Forum Overview :: Cabaret Voltron :: Post more of these!

[quote name="Roop Dirump"][quote name="mrs. johnson"]I'm thick skinned enough to shrug off and listen to negative judgement. I'm just learning that people seem to like the mostly abstract stuff, as opposed to my attempts at basic story constructions. Fine. It is just difficult to "buck up", because I'm trying to read through Gravity's Rainbow, and it just hurts me to see how much worse I am than Pynchon. Fine, I understand, he's really fantastic and great. But shit, if I have no talent, and I don't seem to be improving I should stop, right? I'm sort of stuck in limbo here, right between quitting writing and just going on until... something. Fuck everyone, the mrs.[/quote] I was an english major and had a creative writing class with Tony Ardizzone. I read one of his books, and it has this guy who is at the point in the story where he's feeling all depressed, and wanders around cold Chicago, describes it all grey and dreary. It's Christmastime, and he drops some change in a Santa bucket outside some dive, then goes inside to the bar, orders. Sitting and sipping, ruminating, Santa comes in and sits next to him, tells him he looks depressed, then orders a drink himself. So they talk about the guy's problems, Santa offering fatherly advice, then as the guy gets into it, babbling on, Santa reaches down and squeezes the guy's leg, eye's twinkling, "there there there," kind of shit. So then the guy goes all crazy and nearly beats the shit out of the faggot Santa. See? He was a good writer. Anyway, one day in class he was talking about shitty writers, <i>and was looking straight at me,</i> why I remember this. He said all the talented writers he remembered never became good writers because they didn't write every day. Then he said he was talentless. I wanted to squeeze his knee. Roop[/quote]