“So when are you going to write a novel?” my psychoanalyst asks.
“I’m not!” I exclaim, alarmed by the question. “Never.”
“I can feel a novel brewing in there,” the analyst says.
“No,” I say. “I’d rather die than be one of THOSE people.”
“Novelists?” he asks. “What have you got against novelists?”
“No, I mean THOSE PEOPLE. The ones who entertain the childish dreams of being rich and famous rather than recognize that they hate their lives.”
“I’m not convinced,” the analyst says, looking very unconvinced. “I’m pretty sure that one day I will see your name at the bookstore, in the fiction section.”
Of course, now I’m wondering if the analyst is trying to suggest that I’m a really talented liar. I have a huge issue with thinking that everybody suspects me of dishonesty, and he knows it. It takes everything I have not to run after each colleague who casually asks, “Coming from class?” and yell, “Yes, yes, I’ve been to class, I swear, I have 23 people who can prove it, and here are the homeworks I collected, and here is my class plan, so yes, I’ve been to class, and how dare you suspect otherwise, you mean, nasty evildoer?!”
But what else can this insistence that I can write novels mean other than suggesting that I lie really well?
Clarissa's Blog 
Creative accounting is lying. Creative writing is just good clean fun.
LikeLike
Your analyst is damned good. I am waiting to read your novel, too.
LikeLike
🙂
LikeLike
Curious that you equate novel writing with lying! I think novel writing is more like
advanced dreaming. And I am sure you would write a great novel. I would buy it. You write great dialogues, like in this post, and you narrate things from your life in way that is fascinating and entertaining. What more do you need! 🙂
LikeLike
Thank you, this is very kind!
LikeLike
Why do you need a psychoanalyst? You have us.
LikeLike
I also have a dentist. 🙂
LikeLike
Your can trust your dental health with us, too. *brandishes sharp metal implements*
LikeLike
He should keep to his own speciality and leave the psychoanalysis to us.
LikeLike
Be careful, or I will start sharing my dreams. And I have many. 🙂
LikeLike
I too am a bit confused that you equate novel writing with lying, but in your reviews of literary novels you clearly see them as a way of telling important truths, not as memoirs or lies… Creative writing is about working out ways of talking to people about these truths by showing the actions of characters in contexts… perhaps what I mean is that a good novel is true but not real, and lies are about either saying something false (“I live on the moon”) or claiming that something which is true but not currently real (“I’d like to live on a small island”) is actually real (“I live on a small island”) when the thing which is both true and real is “I live in an English city”.
The true but not real thing, “I’d like to live on a small island”, might inspire me to write a novel about islands, since I think about them, holiday on them etc. – I might novelise the idea of living on a small island by writing something ‘about how moving to an island changes someone’s life for the better (which could be chick-lit – made new life! met new man! – or old-fashioned person Learns Worthy Lessons About Traditional Ways of Life and Tolerance), or use as the frame for a detective story (the boat sunk, everyone is stuck on the island, so ONE of us must be the killer…), or write a more literary, exploratory novel exploring how physical isolation or proximity to the sea affects human relationships, or using the island to draw together ideas from The Tempest and John Donne’s sermons and explore imagination and dreams, or write some science fiction or post-apocalyptic fiction about a floating city island in a flooded world, or a historical about life on St Kilda, or…
Also, writing a novel is a realistic dream; writing a novel good enough to allow you to quit everything else and make a living from novelizing is certainly not something to bank on. You seem to conflate them, or was that your psychotherapist?
LikeLike
I think he was giving you a compliment — that your stories are compelling enough that everyone would like to read them. Considering the fact that you’ve had over 2 million hits on this blog, I think he’s right!
LikeLike
He doesn’t know my stories, though. Which is why I find this disturbing.
LikeLike
Presumably you tell him stories from your life too? Maybe he’s noticed your talent from what you’ve shared with him.
LikeLike
This is exactly what I fear: that I make it sound like “stories.” Rehearsed and delivered for effect.
LikeLike
“He doesn’t know my stories”
Huh? Then how does this analysis work (in general terms)?
IME some people are good storytellers (they can turn an uneventful trip to the supermarket and back into a compelling yarn) and others are not (they can turn almost getting shot by some Caucasian separatist group and being spared only when one of them liked the t-shirt they were wearing into a yawnfest).
You’re pretty obviously the former. It doesn’t automatically transfer into writing talent but in your case I’d say it does.
Could you write a bestseller? Most probably not (since that doesn’t correlate well with writing ability). Could you get a novel published if you wanted? I would bet you could.
LikeLike
But there’s a difference between telling a story in a way that keeps him interested, and telling a story that’s obviously prescripted.
LikeLike
But what else can this insistence that I can write novels mean other than suggesting that I lie really well?
Maybe it means that it is your father who is writing a novel, not you? But you are so close, spiritually, that the psychoanalyst just made a mistake?
LikeLike
That would make him REALLY unqualified to do his job. 🙂
LikeLike
You have mentioned in a much earlier post that you are writing a long narrative for your own reasons. I encouraged you to write a novel at that time. I am not going to search for the entry right now, but it does exist, unless my memory is flawed more badly than I believe to be the case.
I know more than one literary scholar who writes or has written one or more novels.
LikeLike
Tell your analyst to stop playing the “You’ll Be Glad You Knew Me” game and to get on with something actually useful.
When I’m stroking someone’s ego I usually have soft pillows, scented candles, and massage oil. 🙂
LikeLike