to do to prove himself whilst reporting back to spyboss
the doctor friend who met her husband’s other children in the hospital as a result of an affair for their entire marriage – a double life.
other topics from my life:
grooming, larceny, murder, adultery, revenge, grand theft auto, losing minds, losing things, losing people
Well it sounds like you’ve done it all Suzie ; )
oh no Marianne there is loads to do yet! I just haven’t done anything crazy because of my writing. Stuff has just happened.
shheesh! with a life like that, you don’t have to do anything, it’s already been done to you….
Surprisingly enough this all seemed normal for many years. Only in the last couple of years, knowing “good” people do I find that this stuff doesn’t happen to everyone!
I’ve felt like that too – realizing my normal wasn’t generally normal. 🙂
I know what you mean- our lives are always normal, ’cause they’re our norm. It’s only when you get to see other lives that you begin to be able to make comparisons. I raised a whole bunch of kids with ADHD; things were always lively at our house, but I thought that’s the way it is with kids. Only when I got a closer look at other families did I realize that it wasn’t quite like that by everyone 🙂
Waiting to read Suzie!
you have been!!!
Read more I mean. All of it has been great so far… but then I keep thinking… does it fit into a bigger work, is this something she’s putting in the last temperance bar in Ireland. It’s tempting… what I’d like is the whole shebang in a novel.
Sounds like you don’t need to go out there Suzie; things happen to or around you, giving you big material for your writing. You’ve mentioned so many things, really difficult ones, and I hope there are good ones happening as well.
I have had a fantastic life, Sophie, so far, I am being called in a way now that I could not have ever envisaged in my previous life.
My normal was skewed from birth – my opening line of my autobiog if I ever write it “I met unconditional love at the age of two…”
What baby should have to wait till they are 2 to know what love is.
I recently found another person in the world that was used as an experiment by a parent. Pamela Stevenson, author, comedian, psychoanalyst and more. I thought I was the only one….
What about the time the gynae doc told me to go over to England and get an abortion? That is actually in one of my humorous tales (I didn’t go)
I’d like to read your things Suzie; I really do. You must be a very strong woman.
Amazing adventures. These life experiences sound positively cinematic!
When I was researching my novel Moonlight Dancer, I flew 5,668 miles from SF to Incheon, took a train, then a bus to a rural island off the Southern coast of Korea. It was so worth it! Although I had studied Korean for five years and conducted extensive research, there is no substitute for the serendipitous tidbits that drop at your feet when you actually walk around in your book’s setting.
Yeah, the real thing is definitely irreplaceable. Korea sounds adventurous.
There’s one adventurous thing I couldn’t bring myself to do, though–eat bundaeggi (silkworms). At the temple grounds, they fry silkworms and serve them in little paper cups as a special treat. The perfect food–high protein, low fat–but I was too cowardly to try it.
I would be a coward too; recently I find myself being very food conservative. Silkworms – such a crazy idea.
That’s awesome. I’ve been to Incheon and taken a bus and seen a rural island, but it was just on a long layover. This sounds like a fascinating story.
Yep. This particular island, Jindo, features an annual parting of the sea. I just had to incorporate that, as well as the ancient legend, into the narrative. I even had a photo taken at the site.
Deb this is great, I do my research on line, when I use a place other than one I know. Where are you going for your next book
Hi Suzie,
Actually, I recently tried to get into San Quentin Prison… as a visitor. (One can only take on-site research so far.)
I’m working on a YA novel, and the protagonist visits someone there. Sadly, San Quentin suspended its tour program. Guess I’ll have to take in a few movies with San Quentin settings.
This is something my mother did and I would like to do one day. Camel rides.
Camel riding had not been on her bucket list, but when Linda was at the small petting zoo in Natural Bridge VA she found herself faced with a decision. Her friends were going for a camel ride and they wanted her to join them. She could get on the tall, gangly beast and smile like she was having fun; or she could give in to her fear of heights, and let her friends know what a wimp she really was.
It was a tall camel, and it turned to look at her as she approached it. She knew, that the camel knew, that she was afraid. And to make it worse the look in the animals dark eyes told her that it was not in a good mood. It was kneeling down so that she could climb aboard. The camel’s handler said. “Get on hold on and lean back.”
