tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7884029945901507026.post3109609777169409744..comments2018-08-09T22:50:39.580-07:00Comments on Telling L.A.'s Story: A Question of VoiceL.A. Storieshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01112664111227488130noreply@blogger.comBlogger1125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7884029945901507026.post-26229944824151280082012-03-27T22:34:41.327-07:002012-03-27T22:34:41.327-07:00I have fallen in love with Zelda Fitzgerald, mainl...I have fallen in love with Zelda Fitzgerald, mainly in her letters to her husband Scott which I have read from a compilation of their letters to one another in the book “Dear Scott, Dearest Zelda.” She writes with so much passion that she inspires me to get in touch with my deepest feelings, and the images she paints about her illness along with her tortured love for Scott amidst both of their illnesses is incredible.<br /> In one letter to Scott from a psychiatric clinic in Switzerland, she writes “Dear Scott - Except for momentary regressions into a crazy defiance and complete lack of proportion I am better. It’s ghastly losing your mind and not being able to see clearly, literally, or figuratively - and knowing that you can’t think and that nothing is right, not even your comprehension of concrete things like how old you are or what you look like... Where are all my things? I used to always have dozens of things and now there doesn’t seem to be any clothes or anything personal left... What a disgraceful mess - but if it stops our drinking it is worth is - because then you can finish your novel and write a play and we can live somewhere and have a house with a room to paint and write maybe like we had, with friends for Scottie ad there will be Sundays and Mondays again which are different from each other and there will be Christmas and winter fires and pleasant things to think of when you’re going to sleep... and I can keep sane and not a bitter maniac - I will be so glad to see you - I hope most of the poison will be gone by then. Please be good, Dear. It’s so much better to love the things you’ve always loved if you can just remember about them.”<br /> (I was not planning on typing all of that out but I just couldn’t stop - her writing is so beautiful.) I have found myself mimicking Fitzgerald’s train of thought type of writing, not solely because I enjoy it but I find it is the easiest way for me to get full, detailed sentences down that I am pleased with. The mood it paints is one of reality and tenderness and one that does not attempt to lie to the reader, and that is something I so appreciate. Her raw feelings come spilling out effortlessly because she does not filter herself, almost in a Gertrude Stein sort of manner, but her thoughts make sense and get the reader into her head without much detail of what goes on outside of her head. <br /> I try to do this without making my writing jumbled, but it is the most cathartic type of writing for me, and if I have had a rough day or have a specific emotion I want to get down on paper, I find that is the best time to mimic this style. It also serves as a good exercise to get started writing before I write for a class assignment because it gets my thoughts flowing in conjunction with my fingers moving and gets my writing in sync with how I feel.<br /> I have written this blog post in this manner... not worrying too much about commas or run-ons or repeating words, and in a way I feel that it expresses my true feelings about the piece - exactly as I would have said it aloud, but with a little more depth to it.Jordan Youngerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12150993274087683205noreply@blogger.com