I am ending my first week of a mad-cap noveling competition between me and the calander. The first year I wrote about the abduction of a news reporter by ‘Tater’ the crazy cab driver. Last year I wrote a tragedy that was so hideous I have never had the urge to revisit it for revision. This year’s working title is Negative Spaces.
I troll the news and reference books for seeds of horrid plot lines and there are plenty of depraved things going on to stock my shelves with plots and characters.
During the last few days I have been watching an evil that had not really occurred to me before.
I have heard the news media referred to as vultures and this week I have seen them swoop down upon people suffering the raw and deeply personal losses.
I think back with a bit of shame to all the times I sat and gawked at people’s grief. 911 is a good example, there we were, watching perfect strangers express their feelings moment to moment. The press has expressed frustration when families go into hiding after wicked things happen to their loved ones. Today, we watched survivors of a mass murder and waited through a live feed of an Orlando office building filled with terrified people.
These moments should be private and while I find my self looking anyway, I feel like a peeping tom. Do we really have to see the victims, the families of the newly dead, the co-workers forever changed by losses we can’t understand?
As if the media gods are on the job, we lookers get our dose of guilt in the days that follow.
We discover how much we look away during the moments that really count. The moments when a disturbed teenager acts out in small annoying, hormonal and dramatic ways and the angry worker in the next cubicle who has withdrawn and the married couple becoming a statistic are a few guilt trips we can take, but I’d rather look the other way.
I have two serial killers traipsing across my computer screen. They recently snatched a Nurse named Carolyn Holloway and no one was looking. I refer to my reference books on crime, murders, missing people and body traumas and type awful prose to meet or exceed my 1667 daily word count. Then, I turn on the news and try to look the other way.
Maybe, I have viewer’s remorse or some other psychological side effect of enjoying and writing dark fiction.
Maybe, I need to face up to an addiction to news stories of the hideous kind.
Perhaps, after I finish this novel I’ll try something different, something romantic, something with a happily ever after. (Probably Not)
Next post I’ll go for something humorous, happy, something I call ‘Sally Light.’ Till then, be well, behave and be happy.
Comments
2 responses to “Good Grief”
I find the title interesting as we use negative space in photography to isolate and highlight an object. My view of negative space is typically black but it can be any uniform, contrasting color. The amaryllis photo I put on FB today illustrates its use. The flower-subject pops from the nothingness of the black background creating an almost 3-D feel.
I suppose I am telling you this because with serial killers, it seems they tend to be planners rather than opportunists. In a sense, their scheming towards a victim is the negative space surrounding the act of murder. The murder is the splash of color in the surrounding darkness of their minds.
What has been happening in the news is tragic. We cannot help but stay tuned. Whether it’s out of curiousity or just relief that it’s not us – we watch. Our writing helps us find a ‘happy place’. Hope you find yours 🙂