I realized quite a while ago that writing is not an effective way to exorcise your inner demons.
It's pretty good at feeding them, though.
There have been things that I've felt the need to say about The Marbury Lens for a very long time, now, but I shut up for a bunch of stupid reasons... like because I'm a fucking idiot.
There. I called myself out first. Now I'm going to call out some other people.
Yesterday, Liz (I don't know if that was my Liz) made a comment on one of the "bad words" blog posts that made me think for a long time. Yeah... it was one of those don't-get-any-sleep think sessions.
Because it made me wonder, too, about "lines," and if The Marbury Lens IS "the line" or if The Marbury Lens CROSSES "the line."
I don't know how I feel about either one of those GPS locations.
Wait.
I do.
I don't like them. I'd rather be in an underground parking complex... and I have unsettling phobias about underground parking complexes.
Look. Here's the thing. I'm not going to skirt around this issue any longer, and I'll begin -- not only by calling myself an idiot (see above)-- by saying there are lots of things I will never fully understand.
If that makes me a sexist or some morally corrupt person, some insensitive and ethically bereft hermit, then I am all those things too. I have a wife and two teenage children (a girl and a boy); all of whom I love very much. I can be compassionate and understanding, and try to be as educated as possible about my daughter and the kinds of things she goes through in life.
I can come close to being there in every way for my wife and daughter. But I'm a man. I can never know exactly what it's like to be a girl. I would never be able to write about what a girl goes through when she's having her period.
Period.
I mean, really, what guy actually understands that stuff?
This brings me to the subject of today's title: The Marbury Boys.
You might guess what that's going to be about.
It's about the dozens of boys and men from all over the country (and even out of the country) who've written to or contacted me in the past 2 months since The Marbury Lens has been released.
And, guess what they want to talk about?
Not f-bombs.
Not Conner's sexual curiosity or tactlessness in communicating with his best friend.
None of that matters to The Marbury Boys.
They want to talk about something else.
And this was something that I never thought about for one second when I was writing the book... but then, all of a sudden, they started talking to me.
And I'm trying to figure out how to write about this without feeding some more demons.
4 comments:
I'm finding if you kind of bring your demons out into the light, they really aren't demons at all. In fact, they're usually someone else in disguise. When other people do things that are designed to ruin you, and then you let them ruin you, you're letting them win. Drag them out, let everyone see them, and then they can't keep hiding in your subconscious telling you stupid shit about yourself that you know isn't true. The more I've shared my demons, the less they've been able to demonize me. In almost 100% of cases, our demons are not our fault, and people tend to be very understanding about that. And, for what's it's worth, I didn't even notice the novel was f-bomb centric or overly sexy until I heard others criticizing it. It's just real.
I have a theory, William. It's that (and I want to stress that the outraged voices are very few in number) the people who have expressed negative sentiments about the language, sexual "testing," gamesmanship, and a perception of homophobic bias in the character of Conner do not really understand boys very well at all.
Just saying that is going to piss some people off, which is usually something I honestly try to avoid. But I think it's the truth.
Geez. It's a BOOK. If we can't put whatever we want into a story, then we're all truly lost. Thankfully, no one told me I couldn't read whatever I want. And those stories and characters helped me heal from some bad stuff in my life. So good for you! Get boys talking and thinking. If they're writing you and Marbury is helping get stuff out of their deep recesses - those places they don't share with anyone - then it's an even better book than I thought.
Thanks, Marianne. That's exactly what it's been about.
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