When I was painting the birdbath I kept thinking, “These are the craziest colors. I am so far afield. These colors are way too bright, too exaggerated.” And then come to find out, they weren’t too strange.
That’s how I am feeling about the book. What I am writing is crazy exaggerated stuff.
For example, our heroine has fallen on hard times and is currently living inside the steeple of the church and sun-baking tortillas on the back of a metal Turkish Baths sign and then winging them at children. As you do.
I don’t know if that is weird and painful or imaginative and interesting. If I use Hemingway as my standard, it’s way weird. But then I’ll notice something that has an element of weird and it seems acceptable.
Last weekend I watched some film noir, heavy on the noir. It was Scarlet Street, with Edward G. Robinson. Part of it is set in an apartment formerly rented by an artist who drew on the walls. He didn’t wing any tortillas, in fact all you see of him is his art graffiti, but it was weird, and I took comfort in that.
(I recommend Scarlet Street. I peeked at the original French version, La Chienne, which I should have preferred. I admit I liked what the Hayes office did with the end. It was surprising. One could say weird.)
Do not be afraid of weird. Weird can always be turned down if necessary, but it is usually not necessary.
Also, frankly, life is weirder than fiction can get, but most fiction doesn't get anywhere near as weird as that.
(and my childhood church steeple did in fact have an apartment in/next-to it, for the custodian to live in when the church was built; live-in custodians stopped being a thing at some point, but: steeple apartment, with a toilet in a closet, even!)
Posted by: KC | July 30, 2021 at 02:48 PM
KC - Oh, that’s good to know. The rest of the town uses outhouses and pumps, so I can’t see the church having a personal commode for the custodian, but it was a different time.
Posted by: TheQueen | July 31, 2021 at 07:02 AM