Arctic

It's foul weather. Rain. The wind is blowing maddeningly, and I'm a mess - not directly as a result of this furious weather. I have been thinking about the novel I have been working on for the last three, I lie, four, I lie again, five years, or so. It's been roaming about my mind for quite some time, and I have even kept a journal in which I have delineated the storyline. It has existed in this - skeletal - form for three years, and now - I'm afraid - it demands to be brought to term, if not fleshed out. I have no choice in the matter. My mind is pregnant with ideas, and these are violently making themselves aware. I have started writing yet again.

I have Gertrude Stein, Anaïs Nin, and Somerset Maugham to blame. Of the three Miss Stein is the biggest culprit with her essays that have sparked my enthusiasm and reminded me why I love writing so much. I was a little apprehensive at first; afraid that her writing might frustrate my train of thought, but all that unease proved to be superfluous. Quite unnecessary, not unlike the writing of some people whose names shall remain unmentioned.

The novel I have been working on deals with Pain - among other themes. The mythologizing of drama through talk shows, through confession, through reality shows. Via these channels Suffering enters the realm of myth. This vulgarized Suffering creates in its wake multiple possibilities of overcoming it; possibilities handed by the gurus that preside over the cathartic process of confession witnessed by a studio audience. Pain is intrinsically shareable. It communicates itself through universal tropes / language / sensations. Shared Suffering binds people.

At any rate, I do not want to bore you with details.

The unmending lovely lies
Which made me feel obliged
To smell the sameness in the air;
The cigarette-burned mixture
Of sexual atrophy & Paradise.