Author Lauren Becker released a collection of flash fiction with Curbside Splendor last month. It's called If I Would Leave Myself Behind, and today she appears on the blog with an essay on the origins of those stories.
It's always interesting to me to hear how the content of an author's stories came about... what inspired them to write it, where were they when it all came gushing out, how long did it take to get it all down, how much of it is autobiographical....
In Lauren's essay, she answers those questions, and more.....
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I tried to write about the origins of the book, but
it didn't originate so much as generate. The stories were written at different
times, over the course of five or six years, so, really, the only thing that
provides a starting point is me.
I usually find or hear or come up with a sentence
and then write the story, not knowing where it will go. Sometimes I have an
idea of where it will go, but I let thing unwind, and the ones that are my
favorites are the ones that take me places that weren't the destination at all,
and I know where they end, usually with certainty, which is kind of weird, but
I like it.
For example, the story "What Morning Is"
takes place during a power outage. Not intending to be literal, but having no
choice but to work on my computer, as it was the only light I had, I wrote the
story during the power outage. And the darkness turned into a sort of metaphor
for separateness that light disguises. How we might see each other more clearly
without television or meals or phones as distractions, and how these things are
choices sometimes, and how sometimes they aren't. I sat in my dark apartment,
alone, texting friends who lived steps away. I still don't understand why we
didn't go to each other's apartments. Maybe our homes felt too intimate in the
dark. I know that I felt acutely alone, and somewhat anxious, hoping my
computer and phone wouldn't die. Wondering if they would hold out until morning,
which seemed a long ways away. And how I would feel connected to the world. Or
if I would.
The title story to the book, which became part of
the novella, pretty much wrote itself. It's about visiting Austin
from Oakland , and being more comfortable and
feeling more safe, and imagining what it would be like to live in Austin Austin
There are other stories in the book that were born
of moments or days or insistent memories. And there are some that come from
random newspaper articles or sentences overheard in bars or on public
transportation. Or of things I “stole” from other people, telling them I would
use them if they didn’t.
Everything I write is a dedication in some way, I
think, Some pieces are not generous or kind or happy. But the word “dedication”
indicates an honoring or devotion to someone or something. I believe, honestly,
that living with a story for the time it takes to write it, and after, is a
kind of devotion. To the story, yes, and sometimes to people who helped or
inspired the story.
Above all, writing is a source of healing or
comfort to me. As a joke, I considered dedicating the book to me. And I never
really thought about it, but maybe, above all, the stories in the book do honor
their own origins. And maybe the acknowledgement of self – for any writer – is
not so much as a joke as it is truth.
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Lauren Becker lives in Northern California, where she works
in health care policy and advocacy. She is editor of Corium Magazine.
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