2-21-11
Another fiction-y thing. I'm on a roll today.
Here goes:
"Is that all you ever talk about?"
She closed the notebook, accidentally crinkling one of the pages. Smoothing it back out, she answered her mother. "I just like talking about my stories, that's all."
"Well, it seems to be the only thing you talk about."
What else would she talk about? The only interesting thing at home was her writing. The reason she was in one of the van's blue swiveling captain's chairs was because she'd made a decision and her parents were honoring it, though Mom didn't have a clue how they'd pay for school and Dad didn't understand why she'd wanted to go to a school two hours away from home.
No one had a real conversation at home, anyway. Not that she knew what a true conversation consisted of--books and movies only supplied the idea of it, not the practice. No one talked about important things, avoiding the problems, ignoring the difficulties. She'd filled the gaps in conversation with mental monologues, sometimes in the viewpoint of one of her characters, sometimes of her actual thoughts. It didn't matter, she knew they weren't real, but at least problems were faced and solved in fiction. She was happy to be going away, but she wouldn't tell them that. In fact, if they thought she talked too much about a certain topic, why bring it up to them ever again? It's not like they liked talking about stuff, anyway.
It wasn't crazy that she had better relationships with her characters than her parents, was it?
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There you go.
That's sad. But well said. So . . . Yeah. :-)
ReplyDeleteUGH.
ReplyDeleteI didn't write as a kid, but now that I do, I get silent support. I don't talk about it much, but mum reads the stuff. Sometimes. Dad enjoys the FACT that I write. It's hard to see a family that doesn't support writing.
That would be an extremely difficult life. You wrote it so well I can imagine myself there, invisible, of course.
ReplyDelete@Janelle: Well, thanks. I've been working on being in a character's head for a while now.
ReplyDelete@Robby: It's weird. I'm pretty sure they support(ed) her writing, they just got tired of her talking about it? But now they don't hear about it. Partially because she doesn't really live with them anymore, partially because it's no longer what she talks about when she's at their apartment.
@Ali: Yeah, it would be. It was. And I don't wish it on anyone. Thing is, the girl in the story probably feels invisible as well, which sucks, of course.
Hm. But being invisible has its uses.
ReplyDeleteHowever, I would also like to choose its timing. So . . .
Being invisible ALL the time with no control over it would not be good and would not feel good. It's like the ability to be a fly on the wall and see what's going on.
ReplyDelete