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Privacy and the Writer

By Mark Antony Rossi

Privacy and the Writer. Don’t kid yourself. You are writing about yourself and those you know — whether you are willing to admit it or not. Protest all you want. I’m not buying it. One of the most famous deniers on this subject JRR Tolkien literally gave an interview and said, ” nothing in these tales reflect my personal life.” Balderdash. Nearly everything from the plot of The Lord of the Rings is about the personal experience in war and peace of British soldier JRR Tolkien.

In my most heartfelt opinion when the writer seeks to evade responsibility of their creation they lose the creative high ground. If you are already shielded under the guise of fiction why evoke anger when someone asks if any of your work is true? Just respond with the truth: this is a work of fiction. Period.

Privacy and the Writer. There is none. Stop living a lie. Let your writing do that for you. Like Hemingway said, “writers need a good BS detector to stay sane.” (I’m paraphrasing here — he won’t mind.) The point is the same for the celebrity who plays with the media when wants attention and then shoves them out the door when it’s convenient. Readers won’t tolerate this nonsense.

Nothing imagined is so incredibly unique that it doesn’t have some basis in reality or some variation on fantasy. I’m waiting for the cop tale where our hero in blue gets along famous with his family. I’m waiting for the dragon book where the people are bad and the dragon is good and can’t shoot fire from its serrated mouth.

Save the drama for the drama. The world is already a complex place without you adding more fuel to the fire. There’s no room for defensive histrionics. You can’t stand by your writing while running away from the questions it brings forth. It takes strength to write. It takes courage to live with the results.

About the Author: Mark Antony Rossi is a poet, playwright and author of the bioethics volume “Dark Tech” now available from Amazon. His most recent plays have been produced in Liverpool and New York.

http://ethical-stranger.webnode.com/ 

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