Customer: Is this book Marked Down?
Salesman: Yes it is.
Customer: How much is it?
Salesman: Twenty dollars.
Customer: That's what it says on the cover.
Salesman: That's what it costs.
Customer: I thought you said it was marked down?
Salesman: It is Marked Down.
Customer: No it's not.
Salesman: Yes it is.
Customer: No it's not. You're charging full price.
Salesman: This isn't a used book store. We charge full price.
Customer: Even if it's marked down?
etc.
Yes, that's "Marked Down," by Michael Dare. Specifically designed to be read. If this book doesn't make you laugh, you probably shouldn't have bought it.
Then again, my next novel will be called "My Next Novel," though it's neck and neck in the title derby with "The Arbitrareum," "The Fallback Position," "Mango Overboard," "The Clown," "The Man Who Didn't Vote for Obama," and "Please Don't Write Me," about a writer who pulls out all the stops, cranks it out like it's never been cranked out before, and ventures into unfettered territory heretofore only explored by those armed with drugs and a keyboard missing a period.
Let's say this is an autobiography of a fictional character who bears more than a passing resemblance to me. One can't be too careful these days. Not only are "non-fiction" writers being accused of leaving out the "non" by admitting to childhoods they never had, but "fiction" writers are having their novels used against them in courts of law as evidence of their propinquity towards violence. So what the hell do you do when you've got to vent but the ducts are plugged with maniacs who can't stand the truth unless it's disguised as non-fiction disguised as fiction? Since fiction is only non-fiction written in the third person, when you write about yourself and exaggerate, you've got to trust the words, whatever comes out, start with the facts and go from there, wherever the words lead you. You decide to invent a plot so you can justify calling it more than a blog but less than a novel, but who knows what it is, a deconstruction of deconvention, manipulating the keyboard to do your bidding. A diary.
Here are some facts from my past that are just coming out this week, written in the first person but changed to the third to make it more novelistic.
Noah once came home to find it had been broken into. Nothing was missing. Everything was just in a different place. The spoons were where the forks used to be. The toilet paper that came from the top now came from the bottom. Most mysteriously, Noah's box spring was on top of his mattress with the bed made perfectly. Who would do such a thing to poor Noah?
Noah found out it was Scott and they had a big laugh, but things like that have kept happening to Noah ever since, even when he's miles away from Scott, in another state, Noah leaves, he comes back, and things are different. Noah can't always put his finger on the specifics, but whenever he changes location, or returns to somewhere he's already been, he's absolutely positive this isn't how he left it.
All of which probably means my next novel should be called "Noah's Syndrome," in which Scott tries to kill Noah because he thinks it should be called "Scott's Syndrome."
You've got to write about yourself in the third person because it's too damn easy to be on your own side. You don't have to do anything and there you are. That's why Hunter S. Thompson invented Raoul Duke, though I now hate Hunter S. Thompson because he's the man who shot Hunter S. Thompson.
Can't be on two sides at once when it's you vs. everyone else. Will mankind benefit from your having written a best selling novel or will it just buy you a more efficient bong? Maybe a maniac will read something in chapter 27 that will inspire them to invent a car that runs on Republicans and emits truffles. On the other hand, that scene in chapter 6 in the kitchen of the French restaurant could encourage a maniac to hit a perfect stranger over the head with a wok. Take full responsibility for the ripple effect and you will go mad, never creating another thing in fear of what a maniac might make of it.
I, on the other hand, don't do that. Maniacs can make of this what they will, and if someone hits you over the head with a wok, don't blame me. I didn't know you were perfect.
No comments:
Post a Comment