Anarchy for Beginners ... A Primer for the Inevitable

Big Broken Blog Bugaboo



2008-10-14


Is bugaboo a word? Seems like I heard it before.

Anyway I want to inform readers who are interested that some of my other blogs do not work. T.S. Severe's blog, in particular, does not want to show the link at the end of her stories. Lazeez is aware of this and informed me that it's some sort of bug that he hasn't been able to track down and correct. It's largely a non-issue in any event as anything T.S. might want to say can be read here (I can read her mind) ...But obviously some people might wonder about it and with any amount of luck they'll see this note and go "Ah!"

For those of you who don't know, T.S. Severe is the pen name underwhich I post odd transgender stories. She gets some of my finest work too, in all seriousness, not because I have a greater love for sexually confused people, or because I only write T.S. Severe stories while I watch my complete Bewitched DVD collection and imagine Darren wearing pantyhose...No! (thats transvestism anyway) Mostly it's just because there's a point to writing a story about someone. A reason for it and people forget that.

Let me explain what we all know instinctively: The reason a story is written about a character is because the character is special. The character is unique and very much different from you and me, that's why nobody is writing "rache slash fan fiction" because I'm just me.

"But rache, what about all the stories with ordinary normal everyday people thrust into dangerous obscene and unbelievably fantastic situations?"

Well, see? That's what makes them special! Everything informs the characters, and I'm using the word inform to mean influence, creation, development, see? So the plot and the setting and other characters all contribute to make the main character(s) special. That's a gimme.

Back to my original point, I like characters who struggle. Basically, in all my stories, there are two conflicts ongoing and they're usually interrelated. An external conflict (me vs you) and an internal conflict (me vs me) and I like that a lot. A character with a lot of inner turmoil and angst confronting a hostile world is where I like to live as a writer. Now for most characters, most average ordinary teenage girls (my preferred medium) this isn't too hard to accomplish. But having written a thousand of those stories, I started getting a little tired of the scenary, you know? It was a pleasant trip to the well, but I'd been there before and many times.

So...I decided to give my average, ordinary, teenage girl a cock! That was a whole different country, believe me. It was new and fun and exciting and there were a lot of emotions and issues and relationships that were at once very familiar to me, but different as well.

I write at least 5000 words a day (usually a lot more) rain or shine, whether I'm in the mood or not, that's what I do. I don't think about it much. Like today, I wrote Karen (8) just because I was still wondering if I wanted to continue it or not. I wrote 3000 words in one direction, trashed that cause I didn't like it, and wrote 5000 real quickly in another direction. It took two hours and I proofed it and then I came here. Blah...That's what I've done everyday since I started posting "Mixed Bag" and so you can see why I might want to write about something else once in awhile. It's why Kylie's black, in this instance, because I want that dimension to keep me interested. My interest, appeasing my rampant imagination, is why I write about anything and everything...I would go pretty fuckin' crazy writing the same story 450 times!!!

And in all of the stories, someone, the narrator usually, has to be special. He or She has to be unique, with her own problems, her own opinions, her own dreams and fears. It's kind of amazing to look back on it, kinda embarrasing sometimes, but some stuff makes me proud too. I guess that's the biggest difference between me and the average reader - I look at all my stories as a whole, like it's all one really huge story. Everything's interrelated somehow, whether obviously or just through my own warped reasoning, I can see how a story leads from one to the next to the next, crossing themes and genders. I see the influence and can trace the lineage of stories and characters and ideas...Readers see one or two or a dozen stories, largely at random and make judgement based on that experience. It's not wrong, I'm not complaining or anything, but just reminding myself that I don't see what I'm doing the same way most people do. I forget that sometimes.

Sorry about that.