It made me think of what story I would tell about my Dad if I had walked onto that stage.
I was in high school when I heard the phrase that was the prefect ending for any story. “And then (s)he burned me with his/her cigarette”. It didn’t matter if it was placed behind a story about someone realizing they’re in love, a child reconnecting with a dying mother, or a person trying a vegan burger for the first time, that line would magically improve it and make it at least 15% funnier and more awesome in every possible way.
I was really proud of discovering this because my father is a writer and a creative writing professor, so storytelling was taken very seriously in our household.
Because of this, I was constantly surrounded with struggling authors, what I read was restricted mainly to books my father considered to be worthy, which were always followed by in-depth discussions, and I was always given writing advice whether I asked for it or not.
When I was in high school, I had to read Adventures of Huckleberry Finn for my AP English class. The most difficult aspect of this assignment was actually buying the book. It is Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, not The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. And my Dad made me drive to three different bookstores until I found a copy that did not have the offending "The" in the title.
He hates the phrase "utilizing resources" because it is so vague that you can't picture what it is trying to describe. It is just saying that we should use stuff to do things. At least four times a year, he wanders around the house, ranting about how hard people work to sound professional and dignified at the cost of being clear and concise.
We even both have matching tattoos reading "in media res", the writing technique of starting a story in the middle of everything that is happening.
Writing became a huge part of my life. It became the way that I worked through whatever problems I had. It was like an excruciating zen. It could exorcize my demons through copious amounts of hard work. I eventually went to college and majored in Creative Writing.
During my Junior year there, I had a friend who went through a very bad break up. Then it came out that she had cheated on him, was emotional manipulative, and about twenty other things you would not want one of your best friends to be in a relationship with.
I was so frustrated that a person could treat another human being like this that it was all I could think about when I was writing a short story for one of my workshop classes. I ended up cranking out a story where the narrator was this horrible woman who never felt empathy for those around her. In the end, she loses everyone who was close to her and ends up realizing she will always feel alone, and I was glad.
My Dad is always the first person to read my stories and when he read this one, he asked if I was mad at someone. I admitted that I was. He asked if I liked my main character. I told him that I didn't. Then he told me something that always stuck with me because it applied to everything that was happening in my life on so many different levels.
“You have to love every character,” he told me. He placed a comforting hand on my shoulder. “Otherwise, it would be too easy.”
And then he burned me with his cigarette.
much love,
hedgie
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