Does this work?
I'm working on a short story to submit to magazines in January. I'd intended to write this particular episode as a novel, but decided against it after some preliminary notes. The trouble with auto-fiction, at least this type of auto-fiction, is its reliance on the past. Taking past events and forcing them into a narrative framework requires us to relive potentially difficult moments. The final novel I wrote for my last degree explored the opening of my relationship with Fiona, an extremely painful episode that unfurled over many years, but from which I was able to write at sufficient distance to be numbed by it all, really. A lot of the events included in that story took place around fifteen years ago. This, though, is based on this summer, and it's honestly distressing to write. Revisiting negativity subverts the usual process of dealing with traumatic episodes, of allowing them to dissolve into the past so as to "get over" them. There is a cathartic element to writing in this way, an investigative motivation, I suppose (that was the intention of the last novel), but this just feels raw. Not much fun.
"Drama," however you want to define that, is as essential to compelling life experience as it is to fiction. The two reflect in this case. So if this is the process, I guess I have to live it. I don't want to read or watch someone else's version. But this does hurt. It's fine now, but I'm tired and I need to forget. Everyone's a lot happier than they were, and that's all that really matters. I'll be glad to let the topic pass as a direct source of inspiration. Although I'm pleased to have sourced this story as a result, I won't be writing a novel. It is useful, but I'm sure I can deviate a little. I titled this blog "Multiple" because I was so shaken by the entire experience that I couldn't think of any other subject than polyamory as the core of a personal creative project. The silt, however, is finally settling to the bottom of the half-empty glass. I'm sure progression from this point would be a little easier if I weren't so direct. We can always chalk these absurdities up to experience, quoi.