Letter from a fan
Chuck.
I spend so much time being what people might expect me to be. For instance, when people ask me, “So, what are you supposed to become?” Like, what am I aiming for? What´s my plan for the future? And when people ask me those things, I can never tell them what I really want, because it´s this really stupid thing. Not the dream, that’s not stupid. But the answer is. Telling people you want to live your dream and that you´re prepared to aim for it. To fight for it, and if this dream is not being a dentist or a carpenter, but something totally different, like a writer, then they frown. Almost like you just farted in their face or something.
But here´s the thing. I´ve been reading all your stuff. I even became a member of the website, the Cult, to read all those essays you wrote about writing. And since that first time, after I´ve read Fight Club, after me discovering transgressive fiction, I picked up writing again. After a five year long break from it. And now, when I pick up a pen trying to tell a story, picturing it in my head, trying really hard to get that one message down on the piece of paper, I always have this problem. That annoying voice inside my head telling me, this is nothing like Chuck. Whatever I try to write, I always think, “How would Chuck tell this story?”
So, what happened was, I met this girl. Yeah, really. She´s asleep now, in my bed, being late at night and all. And what happened when I met her was, sure, I´ll give writing a try. Because up to that moment, before I met her, I really just wanted to go away somewhere. Just disappear, you know. Send a note from the airport to my mother, telling her I´m going away or something. And then, she ruined it all, to steal your words from Fight Club. But not really. Ruining, I mean.
The thing is, I have a head full with stories and every time I try to get that pencil to the paper, I just freeze. I go blank. Then I get frustrated and that carpenter job seem really sweet. It took me a while to realize, but I finally did, that I had fallen out of love of writing. Yeah, it´s true. I love my stories, but when they come out, it´s like trying to tell people about a dream you’ve had. About half way through, you realize it´s nothing like that dream you had, so you stop telling. My girlfriend reads all my stuff and tells me it´s great and not to worry, inspiration comes and goes. She thinks I´m too hard on myself. Me? I´m just being realistic.
So I pick up other writers like you. Not really like you, but you know. I read Bukowski. Jim Shepard. Salinger. Ellis. I even picked up Amy Hempels complete stories, because if I did, I might become you one day. Of course, it does not work that way. I bet that’s the problem I have, not believing in myself enough to write what I want on my own terms. Telling a story the way I want to tell it. I don´t know if that is something that comes with time. If it´s something I will learn, to learn to trust in my own ability, or something. Or if what I really need is someone that believes in me, someone not being my girlfriend or my mother, telling me what I need to hear and not what I want to hear. Or, maybe they´re both?
Anyway, not that you would read this or anything. Just saying.
