More than a decade ago, I read a short story in an Australian Woman's Weekly magazine. I believe it might have been called "The Gift" and the illustration was of a dark haired writer at his desk with tears in his eyes. The story was about a male writer of romance novels, who was often questioned, how can you write for women. In the story he meets a woman who is on holiday or something in his town, and doesn't know her way around. They have a brief love affair. Trying to find her again, he arrives at a church, where he is heartbroken to discover she was just married there. Inspired by this, he writes more heart churning stories. Decades pass and he is older, and famous. He meets the woman again, this time she is single. They fall in love again, and they live together. At this point, he realises he has lost the spark, he can no longer write great romance stories. She tries to encourage him, but he is stuck. Then, tragically, she is killed in a car crash. I remember the story ends with him returning to his desk, and as the tears began to flow, so did his words.
I'd like to get my hands on the original story again, but I have no idea who wrote it. Can anyone help me? Thanks
Tekken 2.
The Da vinci Code.
Tlon, Uqbar, Orbus Tertius
Kill Bill?
Well, never mind all that, >>1. This has nothing to do with this thread, but would you just listen to me for a little bit?
Actually, it does have something to do with this thread, namely, that story fucking sucks and you should stop searching for it. Why? Because it takes a very valid topic for a story - a meta-story, even - namely the source of inspiration for a writer. It suggests misery on the part of the writer is a powerful motivator for creativity, and there are many cases where this seems a likely case. It the presents the question, what if the writer could find happiness, but it killed his gift? Would he choose happiness over creativity?
But then it takes the easy way out by stealing the choice away from the writer by pure random chance. The ending provides no closure, no denouement, of the topic of the story. It ends up a meaningless tale of a man propelled through life by random chance.
So you, >>1, well, you should really just stick to today's special.
Also I should fucking re-read my posts and not end two sentences in close proximity with the same words. That fucking sucked, too. Christ.
>>7
It's not as noticeable as one might think. I'd say well over 90% of your readers glazed over most of that paragraph following a meandering first paragraph. They lost trust in you, and yet they helped you out by devaluing the words that followed and in effect the shitty reuse of the very phrase which sums up your post. You could have simply written that phrase twice and achieved a more understanderable post. Post. Post post post.
p.s. This sounds like a sweet ass story. I like when authors explore such issues that they're familiar with rather than writing another shitty piece of shit fiction. Huxley mentions this through the doctor in After many a summer. I also find that I can not write a single genuine word outside of pure documented fact and physical occurrence when I'm not ecstatically depressed.