The Mystery of Kevin

[mallorys_camera]

I’m gonna toss the haunted diaries.

I read through a few of them yesterday.

I pride myself on having an excellent memory—Well. Except for those times when I can’t remember “Rokeby”—but I couldn’t remember ¾ of the things I was reading in those diaries.

Did they really happen to me? Well then, I was someone else.

###

Case in point: Many, many pages in 1983 were devoted to a love affair I had with someone named Kevin. It was very sexual. I devoted pages and pages not just to the kinky sex but also to the dozens of friends I do remember—Susan!—advising me against having kinky sex with Kevin.

Thing is I cannot remember Kevin.

I have indexed the mental database 20 different ways. Searched it & searched it. But there is no trace.

It’s not like the memory failures I associate with, say, dementia where some recollection batters like a frantic moth against the window that is one’s consciousness.

No, this was more as though some celestial editor had said, This character doesn’t work, and red-penciled Kevin out.

###

I don’t think much of anything I wrote before 1993 when I attended the Clarion Writers Workshop is any good.

It is self-expression, and as such, does satisfy the Malcolm Gladwell injunction that you must put in 10,000 hours of work in order to get really good at something.

But it’s not good writing in the sense that Clarion taught me to recognize good writing—as something that both expresses and communicates.

Do musicians record & save those endless hours they spend practicing scales?

Well. Those diaries were scales.

###

What I am going to keep is those hundreds of fictive pages scattered amongst the diaries. Some of that stuff is really quite good.

###

Anyway. Even though it is not quite seven in the morning, temps are well on their way to the 80° mark, so I better get out there & tromp while tromping can still be a thing.

Comments

[adoptedwriter]

I pitched a bunch of old diaries a few years ago. I dreaded someone finding/reading them by accident or while cleaning out all of our old house crap one day.

[mallorys_camera]

For me, it's not the content: I know full well that every generation likes to imagine that they are the generation that invented sex and over-indulgence and anomie and all those other antisocial behaviors, and I kind of like the idea of mortifying my descendants.

But I like the idea of mortifying my descendants in well-written prose.

And those diaries are not that.

[adoptedwriter]

Mine were childish and whiney and so stupid....but I was not an adult, so...I made sure no one would see neither the content nor the bad writing.

[smokingboot]

I kind of regret your decision, but understand it. No point holding on to stuff that displeases your inner curator.

[mallorys_camera]

I'm gonna keep two or three volumes for sentimental reasons, but other than that...

It's the right decision. And I did save hundreds of pages of fiction.

[smokingboot]

Yes, I often find myself carrying lots of stuff with no life and strange weight; there's a real wisdom in knowing when to throw out/let go.