Creativity During Lockdown Shit Storm
Today, I am feeling rather nauseated. It may be from watching too much news. There is too much corruption, injustice, heartache, and disasters for me to maintain my sense of well-being in this world.
So, I am going to research some facts about fiction in order to escape my reality. My reality might not be your reality. I am a fiction writer and a poet. I take the truth and write fiction about it as if it were true. I use fictitious names to write about real people and real events.
A writer of fiction asserts as if TRUE something that is made up in order to MAKE it true. It takes a lot of faith and courage to be a writer of fiction. It takes a lot of guts to write about the truth. It takes a measure of talent to do both and put it into poetry. At least, what is considered well crafted poetry.
“Poetry lies its way to the truth,” is a quote from John Ciardi. He should know what he is talking about. He’s a poet. Most of my poetry is based on real events from my life, or what I observe in the world, worded with a creative spin.
Some of what I do is considered Creative Non-fiction. I might take a scene from my memory, such as a courtroom and some quotes from what I remember people saying, such as a judge. Then, I might create a character such as a judge named Rigmaiden who looks like a witch and give her a pointy nose, black hair and then have her say ridiculous things. She might say, “Just because you had a lot of children doesn’t make you a good mother! Everybody cheats at Monopoly! Continue to improve yourself!”
Then, I might create another character who looks like a mother who is a Creative writer, poet, performer, and artist in a chicken outfit defending herself. She might retort, “Well, just because you’ve presided over a lot of cases, doesn’t make you a good judge! Maybe you should go home and wrap yourself in a blanket statement! You should continue to improve yourself. This whole fiasco is obviously a fowl joke!”
Now, many elements of what I just wrote are based in reality and facts. Some elements aren’t; they are pulled completely from my imagination. But, it is all truth! It reveals a truth. Judges aren’t God. They just act like they are. So do certain narcissists and dictators. I should know. I was married to one for twenty years. That’s the truth.
That marriage inspired reams of stories and poetry. Some well-written, some just vomiting thoughts and emotions all over the page. That has kept me busy at home cleaning up the mess that is called my past life.
Today, I am in lockdown and in isolation due to someone else’s crimes. I am healing up from other people’s crimes. I am writing poetry to honor tomorrow. Today I feel nauseated. I am doing my best to infuse comedy. Comedy helps. So does fiction.
Especially when watching the news, watching the fake president get caught in his web of deceit, while drinking 4 liters of gross liquid that is cleansing my gut from anything ever consumed or shoved down my throat since hell unfolded on earth in 2016.
Tomorrow, I will have a poem completed commemorating my colonoscopy experience. I shit you not.
