An old friend Harry used to tell me that he believed God existed but that they
gave up on the earth and this universe a long time ago. That they was off doing other things now.
Was God gardening? I feel like God might be swimming. They have a very special swimsuit that’s red with little green and yellow smiley faces on it, and they go and dive into the liquid blackness. Glitter gets all over their trunks. When tired, they grab a chair and relax by the sun. They sip champagne they’ve nicked from Saturn and eats blueberries while singing a song their God taught them. They get lonely sometimes but is always excited when the comets race into the sky and crash into each other; breaking off into 50 pieces. Sometimes they are surprised to see that the comets pass by each other, even though they were sure they would touch.
Made in
their image they look down on me with ruined, contemplative eyes as if I were a
tiny mirror, shattered and foggy. I reflect a perfect outline but no definite
figure. I feel their eyes on me and I hear them sighing in reflection. Like a
child I am made in their image, but lacking the inherent instinct to imitate, I
instead reflect a fragment of who they are. Often they stop and stare for
seconds, sometimes minutes, and try to find that fragment deep inside them. It
must feel like an itch on numb skin, as if the blind spots in our vision were
to appear. But they all leave with the same expression they began with, they move
on.
I am a
creation; made with purpose. What must they feel when they see me? A mirror
staring back at them. I wonder if they see the green and brown on my skin and
think of life and rust. Do they see my hollow chest, my empty shoulders, and think
of their own hearts beating inside them? I wonder if for a second they hear
themselves breathe and listen to the flow of their veins; the rhythm inside
them. Perhaps they’d feel hollow as well – detached; a floating head looking down
at an empty body, a subtle disquiet building up at the bottom of their spine, making
knots in their throats and clenching their bowels.
I am a
creation; made with purpose. I am hollow, sculpted with jade porcelain.
This is my piece for our workshop on December 1st. It is a sequel to the piece I posted before 'This Isn't Right' and is a first draft. I am rubbish with titles and haven't been able to think of one for this piece. If anyone has any suggestions, I'm open to them! Just drop me a message on facebook or tell me in person, thanks!
I remember breaking the mirror, feeling nothing as cracks danced across its silver surface. I remember feeling blood drip down my arm, the lukewarm liquid tickling my skin. I remember falling to the floor, an eerie emptiness filling my mind. Then I woke up. I was in my bedroom, the familiarity of the lilac walls offering me comfort in my time of uncertainty. Looking around, I let my eyes linger on photographs taped to the wall, most of them either falling off or sitting askew. In every single one, I wore a fake smile but you'd have to look pretty hard to realise. I perfected the art of pretend happiness. Or maybe everyone just went along with it. It was easier that way.
Everything is easier when you don't accept the truth, when you swallow the lies fed to you. That's why I had my back to the mirror. I didn't want to accept my truth, my fate. So I remained in my room, sitting with my legs crossed humming my favourite song. I was calm, no negative thoughts were invading my mind, nothing was sending me into a spiral of despair. You might even go as far as to say I was content. Content with what, I couldn't tell you. I found it strange myself, I doubt many people feel calm and content ten minutes after trying to kill themselves. But I was content. I closed my eyes and let my mind wander. Images burst into my head and leave almost as quickly as they came. The broken mirror was a regular visitor. The slightly bloodied frame and broken glass flickering on and off like a broken lamp. The spider web of cracks reminding me of my own broken mind, my weakness. But it wasn't just my mind that was broken. A small gasp jolts me back to reality, my eyes snap open and I look up at the door. A pair of blue eyes are peering into my room, almost staring right through me. The door is suddenly thrown open to the widest it will go, slamming into the wall. Something isn't quite right but all I can seem to think of is how the copper handle will leave a crack in my perfect lilac wall. Those blue eyes, the ones that hold the world, are still staring through me, the pupils widening in fear.
