Go to The Impossibility Of Knowing
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Azur
Last month a friend self published her second book. When we went to the signing, she told us we were in it. This didn't please us, but angered us when we discovered she had used our real names. Not only that, she had ascribed our getting together again as a 'miracle'. We are consoling ourselves with the knowledge that hardly anybody will buy the book.
posted by
johnmacnab
on September 26, 2009 at 9:09 PM
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Hi Azur - long time no see... what you've said at the end of your post is so true - so many people spend their lives trying to be all things to all people ... not that I speak
directly from personal experience ... and anyway sometimes you just have to spread yourself really thin. But you gave me something to think about - as always
"
If you cannot be yourself with people you have lost them, and they you."
posted by
mneme
on September 24, 2009 at 10:31 PM
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Azur
Heart speaks to another heart, because it is of the feelings, not of the intellect. Intellect argues, decides between right and wrong; feelings, believe. "Faith", it is said. "is a higher facultythan reason".
posted by
anib
on September 24, 2009 at 9:48 AM
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I am glad I read this it really made me think about myself....
I use to always write from the heart.......I have lost myself at the moment but finding myself again....here........ like I always have done.
posted by
_Symphony_
on September 16, 2009 at 6:50 AM
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Azur, I have kept meaning to come visit you, to see where the title would lead. As usual, you don't disappoint. How does a writer reconcile what she knows with what others perceive? That's so hard to do. You seem to be handling it gracefully though, and it seems that spirit has carried you far. Kudos!
posted by
myrrhage_
on September 14, 2009 at 12:26 PM
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I like the sentence you wrote:
The only way to write is from the heart. It's not easy to do. Not meant to be easy. That is so true!
posted by
mariposa75
on September 12, 2009 at 7:50 PM
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Or tell everyone that it is my life story, twisted around and decorated and
fleshed out more imaginatively, etc. if it will save you from grief as I want no more grief to come to you for Whatever Reasons. when asked by reporters when you hit the BestSeller List, I will just say, "What she said....tho' about me in far off ways, is made more lovely inside her mind and imagination. " See??? hehehehhhh
posted by
benzinha
on September 11, 2009 at 9:50 AM
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Always a balancing act.
Simpler if your sources are not your frineds, but harder then to write what you know.
posted by
majroj
on September 11, 2009 at 9:15 AM
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Very good post. I've often wondered about that. I was always afraid that if I wrote what I wanted to write people would recognize events and personalities. Now it's so late in life, most of them have died and I still haven't written that novel. As you say, it's easy to talk about writing a novel.
posted by
TAPS.
on September 10, 2009 at 1:41 PM
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I so agree we must write from the heart! I read a long time ago a quote by Langston Hughes, "Hang yourself poet in your own words, otherwise you are dead." I have been writing that way ever since and have not regretted a moment! sam
posted by
sam444
on September 9, 2009 at 10:34 PM
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Thank you so much for this - it speaks directly to me as I too have a novel being published and am aware of unease about how it will be received.Like you, it's based on my own experiences so people may identify themselves even though the characters are composites.
posted by
Rockingrector_retd
on September 9, 2009 at 11:56 AM
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I think that your worries are legitimate
People would like to be portrayed in the way they perceive themselves, I don't know if it is trickier in fiction when you use a real person as a springboard and they think that the "embellishments" are misrepresentation, but then you can always tell them that the character was not based on them in the first place
.
posted by
lindo
on September 9, 2009 at 8:13 AM
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Write what you have to say. In screenwriting we do model the protagonist on an actor..Mark Twain wrote that he made his characters composites of people he knew on the Mississippi BC-A, Bill’s Avant-Garde Collection
posted by
BC-A
on September 9, 2009 at 6:31 AM
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Chances are, they won't recognize themselves unless you
make a point of telling them your character is based on them. We all have blinders about how others perceive us. And if they're people you love, then the love will be evident, so don't worry.
posted by
Pat_B
on September 9, 2009 at 6:27 AM
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This is so absolutely true. Please, please can I have a link to your novels? I would like to see what and how you write. And thanks for taking the trouble to read my rather long article.
posted by
vogue
on September 9, 2009 at 2:26 AM
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Azur - This is one of the best write-up of heartfelt thoughts on writing that I have read so far.You're right there is no pleasing everybody and the only way is to write is from the heart. Everyone will have their own opinion but it's really whether it works for you.I think ultimately that's what matters. Thank you I enjoyed this tremendously.
posted by
shobana
on September 8, 2009 at 11:52 PM
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Azur
"To thine own self be true" says Polonius to Laertes in
Hamlet, and that advice, I think, is especially important for writers. You write what you must write...
posted by
Nautikos
on September 8, 2009 at 7:52 PM
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