IT IS MY PLEASURE TO BRING YOU TONIGHT'S CONFESSION: INGRID K.V. HARDY
Confessions of a Lion
Writing seems to be a very similar occupation to painting or drawing. Whether you like it or not, whether you intend to or not, a piece of your soul goes onto each page or canvas that gets written or drawn.
But of course, not every word or stroke is brilliant. Strangely though, I find it easier to bare the ugly part of my writing soul than that of my illustrator soul. I wonder why…
To pick my worst piece of fiction is a big question - so much to choose from! I think it’s a tie though, between one flash fiction story and the first novelette I wrote last summer (2011). The flash fiction piece was based on a prompt involving courtroom drama, and I learned a great lesson from that prompt: I have no interest in courtroom books, dramas or TV shows, so I really shouldn’t write that genre. Goll-ee that story was awful! Along with that is the first attempt I made into writing a short novel. I was absolutely duty-bound to finish it, no matter what, and I did. And it will see the light of day over my putrefying body! Hopefully, most of the bad writing mojo inside of me went with that attempt, but that would probably be wishful thinking. Two characters from that attempt have stayed in my mind though, and I’d really like to do something with them at one point.
My best writing… I’ve a feeling that opinions on good and bad writing are similar to opinions of good and bad paintings - it’s all in the eye of the beholder. Or reader. But alright, I’ll pick. First is a story I wrote in primary school, I forget the name of it but it was about what it felt like to be the last pickle in a jar of bread-and-butter pickles. What would it be like to see all the other pickles get taken out and be the last one in the jar? Everyone liked that story and I never forgot that. Then there was the story I wrote in high school (I hated high school with a vengeance, being picked on all the time) about a lost horse. The teacher enjoyed that story very much, and again, it was something I remembered.
But I think what I’m most proud of is a piece of flash fiction I did last year that ended up being chosen for inclusion into an anthology called The Lost Children: A Charity Anthology. My effort, called “The Fall of Buffalo Bill”, was based on the memory I have of a young boy in primary school - nine or ten years old - who was always alone, dirty and never ever spoke to anyone. He obviously had not had a normal childhood. Twenty (or so) years later that poor little kid had grown into a despicable pedophile, and his case was being followed publicly in the local newspaper.
One can’t change was has already happened, but maybe we can learn from it…
Lastly, just because this Leo is feeling wordy today, I actually like about half of what I wrote for NaNoWriMo this year, and am looking forward to editing it into something readable.
I can be found in many places:
Rabid Horse Blog (fiction updates are here)
The Lost Children: A Charity Anthology can be found - in both print and ebook formats - on Amazon HERE.
Very interesting... I love finding out more about the writers I admire!
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