I'm considering taking some time off from poker (not long, maybe a month or so) and picking up writing again, which really is my first love.
I'm really struggling with the concept of honesty in narrative. I find the work of guys like Chuck Palahniuk or Chad Kutlgen really engaging because so much of the writing space is devoted to what's *really* on the mind of the main characters. For a guy like me who comes from a fairly sterile upbringing in a fairly sterile city, this is a pretty tough decision.
I come from a background where everyone pretty much filters out the most personal part of themselves - children won't tell their teachers when they disagree, husbands won't share their true sexual thoughts with their wives, longtime friends won't admit their insecurities. There's a very high level of perceiving what is appropriate and then filtering your thoughts so that no one is shocked or offended.
Even my wife - who by any definition is quite liberal with her thoughts and emotions - was disgusted and offended while reading The Average American Male, which, while a crass novel to be certain, isn't really an unfair picture of the thoughts of many guys in their early 20s.
I'm paraphrasing here because I don't have the book handy but the dedication in The Average American Male reads something like "To my mom and dad. I am sorry I've written a book you will not want to read."
I'd say that sums it up - I'm fairly certain that writing with any degree of genuine honesty about the thoughts of my characters that they will either end up as shallow robots (as I will have filtered out their darker thoughts) or I will end up alienating people with my writing - people I genuinely respect and admire.
I'm not really sure where to proceed from here. Is it even possible to tread some delicate middle ground? I don't know. Even if it is possible... would I really want to?
