I have to admit it: the Sunday Scribblings prompt for the week, "I would never write about...", damn near stumped me. How can you write about what you would never write about, without writing about it? It's a logical impossibility.
But I decided to be less analytical about it. And instead, to think about it. When you love to write, what are your boundaries around writing? When you're technically a good enough writer to write just about anything, where do you draw the line? Especially if, like me, you are someone who gets paid to write for others and who wants to get paid to write her own original stuff as well?
Well, here's where I draw the line as both a writer-for-hire and a writer of my own original material:
- Pornography. Let me first clarify something about this: there is a distinction between pornography and writing frankly about sexual issues. Pornography is what immediately comes to mind when I consider what I would never write. I did get an offer once (from a man) to ghostwrite a porn book, around the same time as I got an offer to build a website for a company that did manufacturing in China for all those American companies who want to be more profitable by outsourcing jobs overseas. I turned down the porn and put a bid in on the China website; my best friend (who is even more outspoken about her views on social issues than I am) said she'd have preferred me writing the porn! Perhaps it was therefore fortunate that I didn't get the web job either.
- Scientific or Mathmatical texts. I barely passed Chemistry and Geometry in high school and never bothered trying to take any higher-level subjects like Physics or Trig or Calculus, so I'd be the LAST choice for anyone who wanted a good scientific or math writer.
- Medical Text. Same as Science or Math above. Plus it would just be about the most boring thing I can imagine writing about.
- Sport Journalism. There are, like, a million guys (and probably a few gals, too) out there dreaming of this job. Not that I don't enjoy sports to a point, but I'm not passionate enough about sports to want to take this job away from someone who'd really love it.
Then there's the "Never Say Never" category of topics that I don't THINK I would ever want to write about, but you "never" can tell:
- Fiction. Although as a young girl, my earliest dreams of being a writer involved becoming the next Barbara Cartland, Danielle Steele or the latest hot Harlequin Romance novelist, now I think I'd find it hard to get into the right mindset to come up with plot lines and characters and dialogue. I'm more of the "reality" writing kind of person and non-fiction seems to come more easily to me. I admire those who can write fiction with ease and brilliance. I'm just not sure I could be one of them. But never say never.
- Real-Life Criminal Memoirs. Last year, I got a string of really odd inquiries from people who were ex-convicts (and one person I suspect had mob connections, a "cop-gone-bad" person) who were looking for ghostwriters to tell their stories. They all had different stories to tell, of course; some more interesting than others, and some completely creepy. Only one of them sounded seriously interesting to me and that was a story about someone who ended up on the wrong side of the law because he'd been placed on medication (starting in his teens) for mental health disorders HE NEVER HAD. The part about him being in prison was only incidental to the larger story, which was quite fascinating. But the rest of these potential clients made me really uncomfortable because I have no experience dealing with people who've done time. I just can't relate to them. So writing a book for someone like that -- in most cases -- would probably be out of the question.
- Material that is intended to be misleading or exploit a person or group. I realize that could potentially cover a wide variety of topics, but suffice to say this would be an "instinct thing" where if I suspected I was being asked to write something where the sole intention was to damage another person for profit or revenge, I'd turn it down. And although I could imagine taking some creative license with a real-life story, I'd draw the line at calling it the "truth" if it were mostly fiction (case in point: James Frey's fake "real" story, A Million Little Pieces, a book now considered almost a complete fraud). When I get right down to it, I want to write things that are positive, entertaining, meaningful, insightful or uplifting. There's enough negativity in the world anyway, and I don't need to contribute to it.
In truth, I don't believe in focusing on what I don't want, because we all get exactly what we focus on, and who wants to get what they don't want! Which is why I had trouble writing about what I'd "never" write about.
So now I'll go back to focusing on what I do want: moving to Paris and writing about what I love most -- people, experiences, observations, and exciting new destinations.