The camel was wearing a strange saddle topped with a what looked like a small red oriental rug. Linda steadied her gaze on the seat she was about to take and threw her right leg over the camel’s back. She grabbed a kin- of-handlebar-thing that was on the front part of the saddle. The camel jerked to its feet. Linda leaned back, the seat rocked and bounced, and the camel rose to its full height. Linda kept her balance and stayed in her seat.
Once the seat beneath her stopped moving, she looked down at the ground seven feet beneath her. She usually panicked when she was on anything higher than a step ladder, but the strong and sure-footed (albeit smelly) animal beneath Linda gave her an unexpected surge of confidence. She smiled.
She keeps that picture on her refrigerator as a reminder of a day that she overcame a fear, and she keeps it because she looks ten years younger in the picture.
So cool! We actually once went on a short desert trek on camels, a few hours. And I thought it was so cool and unbelievable, that for a while it was my online picture (I don’t know if I looked 10 years younger, but I was 10 kilograms lighter!)
Ha! You are braver than me. Thanks!
Ah Marianne… we can discover a universe of experience on the back of a camel can’t we.
Will you be planning a visit to a zoo soon to take that ride too?
No way! I am much more of a chicken in real life than on paper! Thanks for reading.
Overcoming fear of heights by camel riding, wow. I’ve never thought of that. Such a great and cool idea. Off to the zoo! 🙂
Thanks Sophie!
I like this, a lovely memory…
Thanks Suzie
While I don’t know if I’ve ever done something crazy
specifically for my writing, I have done crazy things that ended up in my
writing.
While I would not consider myself a political activist, a
few years ago, I was moved to attend an important political rally with a friend
and neighbor of mine. I will not supply
to many details, since I think that this site should remain apolitical, suffice
it to say that it was quite the adventure.
The rally was meant to convene at a point about two hours
away from where we live, and yet because of different obstacles thrown in our
way, we arrived at our destination after about 5 hours. There were tens of thousands of people
gathered there, and after the rally finally got underway, and we heard speech
after speech, we started out on a protest march. The original plan had been rally, march,
home, and yet, that march ended up with us barricaded in a tiny farming
community for three days.
I am super non
confrontationalist, and there I was surrounded by army, police, the
works. I spent my time there with
amazing people and jotted down my impressions.
Thank God the whole episode ended peacefully. When I finally made it home, filthy and
exhausted, I wrote up my experience, and emailed it to several friends, among
them one who has an extensive international mailing list. I got loads of letters from people from all
over the world, and was even told that portions of my journal had been
broadcast on a nationally syndicated radio program in the United States. My one and only moment of anonymous fame (I
had left out my name so as to preserve the privacy of some of those involved,
notably one of my children who’d been on the other side of the fence…).
But IMHO, by keeping our eyes and hearts open, everyday emotions
and experiences have the power to be transformed into powerful stories, without
the need for searching out crazy experiences.
Mirelba, this is so interesting. I’m sure it was uncomfortable at the time, but also worth it. Every experience is. And turning everyday emotions into powerful stories is what keeps us writing. When we spice it up with something we’ve been through, all the better.
What a fascinating story. I would love to hear more about this.
Don’t want to post the story here, since I don’t think this is the place for it. But if you send me an email (Joe’s got my email) then I’ll fill you in on whatever you want to know.
Mirelba, this sounds fascinating and to then write about it, well done. You are quite right, we don’t have to go adventuring to make a story. Sometimes it is in the mundane everyday we find our muse. Jackie Collins may not be everyone’s favourite author but I saw her interviewed – she wrote about what she knew. We don’t know “hollywood and film people” but she did.
Yes, I agree. We enjoy reading about how the other half live (whatever half that is), but we also look for ways to make meaning of our own lives. There’s room for many different types of stories.
I lead a very ordinary life. But the
ordinary can be transformed – my favourite game is “What if?”
I walk along the beach – “What if there were
a body washed up on the rocks?” What if there had been a terrible accident at
sea? What if she were the victim of a bloody murder?
It’s early – there is no one around. What
if they have all vanished, stricken with a terrible illness, what if I am the
only one person left?
A runner passes me – what if he was a
murderer? What if he told his wife he was going for a run but planned to never
return?
A woman with a large dog passes, the dog
smiles as only Labradors can. She looks tense; she shouts at the dog to “Come!”
it ignores her as only Labradors can. What if it is her lover’s dog? Or her
employers, what if she has found out a terrible secret and it looms over her?
What if I were walking this way a hundred
years ago, two hundred? What would it be like?
I try to come up with the most unlikely
scenarios – weird, impossible, outlandish! It’s fun!