Why are you scared blue eyes? Almost answering my question, a scream explodes in the room. Oh blue eyes, what's wrong? Let me help you. I reach out to the figure that stands before me but my hand falls through them. My. Hand. Falls. Through. Them. As hard as I try to deny it, reality hits me hard. I turn to face the mirror, searching for answers. I can see my reflection, sitting cross-legged on the floor, just like me. I can see blue eyes reflected in the mirror, mouth wide open, still screaming. I can see a lifeless body reflected in the mirror. No. I refuse to believe it. I'm the lifeless body. I'm dead. I understand why those beautiful blue eyes are screaming now. I understand their pain. What I don't understand is why they are so pained. After all the pain I caused them, after everything I did, they should be glad I'm dead. I am. I broke the mirror. Then I broke myself. Now I can't break anything again. I can't hurt anyone anymore. You'll understand one day blue eyes, I know you will.
I’m old and haggard. I am surrounded by the joys of life and
the mourning of death.
My wrinkles show my age and the horrors that I’ve had to see
in this life. I have had to live through war, running for shelter when hearing
the piercing sound of an air raid siren, not knowing if my friends will still
be alive the next day.
I have had to experience the terrifying feeling of being
suicidal when fighting bipolar, waking up in my bed the next day, surprised that
I managed to stop myself but upset that I woke up at all.
As well as seeing the many die from war I have had to watch
my loved ones die, my friends, my family, my parents. I have had to watch my
husband die due to a cruel malfunction in his cells, preventing me from growing
old with him.
Loneliness is like a cancer attached to life, slowly
leaching the happiness that you once had.
The realisation of becoming a widow was enough, let alone
having to bring up three teenage children, but my children are my life, and
they are what I have to show for it all.
Nothing could have made me happier to then be presented with
three grandchildren through the years, so innocent and fragile yet strong
willed and born for a better life than I’d lived. However loneliness slowly
crept up on me again, like a disease or a demon haunting me until the end. My
children no longer wanted to see me and my grandchildren grew up.
But now I lay here, connected to a drip, unable to move and
the only thing that will come out of my mouth is an excruciating groan.
My granddaughter told me that she loved me on my birthday,
the first time in years. In the same day my beloved baby boy made it clear that
he didn’t. For both of those reasons my dry eyes produced a tear that were
worth a thousand tears that I refused to make in the past.
After that I had to go to a wretched ‘old peoples home’. I’ve
lived in my home for all of my life and my parents did before me.
If that wasn’t enough to make me feel like a cast out puppy,
it was just after my birthday, which is just before Christmas. The staff were
nice to me at Christmas, which made a change, and the roast dinner was good, so
I guess I shouldn’t complain.
I am no longer a burden, having to be taken care of by my
daughter and her children. The only family that I got to see every day. My poor
daughter couldn’t take it anymore, and because of that I went willingly, but I
would have rather died in my own bed.
My family came to see me today, my grandchildren and my
daughter, they all seemed so happy to see me but I could see in their eyes what
they were really thinking. My granddaughter stood at the foot of my bed staring
at me with realisation in her face that I won’t be coming back home.
The doctors say that they don’t know what’s wrong with me,
but I think my family and I know perfectly well what is wrong, I’ve given up.
My family all said goodbye to me when they left, only
meaning it as a temporary one I know, because they thought that they’d come
back to see me again, but I took that loving goodbye as my last.
Do all writers have voices? This was a question we
wanted to unravel and find an answer to. Most people associate the author - the
name of the person written on the piece and its published words as the writer’s
voice but that isn’t necessarily the case. It is normally defined that the writer’s
voice is a unique and individual writing style, a combination of their common
usage of syntax, diction, punctuation, character development, dialogue and so
on, within a given written piece or across several of that writer’s works. However,
it is common for writers to take inspiration or adapt from others and in most
cases be changed by the editor. Therefore the writer’s voice could be defined
as a layer of voices, not just one.
Our thoughts on the writer’s
voice:
Malachi Fernandez:
To say that all
writers have a unique voice I believe is untrue. All writers take inspiration
from someone or somewhere and a lot of them base their own writing style on
others but the writers’ voice is important as it gives a sense of individuality
to each and every writer. Every writer wants to be able to distinguish
themselves from others and that alone would make you a commendable writer.
Despite the voice being important to many authors, many also point out that
focusing solely on your voice can lead to “branding”. A lot of writers focus on
creating a trademark style of writing which they aim to use throughout all of
their books in their career but can also be argued that all writers both have a
voice and don’t. Some voices are more distinct than others and others can be
seen as simply mimicking these stronger voices, for example; George Orwell
famously wrote six rules for writing which writers should follow, these are;
Never use a
metaphor, simile, or other figure of speech which you are used to seeing in
print.
