Jackson Del Toro

I have published six books, a mix of fiction and what I sometimes like to call creative non-fiction or, alternatively, fictional memoir. I write about my life, however disguised; and I am, in my journals, quite prolific. I have always found writing incredibly easy and free-flowing and have often puzzled over complaints from others writers who are suffering from "writers block." I have never had any problem writing out the content that is my life and have only very minor difficulties collecting this material into finished (if only in a radical postmodern sense) work. Until now, that is.

Now, I struggle. Four year ago, my life took a complicated turn, one I did not at all foresee, despite my thinking that I was heading into it with open, experienced eyes and mind. And so the material my life now generates has become complex and confusing. I cannot seem to make it fit into even the most nebulous, marginally structured format.

So I turn now back to my original writing form/style, the simple, relatively short vignette-like essay, which I had been so fond of when I was not so seriously occupied a writer, back when writing used to be just fun. But it’s not so much fun any more. It’s not as easy getting the initial insights down, I suppose because they embody a more profound understanding of life and relationships than when I was younger; but, more important, it seems almost impossible to weave the material into some kind of integral whole.

So I look for writing advice now, whereas previously I never felt I needed any. I look, especially, for structural advice, knowing full well that my solicitations will bring an overabundance of conventional platitudes and artificial formats that I have long since abandoned as futile—not to mention boring. (Reading standard fiction leaves me cold, and standard memoir is only bearable if the person writing it is outstanding.) But I have to go somewhere, structurally. Otherwise, all I have is a huge collection of meandering experience with no central point, focus, or meaning. Which is probably what my life is and has always been about. Maybe this outcome has been inevitable all along.