That’s what I call: working imagination. Great, Juliana!
That’s great! That’s how good writers come up with stories. Constantly asking ourselves ‘what if?’.
I have gotten too drunk, sprinted along a street, and slammed hard enough into a blue metal post office box that I split my elbow, my head, and blew up my knee for three months… Does that count as exciting? I almost died… I suppose that counts.
Haha, everything counts.
I used to believe the hyperbole put about by music journalists. If you have never been a regular reader of music magazines, you have yet to appreciate the amount of pure utter nonsense that can be emitted by music writers.
As long as you treat it as such it is perfectly harmless, and a bit of fun, to read the hyperbolic outpourings of a wannabe Hermann Hesse or the like, talking about the inner struggling of some pop musician as if popular music is the definition of man’s existence and its practitioners the great shamans leading the way in our definition of ourselves.
When you’re a teenager with pretensions to poetic artistry, and a great will to escape and seek oblivion, the drivel written by music journalists has a profound effect on the way you think about things. I used everything ever written about and by Jim Morrison as an excuse to do a lot of acid. And try to write about my experiences. While on acid.
It takes a lot of discipline to be able to write whilst on acid. And if you are the sort of person who would take acid, discipline is probably not one of your strongest characteristics.
So you’re sitting there with pen and paper, having just stuck the little piece of paper on your tongue, the strychnine flavour beginning to fill your mouth, so that every breath seems to be infused with it. You know you are dealing with a poison, but you can control it.
So what happens while you’re waiting there for the buzz to kick in? Well, after half an hour, you start to get restless because nothing is happening. You go outside for a cigarette, which strengthens the strychnine taste in your mouth. And then it starts. The buzz…your entire corporeal being feels the sensation spreading with every move your body makes. Waves of sensation through your body every time you breathe in.
And then your eyes start acting up. The “trails” are faint at first, but they grow in intensity as the evening progresses. A variety of things happen throughout the evening, aural and visual hallucinations; luckily, most have very little meaning and elicit very little fear, they are usually there for entertainment. Occasionally, you will get the deepest insight ever into the human condition, and know that if you can just find the write words, all will be well in the world.
And then, after a few hours of confusion, some pleasant, some unpleasant, you begin to wonder whether it will ever end.
It’s six a.m. and Tom and Jerry is on the TV set, with the volume turned down. The Allman Brothers Band CD has been on repeat for the past couple of hours. And your notebook is blank.
Wow, this sounded like a diary entry. Thanks for sharing!
Wow! Thanks for sharing this. I was never very adventurous when it came to drugs and alcohol, but have always wondered about what the allure was all about. I loved your paragraph,
“It takes a lot of discipline to be able to write whilst on acid. And if you are the sort of person who would take acid, discipline is probably not one of your strongest characteristics.”
And then your last sentence was the kicker. Great job.
Confessions Of An Elephant Jockey
My life as an elephant racer actually lasted only a single afternoon in the summer of 1989. It just seemed longer. Some notes from The Wild Dog Archives. Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls of all ages, the circus came to town last week. Circus Vargas, that is. Under the world’s largest traveling Big Top. That’s circus talk for a tent almost large enough to cover a football field or one month’s trade deficit with Japan in $20 bills. An amazingly big show, supported by four monstrous center poles, each 56 feet high, and 24,478 feet of steel cable and manila rope. Amazing, too, was the call that came the day before the circus opened. “Jack D. Welch, please.” “Speaking.” “Mr. Welch, this is Sharon Brown with Circus Vargas. Your name was suggested to us for the media personality elephant race.” Miss Brown had a really sexy voice. She sounded like slender redhead who would wear tailored suits and drive a baby-blue Mercedes convertible with vanity plates that said GOTCHA. I didn’t understand what she wanted exactly, but I agreed to do whatever she asked. I hung up the phone and rushed to Peggy Diane with the news. “What’s a media personality elephant?,” she wanted to know. I found out when we showed up at the Multnomah Exposition Center in North Portland. It was the PACHYDERM 500. A dozen or two local media types had agreed to actually climb aboard a live elephant and see how fast a trio of massive mastodons could move across concrete-hard parking lot. While carrying an actual adult human being. Who should probably know better. Except for one young TV newscaster – who looked positively fetching in a safari