Never use a
long word where a short one will do.
If it is
possible to cut a word out, always cut it out.
Never use the
passive where you can use the active.
Never use a
foreign phrase, a scientific word, or a jargon word if you can think of an
everyday English equivalent.
Break any of
these rules sooner than say anything outright barbarous.
As well as these
rules, he focuses on themes of politics and totalitarian authorities creating a
unique and distinguishable writer’s voice for himself yet writers such as Tess
Gerritsen who make novels of the thriller genre can be said to not have her own
voice. She is compared to Stephen King which reinforces the idea that writers take
inspiration from each other.
Alex Howard:
Personally the writer’s voice is important in
getting fans that like the style that you write in. This is why authors develop
their own distinct styles. Once voices are found then they can be worked on and
developed. A lot of people start off emulating a style before developing it
into one of their own. The style is also not something that is set in stone, it
is fluid and adaptable and able to constantly evolve. For example; Charles
Dickens - Dickens used unnecessary words and went off on tangents. Making
stories conversational, as if we were hearing the story being told with the
character’s voice while Markus Zusak wrote with a depressing sort of humour,
making jokes that had a downbeat point of reference to them. He also interrupted
himself in the middle of conversation. Giving off the sense of a normal
conversation and in turn making the text more exciting.
Douglas Adams’ writing made it seem as if everything
was absurd, it could be called a form of absurdism. He wrote as if to share the
absurdity with others. He seemed to see everything as ridiculous, everything
was bizarre to him.
Mark Twain wrote with very bad grammar sometimes,
he also interrupted and repeated himself. He wrote in this way to help us
identify with characters, not every person speaks with perfect grammar and
people miss out words in their sentences.
Robert Heinlein wrote in a way to make us
understand how the story was being said. Like when writing a teenage girl, he
used long sentences with commas, making it seem as if the sentence was being
said in one breath. He wrote how the characters would speak in real life.
What is love?
Love is taking in a lost young child and raising them as your own
Letting them know they'll never be alone again
While listening to them shouting 'I want to go home'
Love is watching them grow and grow each day
Their open wounds slowly being sewn back together again
Granting their every wish until their pain fades away
Love is going through the battles of their teenage years
Preparing your armour as they scream and shout
As cursing and crying invade your ears
Love is entering a strangers house, your heart like shattered glass
And leaving them as family, no matter how much time will pass.
To the podgy toddler with a sunshine soul and a mind like Eden,
as she crawled and stood and stumbled and fell and rose and walked, the room
was a treasure trove of first-times to explore.
To the two little girls having a tea party, sat cross-legged
on the cream carpet, each with a coffin-eyed porcelain doll cradled in the
meadow of her lap, the room was a fine little café in Neverland, populated by
fairies and mermaids and nameless creatures painted on the canvas of their
young minds by the brush of imagination, but always with flowing blonde hair
and golden hearts pulsing with magic.
To the girl-woman with streetlights for eyes and a copper
kettle heart, with a wallet full of dust and a mind overgrown with flowers, the
room echoed cavernously with freedom and potential.
To the man wringing his hands anxiously as he watched the
woman pace around the room like walking was a dance as complex as a rose, the
warped floor chattering as her dainty steps made it creak, it was a ballroom,
and he was a lowly pauper observing a princess in her own setting – the room
was a mirror into what his life could be.
To the newlyweds with hands joined like the clasp of a diamond
necklace and hearts a universe wide, the room was their favourite place in the
childhood home gifted to them; it was a place waiting to be filled.
To the warm young couple painting small Picasso squares of
delicate pink paint samples onto the play-dented and time-greyed walls – the man
with a face like Indian sunshine and the woman with her dandelion hands gently
crowning the swelling pearl of her stomach – the room was a dream pregnant with
promise.
To the too-young widower, knelt clutching at the bars of an
unused-cot, the room was a six-foot deep hole waiting to be filled with
fistfuls of cold, black earth.
