Not trying to be a narcissist
Every book written so far is not always about me. Although it may
appear to be the case in some instances, what I write about and what I should
be telling in the story is mainly based on things, events or people around me.
So indirectly, it is still a little about me but not as much as you might have
thought before I wrote this paragraph and a small
piece to explain myself a little.
If I were to write about myself all
the time, I would come across as being the somewhat
the narcissistic type and that would not be the message I wanted to project or
tell my stories. Having said this, I want to confess that most of the stories
written about the things that have happened in my life are memoirs of real-life
events and we know that confessions are good for the soul as it allows you to
tackle and deal with the realities of the past and present to improve the
future.
It is a fact, I never
considered myself to be an author, short story writer or even a journalist in
some ways. I have no ‘signature assignments’ to brag about and when asked why I
write, I simply answer that it does my soul good to let it all hang out there
and express myself freely and without restrictions.
Sometimes, I write
about secrets and other times I write essays or memoirs that played an important
part of my life and somehow shaped my present status and future blessings (if that
be the case) bestowed by my efforts to communicate my feelings.,
It is tempting to
stop writing about me and dismiss the profile some may gather that I love
myself so much, I have become one of a run-of-the-mill narcissist who writes
misguided stories. As a reader, you might want to grab me by the throat and
choke me and persuade me to stop screwing around and be serious about my
writings.
The problem is not
what you think about my writings but what I think they are about and what value
they have for me. I can only hope that you give me a chance to take the time to
be more generous with your interpretations of my words and feelings and shape
them into a sentence or thought – not a symptom of a sickness of the profile.
In a way, I know
that in some cases, I am part of the problem. I refuse to focus or dwell on
things because they often don’t mean that much to me as they do to you as the
reader and there we miss the opportunity to connect. That is my fault and I accept
blame for that. I never tried to exploit every last tawdry detail and twist of
my life and maybe I should.
Your takeaway as
the book’s editor or agent for the reader is important. With me sharing the
book or story with you reveals my internal traumas or spirituality. Hence, I gave
away the control to manage the story by making you more knowable and informed
of what I included in my confessional essay or attention grabber that includes
some negativeness for the same effect.
Here is the
demoralizing truth – there seems to be a huge attraction for first-person
stories on the web. Whether they are low-brow publications or high-class cataloged
high fashion selections, there are magazines out there that publish them with
an abundance of appetite to reveal the intimacy of people famous nor not. It's like
an attention addiction. Some mix it
with voyeurism and a little desperation while others stick to the facts. In the
long run, they are short lived. This makes writing a demeaning game and with
bad endings.
One is best to stay
away from such tactics and focus on the realities that they should only offer
insights and expertise based on their good and bad experiences and be honest
about it.
Writing about things
in your life does not have to be extraordinarily interesting or exciting
because in all realities of our own world, there are billions of people who do
not live interesting lives and with you telling the story, you may, in fact,
make them realize that somehow, living an ordinary life is not a bad thing to experience.
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