THIS Rhett Butler Will Never Die

Continuing on from what I was talking about in my last posting, I've come to realize that I've just experienced what I call, an existential realization that doing anything at all with your time in life is futile. How I recognized this happening was because it happened to me once before. 20 years ago. I was at UCSC and discovered a new manner of creative self-expression which I felt could lead to ultimate discoveries of self-awareness.  That was when I was taking playwrighting classes and my mind was open to so many avenues of creativity. I felt that becoming a playwright was the grandest calling I had ever experienced. I began to work on ideas for several plays all at once. My mind was in constant motion and truth be told, I was the most manic I had ever been in my life. After about two weeks of this high anxiety and very little sleep, I had an epiphany of thought. In the flash of a second, I realized that no matter how different my work could be, compared to any other playwrit...

So I've been taking this online novel writing course with one of my most favorite, living authors (Francesca Lia Block) for the past 5 weeks. She invited writers that had existing manuscripts to come and learn under her guidance how to get our stories written in a fashion that could help us sell them (for publication). It took me awhile to figure something out about what her methods and goals were, but now that I've figured this out (for my own sake at least) I feel torn about whether I want to learn how to write this way or not. I wouldn't call her method or goals formulaic, but in a way, that's how they are starting to seem to me. Here's what I'm starting to think is what's going on. Popular fiction has "a feel" to it. There are standard elements of storytelling involved that hook readers that work to keep them transfixed while reading a novel. The reader wants to be drawn into a mysterious series of events that contain tension and unexpected d...