I twitter as Sara. I have a Sara Facebook page. The only thing crazier is that my cat, BlackBeary, has her own Facebook page [and a loyal following of friends] where she talks about how beautiful she is and about her contempt for the human race, well except the ones who make single malt scotch, her favorite spirit. Next thing you know, she'll be twittering.
I almost forgot about my "Good Rules for Blogging". Here's a picture of BlackBeary doing her WTF? No Fancy Feast face. I wish I could say I meant to take that picture, but it just happened.
So, back to me and Sara. Other than the name change, Sara is probably more me than my Nellie personal is. I worked in consulting for many years, and even though I have stopped being a sure, we can do that type of person, I did learn how to hide behind a facade, behind a smiling face. My friends may say that I don't hide stuff well because I do tend to show my emotions, quite easily, especially in animal movies, and I tear up when I get really mad, but I also have things that no one, except maybe my brother, knows about me. Sara has shared some of those things in an oblique way, through fiction.
I've never understood why someone would want to write memoir. At least with Sara, people can only guess at how much is real and how much is fictional, at how much, as Stephen King says, is the truth inside the lie. Just to clarify, if you've read Couillon, I have never killed anyone. Yet.
But on the other hand, in a world of 30-minute sitcoms and Dr. Phil television therapy, I'm sure a lot of people question why anyone writes literary fiction any more. Most people are more interested in plot these days than character development. And when you're good at both [i.e., Stephen King], you're called a second-rate writer. I dream of writing as bad as Stephen King does.
When I asked my friend Lisa, who is critiquing my novel [An Untold Want, a.k.a., Counting Crows], how she was feeling about it, in other words, is she bored, interested, is it too slow, she said, "I am intrigued, and I do like the characters. I care more about the characters than I do the plot line, which isn't either good or bad, just is." I will admit the plot takes a long time to fully develop, and I know this is silly to say after the fact, but what I was aiming at when I started the story is for the reader to identify with the characters. Not necessarily like them, but to understand why they're the way they are and what they want to change. Same with Couillon.
So I think I'm accomplishing what I want. Whether anyone likes it, reads it, cares about it, that's not my problem, not really. Readers don't owe me anything. I hope they will read it and like it, and possibly even care about the characters, but that's not why I wrote it. Well, not completely. There is a part of me that wants to be a bestselling author. That part of me wants the reader to not only like it, but love love love it, and convince all their friends to read it. So again, there's the split in my personality, that identity crisis rising up and waving its arms.
So let's just say that Sara wants to be world renowned, while Nellie is writing for the pleasure of writing. It's an uneasy alliance, but it works, for me at least.
~o~
This is the picture you're going to see most everywhere. This is me at Mama's Mexican Restaurant in downtown Seattle. Why yes, it is the home of the E'vis room. Decor leaves a little to be desired, but the food and drinks certainly make up for it. BTW, I cut my friend Kathleen out of the picture. Just so you know I wasn't drowning my publishing sorrows in tequila all by myself. This was actually the night we went to see Hedwig and the Angry Inch.
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