Strange Fiction

Ever heard of NANOWRIMO? It's also known as National Novel Writing Month--in which writers try to complete an ENTIRE novel in one month.

A few years ago, I made it to 40 pages. It was totally stream of consciousness writing, and what came out was, well, probably not publishable. I can tell it was heavily influenced by fiction like Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams--though not a copy. Just in that vein of very strange fiction.

Here's the first minichapter of the mininovel:

Finky knew that standing on the roof-edge of a twenty-story building with his hands tied behind his back was not in his job description. But here he was, anyway.

He stared in front of him, wishing for a broom or King Kong or a huge bat (much as he hated the idea of a huge flying rodent). None of these appeared.

“Your time is up, buddy,” said the little orange man behind him. “Sayonara!”

“Japanese,” thought Finky. “He would have to use that at a time like this.”

He didn’t have much time to think about that, though, because the orange man pushed him hard, and he toppled off the building’s edge, giving a quick nod to the thirty-story building across the street.

A bird flew by, and Finky wondered how he could notice that at a time like this. Instead of his life passing before his eyes, it was a sparrow. “That figures,” he said to himself, thinking those were the lamest last words ever. He tried to think of something profound to say, something people could remember him by when he smashed into them on the sidewalk, but nothing came to mind. Until---“Yes,” he thought. “It’s good to start in the middle.”

He wasn’t sure what that had to do with anything, but this time he had more time to think, because he landed in a truck full of cotton balls that was speeding by.

“Cotton,” thought Finky. “The other white meat.”

He promptly passed out. It had been a long day, and, as it turned out, it was only half over.

Bones, Mermaids, and Angels

As part of my profile, you'll see a short list of books I've been listening to or reading lately--among them are Alice Sebold's The Lovely Bones and Sue Monk Kidd's The Mermaid Chair. I just started listening to Dan Brown's Angels & Demons, so I can't tell you too much about that one yet.

The tapes for The Lovely Bones included an interview with Alice Sebold, who spoke about the process of writing her first (and very succcessful) novel. She said that the first fifteen pages or so came quickly---and the rest of the book emerged from that. There's no question that Sebold was influenced by events in her own life, including a brutal rape she endured as a younger woman. I liked The Lovely Bones enough to order Sebold's memoir Lucky.

In both Sebold's and Monk Kidd's work, I was reminded of some unique attributes of fiction. In fiction, we can make things come out the way we wish they would. We can right wrongs and find justice that we might not always see in exactly the way we wish to see it. We can more easily forgive ourselves and think, "Yes, I've made that mistake, too. I've lived that joy, too. I've wanted that, too." We can help others avoid some of the delays we've had in healing while bringing more loveliness into their lives. We can entertain, for sure, and that has value, too.

As a writer, Sebold said, one of the lessons she's learned is to "inhabit your weirdness." She said that she often felt weird as a child and young adult and that finally, now, she can enjoy that and celebrate her personal creativity rather than lament it.

I take that to mean this: do what only you can do. Now is the time to stop worrying about what people think and do that which only you can do.