Augusten, You Bastard... (A Cross Post)
Lately (as in, for the past few weeks), I've fallen back into reading Augusten Burroughs. This is not the best thing for me; I know that for a fact, because this is not the first time. Still, used bookstores be damned, I rediscovered him to the tune of two of his books I hadn't yet read for the grand total of under $5.00.
When I say reading works by Augusten Burroughs isn't good for me, I pretty much mean exactly that. Burroughs, like the famous David Sedaris (who's works have also pulled me to the dark side in the past), has an effect on the writer in me. Burroughs and Sedaris both fascinate me, not because of the vague sense that I can, in some ways, relate to them- although, to be honest, I can. I mean, between the gross chaos of Burroughs 'home' situation as a teenager and Sedaris's myriad of health issues ring truer for me than I'd like to admit.
No, the reason these guys hold such appeal is primarily because of my inner writer.
I've written for a long time- since I was in at VERY least middle school (although I was coming up with stories much sooner than that). For me, it was more than a creative outlet- it was a necessary skill required for an at least vaguely functional social life, since I didn't speak and, frankly, sign language was just too difficult (more on that later).
Like many a writer before me, I nurtured the tiny little seedling of hope of graduating from the common 'writer' to the somewhat less common 'author'. I wanted to make an impression on the world- I wanted to share my ideas, my writing. I wanted to be loved and remembered for my words.
In simpler terms, I wanted to publish a bestseller so badly I would have bled for it.
The problem was, I could never come up with anything worth writing. The easiest thing, the best way to get started, was to 'write what you know'.
Therein lay my problem: I didn't know anything.
I mean, I knew my childhood. I knew what fresh hell that was. I had an intimate knowledge of what it was like to navigate through your house as though it were a messy, cramped, dusty obstacle course. I could describe in vivid detail what the inside of an emergency room was like, and how quickly they took you in based on what the heck was wrong with you (for instance, if you walked in and your hand was twice its size and purple, but the girl after you staggered in and her lips were blue, well, sorry, pal. Blue trumps purple, no matter how close the colors may be). And more than anything else I knew what it was like to have the biggest organ of my body (google it) be the most volatile.
But who the heck would want to read about that?
My inner writer, that tiny little bitch, whined in my ear until I eventually gagged her and stuffed her in a closet off the hypothetical living room in the ramshackle old estate house that I visualize my brain to be.
"No." I told her. "Noone's going to read our life story. We're boring, uneventful, and kind of gross. Shut up. It's not happening."
And that, as they say, was that.
Until Burroughs.
Reading his work, and the work of Sedaris, was the equivalent of a hit of super special speed for my inner writer. Suddenly, it seemed so possible- someone would, surely, want to read about my life story. I mean, look at them! They haven't slayed dragons or fought crime or figured out the QUESTION to answer of the universe. They were just- people. People with lives that were complicated and messy, with fucked up pasts and stories that should have made my toes curl, if I hadn't been through such similar things.
What made them so readable was How they wrote about it all. Their voices- the tone of their writing is, quite frankly, pretty damn good. It makes an impression. It doesn't embellish. Everything is so real.
So there! My inner writer shouted at me. See? I was right! WRITE! DO IT! DO IT!
And so, feeling empowered, full to the brim with the hot air of bravado, I sit down and I start to write.
And I write.
And write.
And...Write...
And then I start to lose steam, and I think 'I have GOT to get over myself.'
Still, I think of the authors who are making millions, like Nora Roberts (who leaves a horrid taste in my mouth) or James Patterson (with his one paragraph chapters, the prick), and I feel a pang at the unfairness of it all. People like this- writers like THIS- they churn out piece of crap after piece of crap and they're freaking worshipped for it. And me? Me, I can't get anywhere.
On some level, I know that I'm jealous of these people, and not because of their fame. On some level, I know what drives me nuts is that the biggest difference between them and me is the simple fact that they have finished books, and I can't bring myself to try.
But I don't like that level, and, honestly, it's just so much easier to be disgusted at them than look at myself.
Ain't I a peach?