To the childless father and wifeless husband with granite eyes older than his face who, every night, would open the soft pine wardrobe and get out the corps de ballet of unworn baby girl dresses and tutus and hand-knitted jumpers, the room was a broken glass that cut his mouth every time it quenched his thirst.
To the old man looking out of the grimy little window, his
view distorted by a constellation of mould just as his memory was distorted by time,
with loneliness eating at his lungs like a cancer and heartbreak veining his
memories, the room was a prison he was tied to by the shackles of a love lost,
something too painful to hold on to but too precious to release.
To the house clearance worker with the arms of a gorilla and
the face of a detective, his neck covered with a doodle of blurry tattoos, his
back aching dully as he boxed up dusty photo albums and neglected jewellery and too-pristine baby clothes and other personal things that meant nothing to
him, the room was just a room.
Hot, burning, searing, an ocean of the planet's blood stirred deep within. A red hissing, a rising crackling, and a slow slurping of pure pain incarnate crawling down a path of incandescent rocks. Falling apart. Failing to keep control.
Break free. Break free, oh bitterness, break free and end the world in flames, burn it to the core, leaving less than space dust.
It will never emerge. Nothing to burn. Never was, never will be. Spin the Earth on a surface of cold, blue ice. Look at the rocks, black and charred, a wasteland of worthlessness. Touch them, feel their smoothness, feel their roughness. Draw up a deck chair, put up a parasol, sit anywhere you like and bathe under the idyllic midday sun. Sip on a wet glass of butternut squash, watch. Watch as pain turns to rock, turns to sand, turns to water, turns to clouds, turns to rain, turns to snow, turns to ice, turns to pain once more.
I explore my mind,
To put pencil to page,
A type of therapy to find,
Someway to break out this cage.
I sketch a man,
Featured like mine,
Cleansing began,
As I drew each line.
I give him eyes, shaded in blue,
To see the world and what to pursue.
I draw his arms held above his head,
To carry burdens and continue ahead.
I draw some legs, long in length,
To move him a lifetime, with powerful strength.
I lace his shoes, making them tight,
To tread paths, day and night.
I relax and feel a release,
Slump back in my seat, inhale,
Ease the conflict, internal peace,
Unlocking the door to my mental jail.
Exhale, colour to my face,
Thoughts flow, my head clear,
No pressure, my own pace,
Comfort and happiness reappear.
Having
an original voice as a writer can be difficult. I feel that we as writers tend
to take things from the various works that we have read and incorporate them
within our own work. There are many different elements that a writer may put
into their work, however it’s easy for them to get overused, therefore becoming
a cliché. Cliché is an expression or idea that has become overused to the state
that it is no longer an original idea.
Cliché’
can be easy to fall into, especially if you watch a lot of films or read a lot
of books. Novelist and poet, Samuel Becket, calls clichés “anonymous speech
that belongs to all and bears the mark of society”, but, as they can be such an
easy route originality can be lost within the piece. One author who has no
problem avoiding cliché is writer Clarice Lispector. Lispector’s voice is
original because it doesn’t have a structure; it goes wherever she wants it to
go. Her voice is very idiosyncratic in the sense that the reader may be left
confused about what she’s trying to say. This makes her work different and
unique, meaning that it’s easy to recognize. Even though her work may be seen
as difficult to understand, I feel that the way in which she writes makes the
reader think as well as letting them have their own interpretation of the
piece.
In
Lispector’s Água Viva she writes about childbirth in a way that I feel no other
writer has, she also writes about being reborn. She writes “You who are reading
me please help me to be born”. She also writes, “I ate my own placenta so as
not to have to eat for four days.”She uses innuendo and
double meanings in ways that are difficult to understand. I find that this
makes her work very unique and original, not many people would write about
childbirth in such a way. Lispector’s writing was so bizarre at times that her
editor (Benjamin Moser) changed quite a bit of what she wrote and as a result
of that it took away something that was very special to her…her voice.
Clarice
Lispector’s novels have a reoccurring topic of feminism, in which many authors
have written about for centuries. Her pieces specifically focus on the lives of
women who struggle with society and their limitations. I feel that this is a
big part of her voice as a writer since its something that she was very
passionate about. Authors who tend to stick to the same genre when writing
stories or other pieces may be classed as cliché by a few, however this is more
of cliché within their own work rather than an idea that they have taken from
someone else. Although Lispector and many other writers may produce something
of feminism, it’s likely that we will be able to tell apart her work due to the
fact that we have picked up her style throughout all of the other pieces that she
has done. By sticking to the same genre, these authors have created their own originality
within the genre they have chosen.
