Burning for the New Book

Whilst in China I began writing a story. It began as a dream that was, for the most part, based in truth, meaning what I wrote was initially the actual content of the dream. I was slightly bored so I began embellishing it a bit, and since I was watching a lot, a lot, of Gongfu series in my off time it turned into some gongfu-ninja-samurai-thai boxing massacre, with a little dash of wit and love story (for the kids). I wrote a rather large lump before I came home, but when I was back amongst people who were literate in English I worried that something which had begun to monopolize a large portion of my mind was doomed, like so many of my wonderful ideas, to die in obscurity.

I've struggled with embarrassment that I would even attempt to write a novel, since in the past I myself had pooh-poohed aspiring novelists. I also have difficulty accepting the fact that my interests are largely branded as banal or insipid. For years my friends and I have only partially convinced ourselves that we can partake of things that stereotypical social pariahs do and not be stained by the same. We can like ninjas and yet lack the compulsion to jump out of trees and barns scaring and killing people. We can like a well animated feature without becoming fixated with illustrations of nurses and maids with tailoring issues . It is possible to like unicorns and dragons without having a "burning" desire to ride or marry one. Fighting with wooden swords to the age of 18 is less like make believe and more like extra curricular Kendo practice.

Perhaps somewhere submerged beneath the myriad excuses and allowances of my conscious psyche exists some foregone resignation that, waking, I am unwilling to view or consider. There is a chance, with growing probability, that I have secretly despised myself for years already. Most regrettable of all is that in camouflaging personal disdain by disparaging the enjoyment of the common masses in their pursuit of entertainment, escapism, indulgence or other vices as they sequentially appear and deteriorate, I have myself succumb to the base and common tendency to hate myself without consciously knowing it.


Consequently I have hit a rather effective writers block. Ideas, plot lines, characters, dramatics, architecture, religion, art, romance, humor, gore, violence all come in abundance. Where my inspiration falters is at the instant the finger touches the key to translate imagery into literature. Do I fear mechanics? Do I fear structure? Diction? No. I fear to present the entirety of my writer personality, my soul as a creator. I have found something that I not only wish to give completely and unselfishly to, but something that I actually can. Everything that makes me who I have become could have expression in this book and I'm afraid of what it will look like; not necessarily to myself but to those who may or may not read it. Will those who know me realize they don't understand me at all and those who know nothing of me thank whatever god they may worship that our social paths have never seriously crossed. It's fiction, and nearing sensational fiction at that. Technically in my own world and by my own definition it can only obtain to the rank of trussed up garbage perfumed for the sake of entertaining guests or low ranking foreign dignitaries.

Thankfully my fine-tempered character trait will ultimately see me through to literary victory. I live in a world colored by dualism. I am both spineless and pompous. I have feared so much the approval of men, both not receiving it and then deriding it when I get it. So I will most likely write the stupid book and spend the rest of my life loving it and hating it according to the season and mood.