Today I watched the film American Psycho for the first time. Yes, I know, everyone in my generation has either seen the movie or read the book or both. As a strange rule, I tend to stay away from watching movies starring Chloe Sevigny (long story) and usually skip reading fiction that is critically acclaimed. Reading a brilliant work of art - which I imagine this book is as the movie was full of spectacular dialogue and an ingenious plot - used to fill me with awe, but now that I am a lazy, generally unmotivated writer (with dreams of success), it fills me with jealousy towards the author.
I always tell people that I have two goals in life: to be a mother and to be a published author. I have yet to achieve either of these, but the potential to be a mother seems to be on the still-slightly-distant-yet-visible horizon. However, the ability (or perhaps just…I hope…the drive) to write a book continues to seem beyond my reach. In other words, I think I may have found my babies’ daddy, but I haven’t yet found the way to impregnate my will to write.
Fortunately, I seem to be having quite a few kicks in the ass lately. For one, the satisfaction I get from writing this blog is more of a rush than I ever thought it would be. (I know, you’re thinking, then why the fuck do you hardly write on it much anymore. The answer is really two-fold: one, I am finally in love and that has been a bit of a distraction. Two, I write all day at work and am getting to a point where I hate my job so much that the thought of spending my spare time writing seems overwhelmingly exhausting.) Secondly, a former classmate of mine recently published a shitteous “chick lit” book that is really (truly) not very good and is, of course, being optioned right now. When I saw said classmate at my 10 year high school reunion, she made it a point to rub her success in my ego in a way so devilishly blatant, my mouth (and the mouth of my good friend, J) fell open during the conversation.
HER: “Oh, so I hear you’re a writer too.”
ME: “Yes, well, I am a copywriter now.”
HER: “Is that what you want to do forever? Write copy?”
ME: “No, b-…”
HER [cutting me off]: “Oh, so you want to write a book TOO?”
ME: “Yes, I am working on one.”
HER: “Oh, really? Ok, so you have an agent?”
ME: “No, not yet.”
HER: “Well, you need one, you know.”
ME: “Yes, I’m aware. My friend has written 6 books so he’ll help me when the time is right.”
HER: “Uh-huh. Well, good luck with whatever it is you’re doing.”
Now, I’m not sure if this exchange sounds as condescending as it actually was, but believe you me, my friend saw me fighting back the desire to slap this bitch right across her smug face. However, I left the reunion with a renewed sense of ambition, an I’ll-fucking-show-you-how-to-write attitude. I was determined to use her belittlement of me as my creative catalyst. That was April. I haven’t written a single page.
The last - and hopefully final - kick in the ass came just about 20 minutes ago after I went to Wikipedia to learn more about American Psycho and it's author, Bret Easton Ellis. It was there that I learned that the book ends with a description of a sign that reads: “This is Not an Exit.” Upon reading these words, my heart sank to the floor. My pulse started racing. I also discovered that these infamous last words have lingered in the minds of nearly everyone who has read the book. It has inspired songs and even a documentary about the author called, you guessed it, “This is Not an Exit.” I’m still reeling from the blow.
Here’s why. In 2005, I was at the Mercury Lounge watching my then-drummer-boyfriend play a gig with his band. I was incredibly high on cocaine and vicodin (the combo was the result of the two broken hips I had…breaks that had yet to be discovered by my doctors and were thus causing me to take large doses of prescription pain killers to get through the day/night while I still simultaneously indulged my love of coke and booze) and feeling insanely depressed and trapped in a life I no longer related to, a life I wanted out of - NOW. I wanted to walk away from everything - my job, my going-nowhere relationship, my addictions, my injury - but I could barely take a step forward, literally.
It was during the last song that my blurred vision managed to focus on something next to the stage: a bright, glowing red sign that read “This is Not An Exit.” I read the words over and over again and started to cry. The closest thing I’ve ever had to an epiphany showered down upon me as I had been wanting to do something with all the things I had been writing about my self-destruction and downward spiral. I vowed right then and there that I would get it all down in one book, one memoir that I would christen “This is Not An Exit.”
Obviously, I never did what I was so determined to do that night. I have about 75 pages of it written, but they are stuck on a laptop that has been broken for over a year. One that I probably could have fixed by now but haven’t. And while it’s true that I haven’t been working towards my literary goal for well over two years, I always had that title seducing me, calling out to me in the middle of the night to write about my pain, my pleasure, my life. It was the one thing that still gave me (albeit little) hope. But today, that title has been taken away from me. Claimed by another author in a way more significant than a title ever can be, as the finality of another author's masterpiece. It’s no longer mine.
I think this is the swift kick that I’ve always needed. It's not merely a drive to prove I can out-write someone or make it to this invisible finish line I’ve set up for myself. It's because it may be the first time I recognize that I might just have the potential to write something powerful, moving and lingering. For the first time in my life, I have something in common with a literary genius - a moment, at least I suppose, in which we both looked at the same inanimate object and saw something deeper, something much more significant than a sign on a wall. We saw inspiration. And I think, as a result, I just re-discovered mine.
