Writing journal, no. 7

All Stories: The B-list is a happy place.

Jill Heyer | Unsplash

I’ve been thinking about my career aspirations recently, because I’ve noticed that I feel incredibly jealous of old pulp fiction writers.

Which I’ve been figuring out for myself.

Let me explain.

When I was at school, doing creative writing, my teachers all found my skills, limited as they were, impressive. Something to do with my homeschooler’s addiction to, like, doing assignments without complaint and with a modicum of imagination. It meant that my professors always did things like encourage my exploration of themes and symbolism. Avoid cliche. Embrace originality. “Go further,” they would sometimes say. “I want to see you take this further.”

I never figured out what “go further” meant.

Next will come the moment when it looks a little bit like I’m trying to say that my professors were full of hot air, and that I mean to buck against their tutelage and find my own way. That point could be made, but it isn’t the point I want to make. I had good teachers, and I use lessons from them every day.

What I would like to say about them goes a little like…what the hell is wrong with “fun” writing?

Because that legacy lingered after I finished their classes. For the longest time, I felt embarrassed to write some of the things that I wanted to write, because I felt like these professors, who I still respect, would get hold of some of it and consider it not serious enough. Whatever “serious” means.

Which turns out to be consummately ridiculous, first of all because allowing myself to be paralyzed by the imagined criticism of people who won’t ever see my first drafts again just isn’t on. That’s the obvious one.

The subtler one kind of speaks to the specious statement that fun stories, by being fun, can’t be called “serious” or “important” at the same time. Which none of my teachers ever said, even if they suggested it with every sneering reference to Rowling or Herbert or any of these other writers with enough literary criticism leveled at them to be considered “relevant,” whatever that means.

Because, you know what? I don’t care. I don’t care that much about writing “important” literature. I’ve met people who care about writing important literature. Some of the people I went to school with wanted to write “important” literature. It is the WORST place to BEGIN your self-image, I think, because I can’t determine how important anything I do will be to anyone I meet. I can’t do that. It’s depressing to even try. The best I can ever do — and this is a big deal, when all the pieces fall — is to do the best I can ever do, and let history decide what it thinks.

Even if that hadn’t become a personal philosophy of mine, especially for my writing but in life as well, I don’t think I would ever have committed to the idea of writing “serious” literature. I never had it in me. Never aspired to have it in me, and I never had it in me.

Know what I always wanted to write?

Conan the Barbarian stories. And Star Wars spin-offs. The first novel I ever wrote would have been called a piece of Star Wars fanfiction, if the genre had been invented back then, which I don’t think it had. It would be a couple years before that happened. And, when I got a little older, I wanted to write melodramatic monster stories in an H.P. Lovecraft style. I wanted to write about consulting detectives and private investigators. That was when I wasn’t writing about alien invasions, or tapping into the mood of the times and writing post-apocalyptic teen fiction before Collins ever got there. (I was fifteen, and it was crap, so it never went anywhere.)

Basically, I wanted to write pulp fiction. When I was a kid, I even thought that the term had an evocative romance to it. I just liked the sound of it. Pulp fiction. It sounded dirty, slightly violent, tactile, and funny at the same time. Before I even knew a “pulp” was I wanted to write pulp fiction, then I learned what they were and I wanted it even more.

That was before.

Now that I’ve gotten a little older, and some might call me more serious but I don’t think those people have talked to me in ten years, and I’ve had time to get some writing out of my fingers and catch a firmer grasp onto what I want to scream into the void, I can speak with a little more authority about what I want to write.

Now that I’m a little wiser, I can say with utmost authority about pulp fiction that I want to write it more now than I ever did.

Jeeze, man. Just because it’s fun doesn’t mean it isn’t important. And even if it did, what’s more important anyway? Being “important” or telling a good story?

I know how I’d answer.

So my novels are probably okay. Not sure yet because people haven’t seen them too much yet. They’re probably entertaining. And I know that I wrote them pretty well.

But “big L literature” they ain’t. Or they make no aspiration to be. History may judge me otherwise, but I have no pretense toward being the next…that one guy you were forced to read in college that you only remember as “the headache week.”

Not for me.


Ladybird’s Writing Journal

Just a journal of my mild adventures in writing.

)

Oliver “Shiny” Blakemore

Written by

The best part of being a mime is never having to say I’m sorry.

Ladybird’s Writing Journal

Just a journal of my mild adventures in writing.

Welcome to a place where words matter. On Medium, smart voices and original ideas take center stage - with no ads in sight. Watch
Follow all the topics you care about, and we’ll deliver the best stories for you to your homepage and inbox. Explore
Get unlimited access to the best stories on Medium — and support writers while you’re at it. Just $5/month. Upgrade