When I took Creative Writing courses as an undergrad, there were very few limits imposed on the subject matter for student stories. If your characters wanted to snort coke even though you personally weren’t of legal age to enter the local bar, that was fine. Even further, no one would bat an eye or even ask the annoying “is this fiction or non?” questions. 

There was, however, one story type that was explicitly outlawed: the story about writing a story. 

That meant you couldn’t transcribe your panicked, last-second thoughts on a Sunday night into a stream-of-conscious narrative where — surprise, surprise — you finish the story at the end, and maybe even learn a valuable lesson about procrastination in the process. Huzzah! 

I’ve thought about that rule while working on new posts in haphazard fits and stops and, as this today’s post indicates, I’ve acquiesced to ‘Writing about Writing’. I’m not happy about it either.

I like to think there are two audiences for whom the rule above is intended: the lazy student and the fearful student. The lazy application is obvious and recognizable to all of us; it’s the fearful that I’m tapping into now.“It may be uncomfortable, amateur writer, but the reader is not interested in your discomfort alone. Do something with it.” That is what the rule is reminding me of, at least today.

Gore Vidal once said: “Write something, even if it’s just a suicide note.” I won’t be so macabre. I’m going to start looking outside myself for a change.