|
epitome of incomprehensibility
|
I was terrified about seeing Janet, which didn't mean I wasn't happy to see her shape approaching the door's window. A new door, a new window, but the situation reminded me of creative writing classes past, which hadn't been in person for over two years.
I was nervous now because she was going to give me feedback on the first third of my novel. I'd asked her to check if it held together well.
After some introductions, I opened my notebook and wrote "Aug. 31, 2022."
Did she think it was horribly organized? No. Excellently? No. (I take a long time to get to the point.) But I was encouraged: she had concrete feedback, even if it won't be easy to achieve - centre the story around Carol's anger problems, her violence. Make that the focus. It's there, just bring it out more.
And she said the book had a unique perspective, in being narrated by a teenage girl who acted violently towards her family and others. At least, she hadn't read anything like it, she said. Stories of parents who abused children, partners who abused spouses, a mother whose son became a school shooter - but not one where the character is "reasonably relatable," where things are partly her fault and partly not. And the outcome didn't have to be murder for it to be interesting, she said (I laughed because she always seemed to talk about stories with murder).
We also talked about
-the character's goals
-her wanting to be accepted at the new school (I said "fit in - no, that's not quite right" and "being accepted" was much more accurate)
-her crush on her (female) friend, how that could make her feel like an outsider
-undiagnosed ADHD, ditto
-Evangelical and other types of Christianity; "Annoying Songs for Jesus," I said, which made her laugh
-expectations on what makes a good girl/woman - and how I and Carol rationalized our actual teenage badness since it wasn't of the "drugs and sex" variety
...
Anyway, what came through was that Janet thought this was a story worth telling, one that "hasn't been told before."
Then came my thoughts at home that evening:
"Yeah, there are no other novels about a young teenage girl with anger problems who struggles to be accepted and is most likely bi...EXCEPT for Carson McCullers' The Member of the Wedding from 19-friggin-46."
(Okay, so my pre-fact-checking mind thought it was published in 1962.)
But yeah. Nothing is new under the sun, say the Bible and the periodic table: things are just put together in novel ways.
|
220901
|