helmet and an outfit straight from the Banana Republic catalog – I didn’t recognize anybody. I met a bunch of disc jockeys; I understand now why they’re on radio. All of a sudden I start to wonder just exactly how many folks turned down the siren-like entreaties of Ms. Brown. Before my name came up, you gotta figure a lot of important people said, “Sorry, I’d like to, but that’s the day I plan to spray-paint my underwear.” On the other hand, I figured this could be the opportunity of a lifetime. Survive this occasion and I’d be able to scratch ELEPHANT RACING off my list of things to do. I began my pre-race preparations by eavesdropping as one deejay tried to bribe an animal trainer. “You’ve got to do it on your own,” I overheard the trainer say. “Headpiece, balance, butt and legs… that’s all you’ve got. You’re on your own. They can do up to 40 miles per hour. No guts, no glory.” No helmets, no training wheels, no safety net. To be honest, I was expecting some sort of chair atop a totally trained domesticated beast who actually enjoyed the concept. I found instead the largest of all land animals, a 10-feet tall, 11,000 pound giant of the jungle who was having a tough day in a strange town. I had been assured these animals were vegetarians. I comforted myself with that thought as I watched the radio personalities dicker among themselves. They actually do talk a lot. “I work drivetime. I should go first.” “I should have the big elephant. Our ratings are higher.” Me, I want to go last. I want a small elephant. I want to live. I want to know why we have to do this on pavement. (Wouldn’t barkdust or grass or padded rubber mats make more sense?) I want a graceful way out of this. “The least big one is a boy,” Peggy Diane rushes up with this news bulletin. She’s gone behind – and perhaps under – the elephants to check them out. The woman is curious about such things. Don’t ask me why. Meanwhile, several heats have taken place. No one had died. No one has even been hurled to the pavement and stomped flatter than a frozen tortilla. Not yet anyway. It still looks more dangerous than electric eel juggling. “Jack D. Welch.” You’re up.” I pretended not to hear. Perhaps they mean someone else. “Do you want me to go instead?,” Peggy Diane asked hopefully. “It looks like a lot of fun. ” The woman always knows just which button to push. I…ever…so…slowly…moved…to…the…trio…of…turf whales, figuring – correctly – the other riders would rush to the faster elephants. This was the final heat and only the the winner would have to ride again. I got Lotti, a former champion in her first race in six months. Today she’d finished dead last every time and was clearly not in top form. The trainer poked at Lotti with a spiked club and ordered her around like a puppy. “Down, down!!” I stepped on her left leg and swung up behind her ears. I watched my knuckles turn white as I gripped at the headpiece. I watched her eyes bug out a little as I squeezed her neck with my thighs. Squeezed like my life depended on it. Which I think it did. I decided I could do this. I told myself, “You can do this.” “Up, up!” I almost fell off. And before I could regain my balance, some clown – he was a real clown, red nose and big floppy shoes – hollered, “Go!!” So, of course, we won by a trunk. I’d made the Finals. Finals??? Turns out I had won an earlier heat and completely forgotten about it. I think I blacked out. For the Finals, I took the animal nobody else wanted. Col. Joe is the biggest elephant in Circus Vargas. If not the world. He’s got huge tusks. I can’t say it enough. He’s got huge tusks. Getting aboard the Colonel was kinda like climbing the outside of a brick apartment building. I didn’t mount this beast, I scaled it. When I got behind his head and he stood up, I felt like I was looking out of a second-story window. Don’t believe anybody who tells you such an event is over in the blink of one eye. We’re talking a LIFETIME. Which probably explains the earlier blackout. Of course, at this point, I didn’t fear death. I was focusing primarily on partial paralysis, when another clown hollered. Forty-five teeth-rattling bounces later, we’re across the finish line and I know two things. I survived and I won. Call me The Prince of Pachyderm Perambulation. At last, I’ve found my niche in life. A beautiful redhead in a tailored suit gave me a trophy – a golden shovel – and Peggy Diane gave me a big hug. She said she was “damn proud.” My first elephant racing groupie. I started thinking this could be the break I’ve been looking for. Started thinking about the nationals. Where the various media personality elephant racers from around the country gather to crown a grand champion. Turns out they don’t have an event like that. Okay then, an endorsement contract with NIKE. Maybe a helmet with a swoosh and my initials. Yeah, that’s it. A gun-metal gray helmet with my complete name and a pink elephant decal. They never called. Some people may question my claims to elephant racing stardom. But I still have the trophy. – JDW
Elephant racing! Love it! I really gotta get out more!
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