Adventures in Postmodernism

I’m writing a piece of shit “postmodern” novel, and I’m having a blast. It’s about a woman who had a frightening experience during an evening rain as a child and is now terrified of thunderstorms.

Calling it a piece of shit could be an overstatement, and it’s even possible that I’m being self-depreciating for no real reason. It’s a deviance from my normal writing style, at least as far as chapter length and attention span go, and the subject matter is a bit, I have no other way of saying it, “weird.”

But I like it, and I’m having a hell of a good time thinking things up for it, so it’s all good, right? When this is over and done with, even if nobody gives a damn about it but me I’ll still have written a bizarre experimental novel and tested my own abilities. That’s not wasted time.

Ever since I read Takahashi’s “Sayonara, Gangsters” I’ve been thinking about this. What would it look like, and read like, if I threw convention out the window and created a story with short chapters, bizarre characters and odd situations? Would it be good? Would it even be interesting?

I don’t have a whole lot else to do right now but experiment and find out where my strengths lie, so why the hell not, right? I spent most of my younger years obsessed with reading and writing horror, striving to pen the ultimate in vampire and ghost stories, only to realize once I got older and back into the game that perhaps the ultimates in those arenas have already been created. There isn’t a lot more to say about the standard “boogeyman” type characters. I’m sure that there are more ghosts and vampires and creepy crawlies to be written, and someday I may possibly conjure one, but for now I’m enjoying expanding my universe.

It feels good to write. It feels good to format and send out manuscripts, but being in the middle of the actual process of writing is what feels best to me. I’m glad to have something to work on again. “Pages” may need to take a backseat for a while, but that’s all right. Once a story catches my attention and forces me into action, I can either go with it and start writing immediately or I can put it off and run the risk of losing interest in it.

I’m going with this one.