One of the more interesting aspects of getting older, I've found, is finding my memories all the more potent. Perhaps it's because I'm making relatively few new ones given the regular doldrums of office life (and saving up some PTO to make some new memories), but sometimes I can close my eyes and remember something so precisely that it's almost jarring to exist in the present.
For example, if I think back to my time as a soccer player in high school, then my mind wanders back to the smells of a humid, sweaty summer of running and being so damned tired that I'd fall asleep as soon as I went home. And then there were the times where my friends and I, all sticky and exhausted from sweating our asses off, rumbled over to the nearby convenience store to buy a sandwich and a Gatorade, wearing our soccer gear. And I'm there, standing on the brown-tiled floor of the shop, browsing the chips and drinks, waiting for my friends to order their food so we can go eat on the sidewalk outside and generally grumble to each other how little we're getting any action from girls we think are attractive.
And the traffic rolls by and we sit on the cement blocks meant to stop cars from rolling forward too much, our legs sore and our backs hunched, digging into a sandwich whose bun is just a little too sharp for my mouth. My one friend talks about having a thing at his pool, which is always just water polo, and since I can't swim I'm always reticent to go. He also boasts that he's going to invite some girls, but it never happens so it'll never happen. (Note: eventually, some girls did actually come by.)
And more like that. It's always visceral, and I can smell it, taste it, hear it all as if my memories are just another screen playing back familiar video. Sometimes I can be in another place: on the train, buying food, talking to someone, and a thought from the past just creeps in and reminds me of something that I had forgotten for so long, and then I'm far away, years away, and I recall what it is to be younger.
This is a strange feature of getting older, strange and fascinating. On the one hand, these are the memories that created me as I am, and yet, in the past few years where life has been more monotonous and certain things have hardened and focused me in life, these older memories become more salient and grounded, and feel more fundamental to me than anything else. I have started to wonder if, at the ages I'm remembering, I felt something similar; the irony is, I don't remember. Maybe it was the bountiful free time to spend making new memories with friends, but I don't recall having so much time to reflect on my lives past.
So, I've started making an effort to write down my memories, or at least the notable things that happen to me on the day-to-day. Sure, I might not go drive around my town on warm summer nights blasting ACDC, but perhaps making the small things more salient means I'll cherish those more when I'm even older, too.
Sunday, February 26, 2017
Darlings
(No politics at the moment; it's all a bit too much right now.)
A common bit of advice for writers is "kill your darlings"- don't be afraid to lead a character to his or her end should it fit the narrative, regardless of how much you've developed that character and how much you may like that character. It's a difficult piece of advice to follow, as any writer would attest- death, even of a literary character, isn't easy.
That doesn't include characters who are certain to die, of course, but they typically aren't the protagonist or any of the main characters, and their deaths are usually motivators to the plot. No, this is about killing main characters.
Death is random. One can just as easily get hit by a car or have a brain aneurysm while eating breakfast. Death is easy. Life is hard, death is a walk in the park. Fall down the stairs, dead; inhale carbon monoxide, dead; get attacked by a rabies-infected circus clown, dead. It happens to anyone and everyone, so when you're writing, it should be treated as such, especially if you're writing about battles, or fights, or running away from home.
Into the Wild was the story of a (frankly idiotic) boy who ran away from home and died because of his patent dearth of required knowledge about surviving in the wild. (Spoilers) Piggy's death in Lord of the Flies was a turning point in the story, and was very sudden. Even Dumbledore's death at the hands of Snape was a shock, especially in the way that he died.
Characters shouldn't be pigeonholed into surviving. It's a strange thing to write, believe me, but if your characters are marching off to the largest war the galaxy's ever seen, the chances that they all survive is nil. Serenity demonstrated as much.
A common bit of advice for writers is "kill your darlings"- don't be afraid to lead a character to his or her end should it fit the narrative, regardless of how much you've developed that character and how much you may like that character. It's a difficult piece of advice to follow, as any writer would attest- death, even of a literary character, isn't easy.
That doesn't include characters who are certain to die, of course, but they typically aren't the protagonist or any of the main characters, and their deaths are usually motivators to the plot. No, this is about killing main characters.
Death is random. One can just as easily get hit by a car or have a brain aneurysm while eating breakfast. Death is easy. Life is hard, death is a walk in the park. Fall down the stairs, dead; inhale carbon monoxide, dead; get attacked by a rabies-infected circus clown, dead. It happens to anyone and everyone, so when you're writing, it should be treated as such, especially if you're writing about battles, or fights, or running away from home.
Into the Wild was the story of a (frankly idiotic) boy who ran away from home and died because of his patent dearth of required knowledge about surviving in the wild. (Spoilers) Piggy's death in Lord of the Flies was a turning point in the story, and was very sudden. Even Dumbledore's death at the hands of Snape was a shock, especially in the way that he died.
Characters shouldn't be pigeonholed into surviving. It's a strange thing to write, believe me, but if your characters are marching off to the largest war the galaxy's ever seen, the chances that they all survive is nil. Serenity demonstrated as much.
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