Friday's Whims of the Time Traveler 28.1: May 9th, 2010
"Caramel Kisses" is an unfinished novel I began to write back in 2009 and stopped working on in 2010. The two main characters - Adriana Maguire Reynard and Emma Burking - would ultimately be revised for my later completed novella, "The Liffey Is Half-Asleep," in 2011. Several elements of "Liffey" can be found in their original forms in "Caramel Kisses," such as the characters' names, the haiku scene, and Adriana's penchant for writing.
Because of its influence on my later writing, I figured that this story, though incomplete, was worth sharing.
Caramel Kisses: Chapter Fourteen
by Belinda Roddie
The trouble with you, Adriana Maguire Reynard, is that you think too much like a playwright. I mean, don’t get me wrong, it’s one thing to be a playwright, to draw up the scripts and pull the strings of conceived characters with some sort of conflict swarming about them like a hungry family of gnats. But to think like one, to be overwhelmed by thoughts of a playwright, that’s a very dangerous road, my friend.
Let’s break it down. When did you first realize this sort of behavior? That night when you had your first argument with your girlfriend, correct? Finally noticing that not everything follows a script or direction. Or if you’re the religious type, maybe that is what you’re going for. But you’re not the religious type. Not anymore, anyway.
The thing is, philosophers can argue all day and night if anything is truly improvised. But the fact of the matter is, you don’t feel like your words are in a script, do you? Obviously, you write. You put words on a page, pre-meditated ones. But you’ve got to be a rapid-fire thinker to pre-meditate the words in your mouth. The human situation is a very tricky thing. You of all people know that well enough.
The truth is, life’s not a play. There is no great playwright in the sky writing the script as you go. In fact, a better name would be the great concept artist in the sky. Sure, there’s a set-up. There’s a setting, scenic design, lighting, and sound, if you want to think along those lines. But that’s context over content. Think of it as being on a long train ride, if you want to be religious. Oh, wait, you’re not the religious type. Well, I’ll use it anyway. That train is going in a certain direction, but what you do on that train is up to you. Whether you’re going to sleep on those cushioned seats, or listen to some music, or read a book, or go to the dining car for some snacks, that’s your call. Not any playwright’s order or direction.
The solution for you, Adriana Maguire Reynard, is that you need to think less like a playwright and more like an improviser. You’re human. You can’t always get a script. Every person in this world’s got hidden layers. You can’t expect anything, and you certainly can’t write it down. You can make Emma Burking a character. You can describe her as a character in your stories and poems. But she won’t act in that character’s context. Not by a long shot.
And maybe that’s why you love her so much, Adriana Maguire Reynard. You love Emma Burking because she doesn’t succumb to any sort of contrived act. You can learn a thing or two from her, kiddo. You can keep typing on the screen, just don’t overdo it in real life.
***
Easier said than done, I thought. I stared at the blocks of text in front of me on the blaring screen, the only light in the room. Emma was sleeping in the bedroom with Milo curled up by her head and I was sitting on the couch with the lights off, typing advice to myself because it was the only way I could digest it. Once a writer, always a writer.
This was a late New Year’s resolution, a half-assed promise to myself. And yet, while I stayed with Emma, I knew that I was changing. This drama was writing me; I wasn’t writing it, and I had little control of the words. I only had my reactions and my contemplations and that was all that was tying me together in a package with a little bow to be shipped to the next publishing house.
I still thought that I was in a drama, yes. One that God or whoever responsible set up for me. That damn context. What was I to do but create my own content? And Emma, dear, I thought, don’t worry about money. Don’t worry about bills or paychecks or actually sound jobs. Because once I could get my hands on a master’s I could offer you a fixed income and a little house and a dog to go with that cat. No more landladies rattling on the doorknob heckling us for rent two weeks before it was due. No more cramped apartment in Sausalito. I would make it happen. I would promise you that.
I scrutinized my self-therapy on the tiny screen of my laptop, hammered out in some sort of trance. I highlighted it all, looking at the light shade of blue glowing back at me, the tiny print wagging a finger authoritatively. Don’t you forget, it told me, and I deleted it with a firm press of the button.
I was changing as an individual and as a writer, especially after tonight’s little melodramatic episode. That unsaved document file was an affirmation of such an anticlimactic epiphany. And I knew that Emma Burking was partially responsible for this. She was responsible for my expectations being turned upside-down and my mind leveled back into the balanced planes of an unnerving reality.
