Write What You Know

I write and do all of my homework on one corner of my tweed sofa. I don't go for the word couch, it sounds so pedestrian and cheap. Yea, I'm judging you if you do use it. Usually, as is tonight, my cat, Baby (worst name in the world), sits curled up next to me as I smoke close to half a pack of cigarettes, which the ashes seem to pour over my ultra modern table. This table swivels, but don't try it cause I built it with own two little hands and if it is swiveled the one bolt that I was able to hold it all together with turns the three blocks that rest on each other onto the floor. Let me try to explain this better- there are three faux wood squares that are supposed to move around to create different looks for the living room, but if they are not installed properly (and they are not!) the cardboard starts to crack and everything slides off. I stare at my bookcase filled with only a quarter of the books I have purchased, most of which I have loaned out to some friend of a friend that I knew for all of a day before pushing my favorite Bukowski book on them like it was heroin, and I feel sad to have lost so much of my history with my collection's disappearance. I play no music, just the humming of the air conditioner, and the sound of Baby's coos and growls -she's kind of a bitch. So, here I sit. Same as everyday, trying to create from thin air and so much of it bad.

I find that writing about a place I know so well, is beyond difficult because I have seen it so many times. There is nothing new to me about my place. Nothing unique anymore, the smell of fresh paint is gone, and the excitement of being out of my parents house is no longer here. I understand the concept of the exercise to write about the mundane to find a way to bring a life to it, to really challenge myself to find something different in the smallest of things and not just in big plots or big places. But man, was this hard. I am having an easier time with the non-fiction, but let's be clear as can be THIS IS THE MOST DIFFICULT CLASS I HAVE EVER TAKEN. I keep saying that I don't like writing about myself, but it's not just me that I don't like writing about. I have discovered I don't like writing about things I already know. But, this exercise and the assignment this week helped me to see that I don't have to write about something I know in a way that I already know it. I am able to find a voice and a tone to compliment the setting which makes it different and continuously discovering new things within my comfort zone. I also have trouble keeping up stamina, this is especially difficult when I am unable to fictionalize things. Okay, so you wouldn't know that my table is modern and swivels, I could have said that I have a Monet in my living room -but I would know and that would make me uncomfortable. That discomfort would come out in my writing and it would be worse than it already is. So, I am doing the assignments as suggested and hoping that I am accomplishing something worthwhile, and I hate to say it but I am learning something that will be useful in my fiction. Drats! I have been fighting this course for 5 weeks but I think I will just embrace the unknown and set forth.