Sometimes, I lose control of my stories. Earlier today, I tried to write down how this girl once spent several minutes slapping and punching me because I didn't keep my eyes closed during an intimate moment. It was supposed to be funny. At least it was unusual. Along the way, I wrote down how I'd never hit a girl, which is almost true in that I've never raised my hand in anger like that, but there was that time in fifth grade when I mistakenly tried to wrestle a girl because I thought she was another one of the boys.
Once I did that, the whole piece became about how bad that mistake made me feel, which it did, and whatever point I had that was funny evaporated like a vampire in the sun, and the longer the story got, the less it worked. It wasn't funny anymore. It wasn't anything, just an ambling mess.
When I paint or draw, I usually try to capture something my eye actually saw, which keeps me on track. Writing is only like that when you answer an essay question in school. With free writing, you sometimes start out trying to bake a chicken and end up with broiled oysters. The process, at least the way I do it, takes its own course, and you're just there trying to scribble it all down.
Art is a collaboration between the conscious and unconscious mind. While my story wasn't particularly good, it became an interesting opportunity to examine my creative process. Maybe one day I'll return to that story's funny side, or maybe I'll never think of it again. That part doesn't matter. What does matter is that I had an idea, and I put it on paper, and it became whatever it needed to become.
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