Sarah L. Johnson
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Writing about sisters is weird

7/17/2015

4 Comments

 
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Sometimes you have to go to a dark place in order to write with authenticity. Usually I can do this without getting too fucked up over it. But sometimes, some stories...well, they've got little barbs and they stick, you know?

My current project is a short story about sisters. One of them dies suddenly and the other is left to close off her life. Of course there's a lot more to it than that.

Or maybe there isn't.

The relationship between sisters is a secret language. But it doesn't translate. I'm trying to capture the truth of it through writing, but it's eluding me. I have a sister, and to suddenly lose her would be a unique disaster scenario. When I go to that place, my brain has a strange reaction. It can't separate us. It can't stitch together a reality in which I am alive and my sister is not. Oddly, I can imagine us both dead with relative ease. Yeah, I'm morbid, but that's not the point. What a strange thing my brain has done, forming mysterious defensive neural connections and pathways around that relationship. I can't even get properly devastated thinking about the possibility, because my brain regards this scenario as impossible.

Sometimes I work myself into a state from lingering too long in those lightless corners of the mind. That's when I need to lay on the floor. But this is a far weirder situation, trying to access the ugly place and finding the way barred.

This is my first attempt to explore the sister bond in my writing. Now I wonder if I've been subconsciously avoiding it.

What weird things have surprised you when you tried to write about them?



4 Comments
Shay
7/17/2015 05:19:08 am

I can't even imagine! But then again, there's nearly no relationship at all for me to think about so I may as well be an only child.

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Sarah
7/17/2015 05:57:33 am

That's the thing that makes it odd. The inability to imagine, to really imagine that set of circumstances. Surprising.

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Rea Tarvydas link
7/17/2015 05:33:43 am

i broke into a rash after i wrote the following sentences: i was a good girl up to a point. then i was a bad girl.

it took me a full year to get past the discomfort and write it out in list form. for some reason, a list was easier. i could write one or two points on the list and then leave it. no rash.

Reply
Sarah
7/17/2015 05:53:19 am

I love those sentences though. Worth the rash.

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    Sarah L. Johnson

    I mostly talk about books, writing, and running. Other topics of blogworthy interest include pie making, alcohol consumption, and things that terrify me, like owls.

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