Bless Me, For I Have Sinned

Theme Quote Of The Day:

Writing in English is the most ingenious torture ever devised for sins committed in previous lives. The English reading public explains the reason why.

James Joyce

I fucked up.

Usually, when I write out of character, I can fix it. If not immediately, then later on, in edits, when I realize my error.

But in this case, I realized it immediately, and remain powerless.

I write with my best friend, Ryan, fellow transman, and have for almost a year now. Through writing we have discovered a lot about ourselves, and each other, and come to terms with a lot more than we would have otherwise. We were not nearly as close at the beginning as we are now.

We write through text, mostly, and the well of creativity never runs dry, though we generate thousands of words on the least of days, because we bounce off one another. 99.9% of the time, we are mere observers of the world, in our brains, coming together.

On rare occasion, the deepest, darkest, ugliest pieces of me emerge.

Occasionally, it is I who speak, not my character; it is my issue, my pain, that oozes onto the figurative page. And every time this happens, it fucks whatever character I am currently working on over.

I beg, and I plead, and I weep, but sometimes - like today - Ryan refuses to let me fix it. And it doesn't stop hurting me, knowing how I've punished my brain children for something that is not and never was their burden. It doesn't matter that it's a small, throwaway thing. Any tiny bit of OOCness, any tiny bit of something that doesn't belong, is the gravest sin a writer can inflict about his work. It is a hellworthy trespass. In a single sentence, you can destroy a character, an entire novel, just because you have ruined the credibility and the truth of something already so difficult to believe - that these words really do represent a real person.

And she is real. Inside my head. And on paper. But she was not the one who spoke in that one, tiny, throwaway reply. And there's nothing I can do that will make that okay.

I know better. But I'm human. And I fucked up. And I'm still pissed at myself for it.