Write What You Know

Write what you know.

Write what you know. That's what they told him, but how? Simon thought. How does one write about love and loss and psychosis and suicide when the cuts run too deep and the edge of the knife scrapes a razor-edge against bone? A filet of his flesh, red and juicy, a prime cut made its daily, no, hourly slice and fall to the floor. Write what you know... Love as euphoric as morphine with fuzzy brain-numbing loss of intelligence hidden by a false veil masquerading as clear thought. The mask removed when his wife's infatuation mutated into insecurity, raising loneliness from the dead like a pheonix, with talons gripping psychological damage dug from the depths of some cranial malfunction. The damage itself, perhaps, caused by a childhood of incest or too much high fructose corn syrup in her baby formula. 

This he might pen. Write the words but to what feeling? What effect? To bring the reader to the brink of suicide? If one could write such words he would possess the power of the gods but even to lesser effect, for the sake of drama or enlightenment of the dark corners of life. 

What part did the man play in causing the problems? Is he an intelligent imbecile? A functional idiot? An innocent rube suckered by great sex and too many compliments? Would the reader believe such a man could be so dumb to miss all the signs and ignore the advice of his best friends? 

The story might sell. Simon wondered aloud and to himself as he sat at his desk. It could make him rich, but does wealth bring happiness after all? Yet another concern built a wall between the thought and the deed... Should he do it? Would it free him from the poorly crafted plot point of the protagonist committing suicide? How else besides murder could this fairytale conclude? There is always murder-suicide but-not to misuse a cliche-the horse that cliche rode died of fatigue. And suicide itself is a problem. A story told in first person might be formulated with the protagonist's ghost as the storyteller but he rides a similar problem-horse. Could our flawed but redeemable yet unredeemed hero become a villain filled with hate for all forever? Might he instead pick up the shattered parts of his life, sweep them into the dustbin and go merrily onward? 

The wall becomes too high, too wide and its foundation runs too very deep to reach the other side. This is what holds Simon back. This Shakespearian tragedy is his opus, his swan-song and his nemesis.

He opened a new document in Word and began to type as the never ending tears flowed once more.