Writers
can often talk about the same subjects yet take completely different
approaches. This is due to the fact that every author has a different voice
that they have within their writing. For example Charles Bukowski takes a
humorous approach to the subject of alcohol and essentially alcoholism. Where
as Olivia Laing (an essayist) takes an objective approach, in the sense that
she’s speaking about the subject rather than her own experiences of it. She
does this through examining the links between creativity and alcohol. Their
styles, approaches, opinions are just poles apart, although discussing the same
issue, which is alcoholism.
Now,
this is how we can understand that different authors can take the same subject,
but produce their own adaptation of it.
Another
author who has an original voice however incoherent is Werner Herzog. In his
travel piece ‘Of walking in Ice’ isn’t like any other travel piece. Throughout
this piece Herzog uses a lot of short sentences and then he will continue on to
a new idea. For example “With my compass I gauged the direction of Paris; now I
know it. Atchternbusch had jumped from the moving VW van without getting hurt”.
As you can see a new character has been thrown into the picture and as soon as
he is brought into the story, abruptly he is then taken out “then right away he
tried again and broke his leg; now he’s lying in Ward 5”. The way in which
Herzog writes I feel may leave the reader overwhelmed by all the different
aspects of the story and the constant change of idea/setting. However there is
no denying that his voice as a writer is unique/original.
The
Russian theorist Baktin, stated ‘for the prose artist the world is full of
other people’s words, among which he must orient himself and whose speech characteristics
he must be able to perceive with a very keen ear. He must introduce them into
the plane of his own discourse, but in such a way that the plane is not
destroyed.’ (Cited in Lodge, 1992, p. 128).
Originality
within a piece may be easier for a writer who has decided to close themselves
off from the world and all of the other works that writers have produced
(whether that may be film or books). However maintaining an original voice may
be harder than we think. For example I could start a story that I intend to be
completely original however throughout the writing process I may slip back into
the habit of putting cliché in my work. With writers like Lispector and Herzog
their voice is something that can’t be imitated, this is due to their state of
mind and the way that they think. The way in which your mind works, as both a
writer and individual will help you to mold your voice and hopefully keep it as
original as possible.
Werner
Herzog “Of walking on Ice’ Taken from the UCA student portal in the week 4
folder
When you’re beginning to be a writer, one develops their own voice over time. The voice can be a kind of abstract concept, but perhaps another word we could use for it would be ‘style’. Structure, form, and language etc can come together and create a voice that is individual to the writer.
We are looking at Hunter S Thompson, (July 18, 1937 – February 20, 2005). Thompson was an American journalist and author, and the founder of the GONZOJOURNALISM movement. It was his own brand of New Journalism an experimental style of journalism where reporters involve themselves in the action to such a degree that they become central figures of their stories, but also being “a detached observer of events being reported”(1). He has since become an important countercultural figure.
When Hunter S Thompson was beginning to write, he used to type out entire copies of famous works by great American writers like Fitzgerald and Hemingway in order to get a sense of the voice and emotion the authors were trying to convey. This inspiration and practice comes across in a lot of his works; appropriating parts of their voices and turning them into his own, original voice.
Hunter’s interests in writing are politics, known for hating Richard Nixon (he wrote an article “He Was A Crook”)(2), and his short novel Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas as well as the original article it came from (3). We will be deconstructing elements of each of these texts and see what they have to offer in terms of voice.
Very descriptive, possibly overbearing with detail:
“Kissinger is a slippery little devil, a world-class hustler with a thick German accent and a very keen eye for weak spots at the top of the power structure.”
(Quote from He Was A Crook)
"A fantastic bike," I said. "The new model is something like two thousand cubic inches, developing 200 brake horsepower at 4000 revolutions per minute on a magnesium frame with two styrofoam seats and a total curb weight of exactly 200 pounds."
“To relax, as it were, in the womb of the desert sun. Just roll the roof back and screw it on, grease the face with white tanning butter and move out with the music at top volume, and at least a pint of ether.”
(Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas article)
In each of these examples, we can see that Hunter, instead of maybe setting the scene, focuses on one particular thing so vigorously that we can’t help but be completely focused on it as well. He is almost forcing intrigue and for the reader that can be very intense.
Even when using words plainly, they are ravished in verbs or adjectives, or descriptions about the aspects he’s trying to cover. In the first example, what we noticed that Hunter often uses 2-3 combinations of words, “slippery little devil”, “thick German accent”, which really help to characterise who he’s trying to talk about images images and sounds, as well as establishing a familiar rhythm for the text.
The next is just building up almost useless information about a vehicle maybe mocking America's tendency for material items, describing it almost like a salesperson, words almost echoing but not adding anything to our vision.
The use of heavy imagery helps the story transmit a great deal of emotion and helps the readers immerse themselves in the story. Hunter writes to not only narrate a bizarre adventure, but to make the reader feel as though they were there, experiencing reality breaking down alongside the protagonist, to the point where the scene makes as much sense to the narrator as it does to the reader.
Quite surreal, with quite vivid imagery that can be relatively/very unusual to the situation, as well as strange responses to those situations.
“I agreed. By this time the drink was beginning to cut the acid and my hallucinations were down to a tolerable level. The room service waiter had a vaguely reptilian cast to his features, but I was no longer seeing huge pterodactyls lumbering around the corridors in pools of fresh blood. The only problem now was a gigantic neon sign outside the window, blocking our view of the mountains -- millions of colored balls running around a very complicated track, strange symbols & filigree, giving off a loud hum....
"Look outside," I said.
"Why?"
"There's a big ... machine in the sky, ... some kind of electric snake ... coming straight at us."
"Shoot it," said my attorney.
"Not yet," I said. "I want to study its habits.”
(Quote from Fear and Loathing)
You can imagine that because they are on drugs in this book, this kind of language is only unique to Fear and Loathing, but it isn’t. It’s obvious that the way Hunter sees the world is quite differently to others, possibly due to the drugs that he personally took, but the voice and presence of surrealism and understanding of that it is present in anything that he writes. In this extract, there are strange images, like the waiter having reptilian figures, and pterodactyls, and electric snake - perhaps some of these are euphemisms for other things e.g. the electric snake could be a neon light. Nevertheless, he uses combinations of things that would not commonly be put together and synchronizes it quite smoothly, especially under the circumstances of drugs.
Hunter narrates a reality that is clearly distorted, but with the protagonist always seeming in control, interpreting the world around him with an almost sober perspective.There is never a clear sense of what is actually happening and what is being constructed out of the drug trip.
"Never mind. Let's get right to the heart of this thing. You see, about 24 hours ago we were sitting in the Polo Lounge of the Beverly Hills Hotel – in the patio section, of course – and we were just sitting there under this palm tree when this uniformed dwarf came up to me with a pink telephone and said, 'This must be the call you've been waiting for all this time, sir.'"
Constant shifts in chaos and control, paranoia and objectiveness. These trait makes his voice and characters feel unique and surreal.
(From the original article Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas)
Effective use of metaphor/simile:
“He had the fighting instincts of a badger trapped by hounds. The badger will roll over on its back and emit a smell of death, which confuses the dogs and lures them in for the traditional ripping and tearing action. But it is usually the badger who does the ripping and tearing. It is a beast that fights best on its back: rolling under the throat of the enemy and seizing it by the head with all four claws.”
The effective use of metaphor and simile help successfully transmit what the author feel towards Nixon, both emotionally and philosophically in one paragraph.The specific examples used as metaphors and similes also give the author a sense of authority. Since the examples came across clearly, the author must know what he is talking about and can be trusted.
Conclusion
Hunter S. Thompson was born in the perfect time. More than just writing about strange drug trips and corrupt politicians he used his voice to explore and express freedom in its most American sense,and tackled questions that an entire generation was asking. Hunter S Thompson’s voice perfectly reflects himself as a person: wild, incoherent both a raving madman and a wise sage.
“There he goes. One of God's own prototypes. A high-powered mutant of some kind never even considered for mass production. Too weird to live, and too rare to die.”
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