Something of a problem

[skull_bearer]

I've had a plot-bunny. Frankly, I blame my genre teacher for telling me in my holocaust non-fiction piece 'try and think who this story (the Holocaust) belongs to and bring it into the story. Which got me thinking, what if I didn't care? What if I just went out and demanded every survivor story with no care as to whether the person actually wanted to tell it or not, because they'll be dead soon and their story lost for good?
Believe me, that's a grind I live with daily, the idea that not too far from now, my fascination will officially become 'dead history'. It's not a landmark I'm looking forward to.
This blended with a 'necromancer historian' story which was going nowhere, and resulted in a story in which I am, to put it bluntly, the antagonist. It actually seems to be workable, with only two problems:
1 - it is very obviously me in there.
2 - If I write it and get it published, any career as a historian I might have started will be over before you can say 'oh fuck'.

On the other hand, it would finally allow me to write Mengele into something and get the fucker out of my head, and for that alone I'll try and find the time.

So, any advice on what to do if you've got the burning desire to write something that could ruin your life? I have no wish to be seen as a heartless person who raises the unwilling souls of Holocaust victims to interrogate them and hangs out with the disembodied ghost of debatably one of the most evil doctors in human history. It's not me, but it's so like me its scary.

Comments

[red-pill.livejournal.com]

well, youve got four options

write, but never publish anyhwere, anyhow. exserise the plot bunny, and leave it untill after your death, when whoever manges your by then clearly rich and well known estate finds it among your notes and publishs it postumsly. or at least, everything befor i started thinking about how jrr tolkins estate is manged by his kid. basicly, write it and leave it

write and publish somewhere, some how, under psynodname. there are places where publishing will be unlikely to come with conqunces privded that theres a desent amount of detchment from your idenity(im looking at you fiction press)

publish with no detchment and dame the consqunces

or never write it, but that seem the poorist of them

i would proberbly take the second, but im not your.

on the subject of not you but like you. theres a dark flip side to every desire, ever talant. your point is true, but the thing is, even if the carecter is an extention, and prahapse even logical conclusion of certen views but it dosent mean you aprove, and indeed you seem not too. ideas can be fasnating, but thay dosent mean you will, in the end, carry them out, even given the chance. or prhapse you would, but the chances to examin it in writing is part of why people right, isnt it? to look at things, to examin them, to understand them...

anyway, ive started to sound preechy, for witch i applogise.

[skull-bearer.livejournal.com]

anyway, ive started to sound preechy, for witch i applogise.

Absolutely not, thank you for your thoughts.
The psudonym idea sounds good, and yes, this character is very much dark!me. I mean, I can go on and on about how I have no morals but jeese dude, there's a line. The character in this story crosses it three times over.

[cat-irix.livejournal.com]

I don't think that people normally identify writers with their characters. Maybe it's obvious for you and your close friends that it's you, but not for a casual reader, or for your potential employers. There's plenty of writers who write dark fiction and portray bad guys, and it's not ruining their lives...

[deborahkla.livejournal.com]

Several years ago I was invited by a writer friend to contribute to an anthology of true erotic tales involving military men. I was one of only two women asked to contribute because most of the tales were by gay men who were either in the US Armed Forces or had been. At the time I was still married to the-man-formerly-known-as-husband, and he was serving in a very high enlisted rank. So I had the story published under a pseudonym with no problem.

If by any chance your tale involves eroticizing Nazis, don't worry about it; Israel itself is a huge market for Nazi porn. And you certainly wouldn't be the first Jewish woman to eroticize Nazis. I'm one, and I know of many others.

[skull-bearer.livejournal.com]

Not really eroticising, although this story does star Mengele his political opinions barely feature. The real bad guy is a historian who won't take no for an answer, even after you're dead.

I'm not Jewish in fact, although you're the 195700th person to make that mistake ;)

[deborahkla.livejournal.com]

I thought you told me you were Jewish. My mistake!

[totenkopf6.livejournal.com]

I would say publish it under a false name. I expect anyone who reads it would have a hard time seeing you in it anyway, as it no doubt displays aspects of you (if they exist at all) that are not how other people would perveive you. Those of us who do not know you would never know anyway I expect.