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In After Peter: Stories from the End of the World, I wrote this paragraph...
"Let’s be clear now. Alexander the Great had a mission, he had work, a calling to slaughter on a scale surpassing ordinary comprehension. You and I don’t have any impulse at all like that, no matter what you think. Even lacking empathy, we’d tire of the carnage once it became same old, same old. Alexander never got bored, by all accounts, with ravaging communities, ethnic groups, enclaves, families, etc. It was in his blood and bones, like anyone else granted a mission by God or gods."
An advantage when you write autobiographical fiction is the freedom to spout off, to write an essay. If you're freewheeling enough, you just go off on a tangent, like I did with Alexander the Great.
The point I had in mind... "A life proceeds from birth to salvage and destruction as a kind of rickety vehicle you might have some fun with, if you’re lucky and you want it...." But "you’re ordered to take the road ahead seriously, like you have a mission you must discover or risk wasting your precious resources on frivolous bullshit."
I used Alexander the great and, later, Edgar Allan Poe, to take shots at the romantic idea of being born with a mission. It isn't always the best news.
"In retrospect, though, all that bloated, high-sounding garbage just sucks the zip out of life."
I'll attach a PDF of the complete chapter below, but the point is that, if you are driven to write, not just by a desire to create stories, but also by another to share your most passionate opinions, fictional autobiography may be the perfect vehicle.
Fictional Essays
That may sound contradictory, but it's the best tactical for sneaking essays into the context of longer fiction. What makes it work so well is the advantage you have of designing all the scenery around, before, during and after you lay your ideas out. Publish an essay anywhere else, you're as likely to find it nestled beside Nivea skin cream and cures for erectile dysfunction, as phony a malady as the drug companies ever came up with.
You don't want that, do you? You want your creation to relax snug and secure along your wooded narrative trail, detoured around the commercial mishmash, drama and trauma.
As part of the fiction, your made up narrator gives you license nobody else ever will...
"Peter was never squandered or taken for granted as a resource. I blessed him with meaningful work, a job as my existential janitor, my standby, my narrator for outrages from which discretion restrained me, as a standup comedian delivering my jokes, and as a gadfly free to take potshots at anyone, especially that murderous asshole Nixon and his coldblooded hatchet man Kissinger, at no risk to myself.
Writing a fictional autobiography may put you at some risk and force you to handle other characters with extra care, but it gives you some privileges you won't get anywhere else.
Here's the chapter I've quoted from:
In After Peter: Stories from the End of the World, I wrote this paragraph...
"Let’s be clear now. Alexander the Great had a mission, he had work, a calling to slaughter on a scale surpassing ordinary comprehension. You and I don’t have any impulse at all like that, no matter what you think. Even lacking empathy, we’d tire of the carnage once it became same old, same old. Alexander never got bored, by all accounts, with ravaging communities, ethnic groups, enclaves, families, etc. It was in his blood and bones, like anyone else granted a mission by God or gods."
An advantage when you write autobiographical fiction is the freedom to spout off, to write an essay. If you're freewheeling enough, you just go off on a tangent, like I did with Alexander the Great.
The point I had in mind... "A life proceeds from birth to salvage and destruction as a kind of rickety vehicle you might have some fun with, if you’re lucky and you want it...." But "you’re ordered to take the road ahead seriously, like you have a mission you must discover or risk wasting your precious resources on frivolous bullshit."
I used Alexander the great and, later, Edgar Allan Poe, to take shots at the romantic idea of being born with a mission. It isn't always the best news.
"In retrospect, though, all that bloated, high-sounding garbage just sucks the zip out of life."
I'll attach a PDF of the complete chapter below, but the point is that, if you are driven to write, not just by a desire to create stories, but also by another to share your most passionate opinions, fictional autobiography may be the perfect vehicle.
Fictional Essays
That may sound contradictory, but it's the best tactical for sneaking essays into the context of longer fiction. What makes it work so well is the advantage you have of designing all the scenery around, before, during and after you lay your ideas out. Publish an essay anywhere else, you're as likely to find it nestled beside Nivea skin cream and cures for erectile dysfunction, as phony a malady as the drug companies ever came up with.
You don't want that, do you? You want your creation to relax snug and secure along your wooded narrative trail, detoured around the commercial mishmash, drama and trauma.
As part of the fiction, your made up narrator gives you license nobody else ever will...
"Peter was never squandered or taken for granted as a resource. I blessed him with meaningful work, a job as my existential janitor, my standby, my narrator for outrages from which discretion restrained me, as a standup comedian delivering my jokes, and as a gadfly free to take potshots at anyone, especially that murderous asshole Nixon and his coldblooded hatchet man Kissinger, at no risk to myself.
Writing a fictional autobiography may put you at some risk and force you to handle other characters with extra care, but it gives you some privileges you won't get anywhere else.
Here's the chapter I've quoted from:
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Find After Peter: Stories from the End of the World and all my books at my Amazon Author Page