Monday, September 28, 2009

First day of writing complete

Words: 1843
Writing time: 12 - 3:30pm
Mood: relieved
Impression: What the fuck!

I ended up going to sleep at about 5:30am and woke up at 11:30. I just couldn't go to sleep. I was working on this blog and then I was just on edge. And when I woke up I considered not writing. I wasn't very tired but I just didn't know what the hell I was going to write.

I really am in new territory with this book. I tend to write dramas, actions, or adventures. I almost always write stuff with deeper meanings and those genres lend themselves to having deeper meanings. Setting out to write something that is supposed to be funny and then telling people that I'm doing it is like having sex in front of a large audience. It can take you to psychological places that you have never been.

I have an interesting relationship with comedy. Growing up my older brother was clearly the funny one. I seriously never even tried to be funny until one day in the 9th grade. I hung out with a group of kids and after school we often stood around in a circle while each of them would try and make the others laugh.

I never joined in on this because I wasn't funny. But one day I decided that I was going to be funny so I stood quietly listening and waiting and then finally I slipped something in. The entire group just stopped and stared at me with their mouths hanging open. The problem was that I didn't want to try to be funny and fail so I chose to say something obscure with a straight face. The problem was that they didn't know whether I was kidding.

Within a few seconds they started up again and again I slipped something in. This time they looked at me and they all laughed hard. And at that point I knew that I had done it. I had been funny without risking failure.

A year later I was on a class trip to Australia. There was a group of us that was waiting to go whitewater rafting and since I was a shy kid I stood quietly. The others were nervous so they were saying fun things to each other about what may happen on the river trip. At that point I interjected "or we could plummet to deaths. Either one." The entire group broke out into laughter and the teacher from Kansas said about me "that one does say much, but when he does, man is it good."

I think that enabled me to never put myself out there. So over the years my main type of humor developed as sardonic and absurdist. And now that I writing this book the humor I'm employing is strange. At this point I don't know what to think of my characters. I don't know if the style of speech I'm using is out of place, whether the odd way that the narrator speaks is humours or just non-sensical, or if the main character's emotionally and verbally abusive penis is funny or just a little sad.

But hey, either way I'm glad I started today. The pressure to start is finally gone replaced by the thought that although I've hid my insanity from everyone up to this point, this book will reveal me for what I am. I think I need someone to hold me.

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