New Group

[Guest guest]

I have started a new group named Enlightened Fiction.

This is a group that features my fictional short stories

about spirituality and life in general. Enlightened, here

is taken in the European philosophical sense of the

word- as thinking in a free, new, iconoclastic way, in which

thought begets more thoughts without paying homage to

tradition.

 

It's a public site, you don't have to join to read on site, but

if you care to post your own stories whether fictional, or true,

or if you want to make a comment, or receive new postings

via email, then you'll have to join the list.

 

To give an example of what kind of fare you'll find there,

below is the latest story I posted. It's a satire about memoir

writing, which got hughes laughs when I read it at a gathering

of local writers.

 

Enightenedfiction

 

The Never Ending Memoirs.

 

By Pete

 

Old people as they get close to that opaque disquieting wall we call

death, begin to look back to what they fancy were their lives. But I

found little comfort in those jumbled, imprecise memories.They

seemed to drift, and change like clouds, avoiding my grasp.

 

So I decided to write my memoirs.

 

My children wish I never did. I was hoping to bring order and

substance to my past. What could be more solid than a book that

you can take in your hands, and lay on your lap, and say: There--

that's my life?

 

It was a fool's errand, I begin to realize. Nothing, a stranger would

find worth reading happened to me, and my writing style was sure

to make my lackluster subsisting seem more dull. I was too fond

of passive sentences, gerunds, dangling adverbial phrases, and

the like. If something could be said with one word, I needed five.

The odds were stacked against my memoir. The planets were in

all the wrong houses from the start. But then, something

miraculous happened. My book took over, and wrote itself.

 

I was unable to write my life as I remembered it. Another life--

one more fanciful, more poetic began to emerge from my pen,

and superimpose itself on my prosaic existence.

 

I found with dismay, I had no control over what I wrote.

Someone else was writing my memoir. Words poured into my

head, flowed from my hand, and I had no say on what was

what. It didn't matter that my wife, as far as I know, had been

faithful to the end.The story required a lover, and that was

that. And the story, also, demanded a movie star to play that

role. And to my most fervent protest, it also demanded a

manage a troi.

 

Needless to say, my children on reading what I wrote were

aghast.

 

" Dad, Mother was never unfaithful, and she wasn't the most

beautiful woman in the world, and she didn't have green eyes.

Have you gone mad? "

 

I didn't know what to say, except it was my life, and I could

remember it in any way I wanted. I couldn't blame them from

resenting the memoir. In my book, I have endowed them with

new lives they never knew they had. My youngest, I wrote,

fought in the Iraq war and had been killed while capturing

Sadam. Although he was much alive, and a hairdresser in

San Francisco living with a roommate named Carl.

 

Had I been satisfied with one memoir, it'd have been all

right. But I was infested with the memoir bug. I wrote

memoir, after memoir, each one more bizarre than the

previous one. And to my children's dismay, they all were

best sellers. And now, their friends stared at them with

knowing smiles.

 

So, I can't really blame them for doing what they did.

They found a judge to declare me mad. Now, in my cell,

I'm deprived of paper, or laptop. But the memoir bug

has not died. I'm thinking about writing a new memoir

on these bare walls. One in which neither I, nor they

were ever born.

 

But I'm having a little trouble finding anything to write

regarding such life.

[Guest guest]

p.s. enlightened fiction? is that an oxymoron? connect me to the

blue dot, Pete, we're all in the same cell. ;-)

 

 

 

Nisargadatta , " cerosoul " <pedsie6 wrote:

>

> I have started a new group named Enlightened Fiction.

> This is a group that features my fictional short stories

> about spirituality and life in general. Enlightened, here

> is taken in the European philosophical sense of the

> word- as thinking in a free, new, iconoclastic way, in which

> thought begets more thoughts without paying homage to

> tradition.

>

> It's a public site, you don't have to join to read on site, but

> if you care to post your own stories whether fictional, or true,

> or if you want to make a comment, or receive new postings

> via email, then you'll have to join the list.

>

> To give an example of what kind of fare you'll find there,

> below is the latest story I posted. It's a satire about memoir

> writing, which got hughes laughs when I read it at a gathering

> of local writers.

>

> Enightenedfiction

>

> The Never Ending Memoirs.

>

> By Pete

>

> Old people as they get close to that opaque disquieting wall we call

> death, begin to look back to what they fancy were their lives. But I

> found little comfort in those jumbled, imprecise memories.They

> seemed to drift, and change like clouds, avoiding my grasp.

>

> So I decided to write my memoirs.

>

> My children wish I never did. I was hoping to bring order and

> substance to my past. What could be more solid than a book that

> you can take in your hands, and lay on your lap, and say: There--

> that's my life?

>

> It was a fool's errand, I begin to realize. Nothing, a stranger

would

> find worth reading happened to me, and my writing style was sure

> to make my lackluster subsisting seem more dull. I was too fond

> of passive sentences, gerunds, dangling adverbial phrases, and

> the like. If something could be said with one word, I needed five.

> The odds were stacked against my memoir. The planets were in

> all the wrong houses from the start. But then, something

> miraculous happened. My book took over, and wrote itself.

>

> I was unable to write my life as I remembered it. Another life--

> one more fanciful, more poetic began to emerge from my pen,

> and superimpose itself on my prosaic existence.

>

> I found with dismay, I had no control over what I wrote.

> Someone else was writing my memoir. Words poured into my

> head, flowed from my hand, and I had no say on what was

> what. It didn't matter that my wife, as far as I know, had been

> faithful to the end.The story required a lover, and that was

> that. And the story, also, demanded a movie star to play that

> role. And to my most fervent protest, it also demanded a

> manage a troi.

>

> Needless to say, my children on reading what I wrote were

> aghast.

>

> " Dad, Mother was never unfaithful, and she wasn't the most

> beautiful woman in the world, and she didn't have green eyes.

> Have you gone mad? "

>

> I didn't know what to say, except it was my life, and I could

> remember it in any way I wanted. I couldn't blame them from

> resenting the memoir. In my book, I have endowed them with

> new lives they never knew they had. My youngest, I wrote,

> fought in the Iraq war and had been killed while capturing

> Sadam. Although he was much alive, and a hairdresser in

> San Francisco living with a roommate named Carl.

>

> Had I been satisfied with one memoir, it'd have been all

> right. But I was infested with the memoir bug. I wrote

> memoir, after memoir, each one more bizarre than the

> previous one. And to my children's dismay, they all were

> best sellers. And now, their friends stared at them with

> knowing smiles.

>

> So, I can't really blame them for doing what they did.

> They found a judge to declare me mad. Now, in my cell,

> I'm deprived of paper, or laptop. But the memoir bug

> has not died. I'm thinking about writing a new memoir

> on these bare walls. One in which neither I, nor they

> were ever born.

>

> But I'm having a little trouble finding anything to write

> regarding such life.

>