Why He Rhymes Remains Unclear

One of the questions you'll sometimes ask yourself, as a writing prompt, is "where are you at?" It's sort of like Twitter, except that twitter is always "what are you doing" which somehow has morphed into "what are you thinking/feeling/eating/repeating?" Which is not to say that I don't like Twitter, just that I am aware that it is not technically be employed in the manner suggested by its prompt. Or something.

So, the question of "Where are you at?" And it's a question that, if you consider it with just the right amount of obfuscation in your mind (I'm pretty sure that's a word) can be strangely compelling for all its various possible answers.

I could go with the obvious (and sarcastic!) answer: "In a chair in front of a computer. Duh. You idiot."

But what if we consider the question from a metaphysical perspective? Do I even know where I am, really? I could describe all the things that I'm on, and in, but that won't tell me, really, where I am at, which is to imply that there exists an actual place in time and space and not an endless series of contingencies that merely create the illusion of being in in a single place.

Or I could describe where I'm at, except mentally, emotionally, etc. That could be interesting; at the moment, I'm fairly happy, although my skull still feels like it's being pounded on, but they make little orange pills for that! Mentally, on the other hand, I'm probably somewhere between hilariously unstable and depressingly average.

And, that's really everything I can think to squeeze out of that particular prompt. It's just like, boom, hit a wall, ramble over, river dammed up. Nothing more to see here. We should just move on to another topic and forget about the fact that I was supposed to be building towards a larger point, but didn't.

Moving on.

Haven't talked about writing in a few days (to the best of my recollection, anyway.) One of the things that I've been thinking about lately is how my attitudes towards fiction writing have been shaped so much by what I've read and what I like to read. I understand and agree with the idea that a writer should read, should read a lot and that anybody who says that they don't have the time or interest to be a reader probably doesn't have the time or interest to be a writer.

I guess the thing that's been on my mind lately is how there seems to be, in all of the published fiction that I read, this sort of general "style" that most novels share. Sure, you have your own characters, your storytelling techniques, your own sense of cadence and pace and all of the other elements that go into writing a fiction piece. But what if I tried to break that?

What if I wrote a story from the same perspective that I'm doing this reflection? What if I stopped trying to worry about sounding like a professional writer and just tried to see if I could tell a story while sounding like me, nonsensical ramblings and odd observations intact? I've always differentiated between this voice, the "blog voice," which is very much meant to give the illusion of off-the-cuff, a little bit random, somewhat unfocused, but hopefully amusing, and my actual "writing voice" which is meant to be serious, meant to convey the story.

I'm not saying that I want to write a story where I'm the main character, but what I wonder is, does it always have to be that serious voice? What if I had a character who had thought processes like these? Would it be interesting?

More importantly, would it even be readable?