Because those words I just deleted on the screen weren’t just from me. They were from her, as she guided me like a muse over the keyboard and kissed my eyelids when I thought I was going to drift away into too heavy of contemplation.
Because of its influence on my later writing, I figured that this story, though incomplete, was worth sharing.
Caramel Kisses: Chapter Fourteen
by Belinda Roddie
The trouble with you, Adriana Maguire Reynard, is that you think too much like a playwright. I mean, don’t get me wrong, it’s one thing to be a playwright, to draw up the scripts and pull the strings of conceived characters with some sort of conflict swarming about them like a hungry family of gnats. But to think like one, to be overwhelmed by thoughts of a playwright, that’s a very dangerous road, my friend.
Let’s break it down. When did you first realize this sort of behavior? That night when you had your first argument with your girlfriend, correct? Finally noticing that not everything follows a script or direction. Or if you’re the religious type, maybe that is what you’re going for. But you’re not the religious type. Not anymore, anyway.
The thing is, philosophers can argue all day and night if anything is truly improvised. But the fact of the matter is, you don’t feel like your words are in a script, do you? Obviously, you write. You put words on a page, pre-meditated ones. But you’ve got to be a rapid-fire thinker to pre-meditate the words in your mouth. The human situation is a very tricky thing. You of all people know that well enough.
The truth is, life’s not a play. There is no great playwright in the sky writing the script as you go. In fact, a better name would be the great concept artist in the sky. Sure, there’s a set-up. There’s a setting, scenic design, lighting, and sound, if you want to think along those lines. But that’s context over content. Think of it as being on a long train ride, if you want to be religious. Oh, wait, you’re not the religious type. Well, I’ll use it anyway. That train is going in a certain direction, but what you do on that train is up to you. Whether you’re going to sleep on those cushioned seats, or listen to some music, or read a book, or go to the dining car for some snacks, that’s your call. Not any playwright’s order or direction.
The solution for you, Adriana Maguire Reynard, is that you need to think less like a playwright and more like an improviser. You’re human. You can’t always get a script. Every person in this world’s got hidden layers. You can’t expect anything, and you certainly can’t write it down. You can make Emma Burking a character. You can describe her as a character in your stories and poems. But she won’t act in that character’s context. Not by a long shot.
And maybe that’s why you love her so much, Adriana Maguire Reynard. You love Emma Burking because she doesn’t succumb to any sort of contrived act. You can learn a thing or two from her, kiddo. You can keep typing on the screen, just don’t overdo it in real life.
***
Easier said than done, I thought. I stared at the blocks of text in front of me on the blaring screen, the only light in the room. Emma was sleeping in the bedroom with Milo curled up by her head and I was sitting on the couch with the lights off, typing advice to myself because it was the only way I could digest it. Once a writer, always a writer.
This was a late New Year’s resolution, a half-assed promise to myself. And yet, while I stayed with Emma, I knew that I was changing. This drama was writing me; I wasn’t writing it, and I had little control of the words. I only had my reactions and my contemplations and that was all that was tying me together in a package with a little bow to be shipped to the next publishing house.
I still thought that I was in a drama, yes. One that God or whoever responsible set up for me. That damn context. What was I to do but create my own content? And Emma, dear, I thought, don’t worry about money. Don’t worry about bills or paychecks or actually sound jobs. Because once I could get my hands on a master’s I could offer you a fixed income and a little house and a dog to go with that cat. No more landladies rattling on the doorknob heckling us for rent two weeks before it was due. No more cramped apartment in Sausalito. I would make it happen. I would promise you that.
I scrutinized my self-therapy on the tiny screen of my laptop, hammered out in some sort of trance. I highlighted it all, looking at the light shade of blue glowing back at me, the tiny print wagging a finger authoritatively. Don’t you forget, it told me, and I deleted it with a firm press of the button.
I was changing as an individual and as a writer, especially after tonight’s little melodramatic episode. That unsaved document file was an affirmation of such an anticlimactic epiphany. And I knew that Emma Burking was partially responsible for this. She was responsible for my expectations being turned upside-down and my mind leveled back into the balanced planes of an unnerving reality.
Because those words I just deleted on the screen weren’t just from me. They were from her, as she guided me like a muse over the keyboard and kissed my eyelids when I thought I was going to drift away into too heavy of contemplation.
The work you see here has not been edited nor altered since May 9th, 2010.
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