November 1st is fast upon us, and there is one thing which I am particularly afraid of.
I love myself far too much to be a good writer.
Ok, so I may have been cheating on NaNoWriMo just a teensy bit. I have indeed written a little—but it is handwritten, very rough, and not more than a few typed pages at this point. Ian, snake in the grass that he is, took a glimpse at my first page and reamed me out for starting with the word “twilight.” So not even my first word is acceptable at this point. Thus, my disclaimer and excuses for why I am not really cheating.
But I have written a bit. And I am shocked and appalled to say, that all of the characters are so far just twisted versions of myself. I’ve got the older gay gentleman version of Liz, the younger gay gentleman version of Liz, Liz as a lesbian, Liz as a crazy lesbian, Liz as her sexy dream man, Liz as a tattooed bartender, Liz as a fucking refrigerator waking you up in the middle of the night.
The problem is, I love myself. I love the sound of my own voice so much, that I regularly have conversations between two Lizs in my head, and laugh hilariously at the witticisms those two broads come up with. The last few times a dude has earnestly said “You’re so cute/beautiful/etc.” I actually have the arrogance to say, “I know.”
So my characters are talking to one another and everything is going quite well in the writing process, when I realize that I am really just talking to myself on the page. I am writing characters who are wearing the outfits I covet. They regularly read the tranny call-girl section of Now Magazine. They are wonderfully snobbish. They are all simply delightful in every way.
And the absolutely horrifying part is, I don’t care! People should want to discover all the fascinating aspects of my labyrinthine personality!
So stay tuned for Monday’s installment of Liz: The Novel and have your mind blown away.
Editor’s Note: This actually explains a lot.