Crivens!
There was a brief period in my late teen years when my writing teachers in school convinced me that I had some talent and should keep writing. Their encouragement, which I am grateful for, allowed me to think that a muse had called to me and was silently urging me to share the stories in my head. I realize now that if I ever received a call from a muse, it was the wrong number.
Thank you to P.G. Wodehouse for that bit of wordplay.
It's good that I didn't have a message for the world in mind because, after all these years of writing, not a glimmer of a message has appeared. Unless I get hotted up in retirement, I fear that humanity will remain a message short.”
Whatever the reason, and even if there is no reason, I continue to write.
I have many writing friends who seem to be under a lot of pressure to turn out perfectly crafted stories. Not me. I like to look at my stories as musical comedies. I begin with real-life experiences and then look for ways to make them humorous but there must be something genuinely quirky about the actual event.
When I find the absurdity, I exaggerate it but I don't make things up just to be funny. That's why I sometimes go through a dry spell with nothing to write.
When I can laugh at the circumstances that first caused me anxiety, anger, or embarrassment, I feel that I have some control over my quality of life. If I exaggerate the events to make them funnier, so what? I don't really give a damn. The time for concern for me is when I can't find anything amusing in my daily life.
And so I don't worry about the exaggeration. The story is still true, just a bit more interesting. The Nac Mac Feagals, a race of wee people created by Terry Pratchett, would offer two versions of any story when asked for an explanation. One story contained only the facts. The one the Wee People preferred had elves and dragons woven into it. When people asked for the bare facts the Nac Mac Feegle would show their disapproval by exclaiming,
When I can laugh at the circumstances that first caused me anxiety, anger, or embarrassment, I feel that I have some control over my quality of life. If I exaggerate the events to make them funnier, so what? I don't really give a damn. The time for concern for me is when I can't find anything amusing in my daily life.
And so I don't worry about the exaggeration. The story is still true, just a bit more interesting. The Nac Mac Feagals, a race of wee people created by Terry Pratchett, would offer two versions of any story when asked for an explanation. One story contained only the facts. The one the Wee People preferred had elves and dragons woven into it. When people asked for the bare facts the Nac Mac Feegle would show their disapproval by exclaiming,
Crivens!
Don't you agree that the Elvish and Dragon version offers greater possibility for entertainment?
I suppose the greatest benefit that comes from fictionalizing my daily life is that it gives me some distance from the otherwise uncomfortable nearness of dark, foreboding thoughts. I can detach myself from the tyranny of emotional disorders.
In that calm, friendly, sometimes funny space that comes from detachment, I can find hope for today and purpose in tomorrow.