Sometimes I wish I was more diligent in my creative, that I could write freely without research. I wish like Charles Dickens I could open the window of my house and the air wafting up would inspire me to write. Yet for me to write I must read; I am unable to generate my creative juices without looking to other people’s works, some of them non-fiction… Though Dickens gets a lot of flack these days for his personal life, I often wish I was more like him, able to be carefree and happy in his spare time. Despite being a kid who tried–disastrously–to be a class clown of sorts all through my first years of college, I know now that my sense of humor is not really funny to other people… No, I am forced to write primarily serious works… I hope that I was immature so long does not convince the reader that I am a waste of time as a writer.
Despite the fact I am delaying my work on Tales of the Land of the Firebird and A History of Frances Westin Williams, every day I try to write one Entry in what began as a Covid-19 Journal, Hard Times in 2022 (the sequel to Hard Times in 2020 and Hard Times in 2021). When I can I also write a daily blog… yet my real creativity is bogged down in research. That is why this weekend though I hope to read The Saga of Gösta Berling, I also hope to work on the mythology of the Limbic Cats for Children of the Cat Goddess and work on “Daddy, Why Do We Go to Church?” about my character Mike Bannock and his family. These are “little” pieces of larger projects… And yet if I am not writing something am I really a writer?
However, I am cheered that once the research is done, the book Tales of the Land of the Firebird should be easy enough to write: I read the original Faust story; Marlowe’s Faust; Goethe’s Faust; and Thomas Mann’s Doctor Faust for Faust in Love. I also used the Bible, New Testament, Quran, Iliad and Odyssey for Faust in Love. I believe the book turned out well; it is a political satire about Donald Trump. I hope somebody reads it.
For all that, I still hope Tales of the Land of the Firebird can be written and put into print early enough to do good, I must research it first… this hurts, but it is true… I long each day to write, and yet I must read first… I need the Will to Write… and not just the knowledge…