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Lying in bed, it’s not that I don’t feel tired, but there’s this vacuum where tiredness swirls into nothing. Strange. Getting out of bed in the mornings is like dragging myself out of a coma. Throughout the day, there’ll be occasional lapses where I feel I could fall asleep regardless of what I’m doing – working at the computer, eating lunch, or sitting in front of the television. But once I’m in bed, that tiredness, that need for sleep, evaporates. Lots of things flit through my mind. My writing. Stuff to do at work. Shit I should’ve said in arguments I’ve had. Random images. Projections of what I want for…
Dr. Fuckwit
Whenever I run workshops on writing memoir, biography, and that sort of thing, I instruct participants to keep us mired in the moment. That means if they’re writing about an experience when they were a twelve-year-old, then all I want to see, all I want to know, is what the narrator saw and knew as that twelve-year-old. Keep the narrative as if it’s unfolding then and there. Don’t let the present-day self butt in with present-day wisdom, opinions, or reflection. That punctures the suspension of disbelief. I also always say (and stress this also in fiction workshops I run) that unless there’s a justification for it, keep events chronological. It’s…