I have seriously been writing my little heart out. No, not really. My heart hasn't been in it. I have seriously been writing cramps into my fingers. Good characters, good plot lines but no voice. The voice that I was told was my best trait has suddenly left me. I try to will it back with all my being and it just stays gone. These characters are not in my heart. They are in my mind buzzing around, whispering bits of pieces of their stories...their stories, not themselves. I could tell my story to people but it still wouldn't be me. I could write out an action outline to my life but it still wouldn't show who I am. So how do I get this back? Can I open my mouth towards Heaven and hope that God just pours it back into me? My heart needs to know my characters and it doesn't. My heart needs to write my narrative but my mind gets in the way. And what do I mean by heart? The hallmark card heart? No. The organ that pumps blood through my body? Yes...I need to be their heart and pump blood through their bodies instead of my brain giving them commands to do this, say this...My characters are strangers to me. I watch their movements and have short glimpses inside them. I need to crawl inside, get beneath the skin and pump life into their veins.
It has been suggested to write in first person, to become them, then note the differences. It was said that my poetry had the voice and structure that my fiction needs. I hate my poetry. I want to set it on fire and burn it into my fiction. I think I should write a poem for each character, let each character be the speaker of the poem....confessional poetry for Carlos, Arlene, Mark, Amanda and Sara. I am going to try that and see if I can become the organ that feeds their thoughts, motions, desires, history and actions. They are all a little broken and need to confess. So that is my exercise. Make them confess in a poem.
We will see how this goes.
Carlos
The salt made me sick,
burned my nostrils,
and stole the peaches.
The collapse of a city
wrecked my face
into nothingness.
I sat on a bench,
dutiful,
waiting for my wife to return,
the banished wife,
forced to work with her hands
and carry others' desires on a tray.
The train spilt emptiness
onto the green floor
scuffed with treads of trash.
I wandered through the streets,
looking for my home churned butter,
with legs aching for a sacrifice,
for a return to wealth,
to manhood.
The door creaked and I entered the dark
of my lonely apartment,
her odor gone,
no whiskey left to drink,
only the fragrant sangria.
