Creating with Ugly... (April 30, 2009)
Creating with Ugly... 

April 30, 2009

I admitted a few weeks ago that writing lets you dig out your most embarrassing secrets and turn them into art.
 
It also lets you dig out the painful stuff too.
 
What it feels like to love someone who doesn’t love you back.
 
What it’s like to look in the mirror and hate what you see.
 
What it’s like to feel so embarrassed, or stupid, or just overwhelmed that you want to pull the blankets over your head and not come out for a millennium.
 
I love being a reporter – because of all the interesting people whose lives I get to poke into. And this week it was Lyf Stolte of the Screaming Monkeys – a theatre troupe born out of Sanctuary street mission.
 
Everyone’s life is ugly – he told me – it’s just that few people are open about that ugliness.
 
He said, people think acting means putting on a mask – pretending you are something you are not.
 
But in reality it’s taking off masks. Showing people some of the brokenness inside you.
 
It’s true for writing too. So much of my own jealously, fear, hurt and doubt poured out onto the pages of If Only You Knew, through the mouths of Jo, Sam, Lisa, Kevin and  Traci.
 
I run my mouth off without thinking. (In fact, I think I did so today!)
 
I have been jealous of other people’s relationships.
 
I have criticised other people’s beliefs because they threatened my own.
 
I have lashed out at others – when I have been unhappy with myself.
 
I am not always a likeable person…
 
In the past few days I have been finishing off the final draft of the book that will hopefully become my next published novel.
 
It is a more violent book than If Only, and stars a foolish, arrogant, self-centred character who almost gets our heroine killed. It is not until the final pages when you discover whether he is really a villain or hero …
 
I am reminded of what Lyf said of the ugliness within some of the Bible’s role models.
 
Lyf said, “We tell our children that David was man after God's own heart. It’s not until we are older we learn that he was also a womanizer, incredibly violent, and willing to murder a man to hide his mistakes.
 
“Life isn’t neat and tidy. The Bible is not neat and tidy. We have tried to make it neat and tidy so that we can stomach God.
 
“There’s nothing neat and tidy about the ways God deals with us. But I know that God likes me – even when I don’t like myself…”