What Writing A Book About My Life Taught Me

What Writing A Book About My Life Taught Me

I've just finished writing a book about my life.

I never thought I would have to write a book about my life. I wrote a 600-page vampire novel. I thought that was the book I had to write, and that it was enough. But looking back at that novel, I can see it was just a book about my life dressed in Buffy The Vampire Slayer drag.

I probably avoided writing an actual book about my life because it's a really f**king painful endeavor. How painful was it? Well, my therapist said it was ok for me to have some shots of alcohol as I wrote it. Which I did.

I had a creative writing teacher once in high school who really hated me. He didn't like my writing. He said that cutting off your arm at the elbow and bleeding all over a stack of paper doesn't qualify as writing. Maybe not and maybe so -- but that would be one damn interesting book. A good title for that book would be, "Clot."

Writing the story of your life affords you the opportunity of viewing all the events in your life in a linear, organized fashion -- and, in so doing, giving you the opportunity to see how many times you did the same f**ked-up thing, over and over and over again. You can pick up all the frightening parallels, all these moments which are like those horror movie scenes. You scream at the character on the screen entering the house with the killer in it:

"Don't go in the house! I said, don't go in the house -- you f**king moron!"

But of course, the character -- who is you -- goes into the house. And here you are.

Then there comes the point where you have to end the story, and, perhaps, come up with some sort of conclusion. A lesson. An epiphany.

Or, you could simply have yourself wake up and find Bobby Ewing in the shower.

I am all for waking up and finding Bobby Ewing in my shower: