Beneath the sheets of paper lies my truth: writing fiction

I think I was always a writer, always wanted to be, just didn´t know if I could.  Either way, I wrote mentally long before I actually started. It´s a common thing among writers, I guess. Not trying to be pretentious, but I once read an essay by George Orwell, where he mentioned that, he was always creating stories from scenes of his everyday life. Because that´s where literature exists and breaths. We can be heroes, just for one day, a song by David Bowie. And that´s true. Literature is happening everyday around us, we just have to be aware. In a way, a writer is like a photographer. We need a snapshot, a sparkle that triggers the creative process, and then we continue from there, we create new lives.

 I have several of these in my mind, mundane things, faces that passed me by, sentences I´ve heard, colors, odors. I can´t help it, it´s something I´ve done without even noticing. I am always collecting memories, and I keep them stored for an occasion I can use them.  

There´s also music. Many of the stories I wrote came from lyrics I´ve heard, songs I love. Listening to them helped me creating situations where those songs would be playing; a break up, a love scene, or something completely different where a certain part of the lyrics fits perfectly. It is incredible, exciting, and almost magical. All of a sudden, I see the characters, I visualize the plot, I hear their voices, and then I know; It´s time to let the process flow. I have to tell that story.

The stories are not mine. Not autobiographical, I mean. It always amazed me how difficult it is for readers to understand that. I don´t want to write about my life. No way, that would be boring. Citing Orwell for a second time, but I think he must always be mentioned, good writers are invisible. It´s the story that counts and that just reminds me of Oscar Wilde and one of his brilliant sayings, I guess he was thinking about poets, but it is valid to all writers: the good ones are pale figures, really insignificant. Why? Because they´re not worried about being, they´re busy creating.   

Once the story is there ready to be read, it gains its own life. What a wonderful thing that is, giving voices to characters, bringing them to life.   

As I said, I always wanted to write. I never thought I could, though. But one thing about writing is that it is a hard-wired condition. Writers are born writers and one cannot escape or ignore this urge for too long.

Once I started, I could never stop. I just finished my first book. Sixteen short stories. Slices of other people´s lives, ready to get known by others, probably very few others, but that doesn´t bother me.  

I love what I do. And I do cause I love, I cannot live from what I write, but then I remember Monterroso. For him, getting paid for writing was something surreal and almost indecent. Anyway,  I am truly myself when I write, and that reminded me of a song by Regina Spektor, “beneath the sheets of paper lies my truth”. That´s exactly it. 

Oscilate Wildly

Smiths has been my soundtrack on the last days, and of all the songs I love, the one that brings tears to my eyes is Oscilate Wildly, an instrumental one, and the reason behind that is that I already have all the lyrics in my head, lyrics of a huge number of sad songs. And also because I live to write, something I once describe to a friend as a curse, altought at the time I said that, I just wanted to sound clever. But after wondering a lot, and also after reading a novel by Javier Cercas, I´ve came to the conclusion that that´s what it is, a curse. I go around in a constant search for a good story. Nothing is insignificant. Everything can be used somehow, someday. We´re vampires of others people´s lives, or lives that we just made up from a snapshot we get.

I thought about that when I saw a picture on monday, of a Free Syrian Army fighter playing with a dog (LINK). Since I saw the picture, I couldn´t stop thinking; who was this man? what are his bieliefs, how was his life before this gruesome war started, and I thought about the dog, about their accidental encounter, and wondered if they both make it to the end of that day. And also how was it possible for this man to ignore the background, the killings, the destruction, the gassed victims, and enjoy the company of a dog on a sunny day?

Maybe the answer is in an essay by George Orwell, A Hanging (check HERE). Because we happen to be alive now, at this very moment. Because we´re alive up to the moment we´re dead. On this essay, Orwell describes the day he witnesses a hanging. The prisioner who´s going to be hanged walks in front of him, a walking dead. There´s a puddle on his way. What does he do? He steps aside. For what, one could ask. To avoid getting wet,of course, altought it may seem absurd. To me, the main reason is because he can step aside. At that moment, he is still a living creature. Avoiding the puddle reinforces his humanity. He does it, because he´s still alive.  
The man plays with the dog because they´re both alive in the middle of chaos, death and suffering. Others didn´t make it, too bad for them. Escaping death brings a furious happiness, something both Orwell and Cercas mention. We will keep on stepping aside puddles, playing with dogs up to the moment we cannot escape.