Did My Mother Make Me Weird?

In conversation on film, movies will come up such as Commando or Nightmare on Elm Street or Rambo III, and I will casually mention that I have not seen these movies, usually to the horror of whomever I'm talking to at the moment. Their constant refrain: "How can you not have seen these movies?"

The simple answer is that they were rated R before 1996. And my mother kept a firm clamp on my media consumption before I was about 18. I vividly remember purchasing with birthday money Weird Al Yankovic's "Fat" on a Friday and listening to is straight through that weekend. Monday came and by the time I had come home from school, the tape had disappeared from the stereo, box and all. I looked for it everywhere, but never did find it. It was like the tape had never existed at all.

This happened again and again with books, tapes, and CDs throughout my childhood. A t-shirt with a vampire on it. Gone. My copy of Hitchiker's Guide to the Galaxy. Disappeared. Interview With a Vampire was left in the bathroom one evening and never seen again.

At the time, I blamed myself. How could I be so sloppy! My thin precious allowance was parceled out judiciously to purchase only the most important of media, such as Marvel's early 90's Cable anthology, and then I go and lose my treasures! I would grind my fists, and go for a ride on my BMX instead of listening to Prince.

And I suspected nothing. Mom wouldn't be throwing out my stuff and not telling me about it. Would she?

My mother's policy on TV and film was just as merciless. The cartoon Ghostbusters was only allowed once a week, because it had ghosts in it. Star Wars was "filled with all those weird people." Dungeons & Dragons was tinged with Satanic influences. Rated R movies were of course totally forbidden, even if they were on TV, and other movies had first to be vetted by a trusted source, like a neighbor or a friend, before they were cleared for consumption. (This is the only reason I was able to see Ghostbusters one New Years' Eve in a basement. And it blew my mind.)     

She also only ever let me buy one toy gun a year. I would save up my gun rations for two years to go to Disneyworld and buy a brace of pistols at Pirates of the Caribbean.

And it was the gun-buying which was the key. Despite being 35 years-old, I still have a thing for buying toy guns. I have three in my closet right now. And when I mentioned this curious habit to my mother, her response was, "Well I tried so hard, not letting you buy 'em, but I guess it's the way you are."

But am I Mom?

To what extent did forbidding the purchase of guns make them more desirable?

And in thinking back on it, when asked why she would forbid the watching of movies or reading of books, she would say things like, "You're not old enough," or "Those books aren't good for you."

There are books that aren't good for me?

Is it any wonder that I have turned out to be a voracious reader and consumer of all books, but with an especial eye to the outre and the elliptonic? The weird and the wondrous?

If the books aren't good for me, the books must have a power. There must be some secret knowledge within them that changes me. And in trying to keep me from the strange, all my mother did was make it more enticing. I remember telling friends about the thrills of listening to Nine Inch Nails, Nirvana, and White Zombie in high school, and how the best thing about the music was that it was dangerous. The looked at me like I had two mouths and said, "Whaddaya mean, dangerous?" And I explained that it felt like the kind of music that might in someway expose you to Satan, and they said they never got any of that from NIN.

And after reflection, I realized they were right. It was a strange thought. Why would music expose me to Satan? And that's when I realized that it was my mother's thinking living in my head.

To what extent did my mother fly my freak flag for me?

One On Writing

Having finished a novel in early June that represents two years’ labor, I have decided to work on nothing but short pieces for the foreseeable future. It has proved much more difficult than expected in every way.

Firstly, I am torn between whether or not I have too many ideas to get down on paper or not enough. One day, I feel like I have a thousand ideas, well okay, more realistically, I have two ideas for novels. And I curse myself for them. What kind of a maniac would go straight from working on one novel to working on another? I want to give my subconscious a rest. I should give my subconscious a rest, right?

Secondly, when I write, it’s just not the same as it used to be. Writing, at its best, feels like flow. Words pour from mind to hands to computer. Lately, writing has felt like the dry heaves. I scrape and force to get ideas on to the computer. What I get I am actually rather pleased with, but writing has gone from a task I run to do, and willingly do as long as I can, to a miserable hour of forcing out a thousand words before hiding in the bathroom to read Brandon Sanderson novels.

All this is exasperated by the futility of novel-writing. I am confident in my novel. It is the best thing I’ve ever written. I also am confident in my own abilities to self-assess. This is the first novel I’ve ever written which deserves to be published. It is my 5^th novel, or 7^th depending on how you count. I’ve been able to grok the level of dog-crap in my work. The dog-crap has been steadily decreasing. This last novel was two years spent making sure I did not make any of the mistakes I made in my other novels in this one. Furthermore, it was my sell-out novel. And in that last regard, it was certainly a failure.

While in many ways, there has never been a better time to be a writer than now, (Mao said “There is chaos under heaven; conditions are excellent.”) it is also possible that there has never been a worse time to be an unknown writer than now.

Stranger yet, I am more successful as a writer now than I ever have been before. I have a magazine that regularly publishes me. I’ve made some money. What I’ve written has been well-reviewed. It is a magazine I grew up reading, and if you told me that my first work in print would have been in its pages I would have shot myself over the moon with joy.

And yet it is harder than ever to heave my ideas on to the page. It grates, it grinds, but rarely flows.

Nietzsche talked about those who felt contempt, and how he loved them because their hate for the way things were would drive them forward to create the Ubermensch.

I look at the things I am writing for the magazine, and constantly find things to hate among them. I tell myself my work must be new. If it is not new, why would anyone bother to read it? I tell myself my work must be unique. If it’s not, why would anyone read it?

And so I pull poke and prod at my own creations, terrified that my current works will not match the modest success of my previous ones.

I’ve wanted to be a writer since I read Charlotte’s Web. I’ve been taking writing truly seriously for the last ten years. What got me through those last ten years was telling myself daily that if I just kept at it, I’d be published before I died. Now I’m published and I am consumed with envy at the success of others. Their money, fame, and interviews with Ira Glass.

In some weird way, it seems as though getting closer to my goal has in some way frustrated me.

Oh, and in a final shot, anybody else out there a regular listener to "I Should Be Writing"? Anybody else notice that since her success, the podcast has nose-dived?

Okay, enough navel gazing. I’m going to stick my finger down my throat and get to work.