A writer’s life
FOR too long have I kept silent about what I see reflected in the mirror, but a confessional column beckons with its promise of unburdening. Here, at last, I have charted the contours of my life as a writer, a cover for psychosis.
(Social withdrawal)
When asked to describe my life as a writer, I am at pains to disguise the desperately sad truth of my day spent sitting. Alone. Occasionally I gaze up at the view of the sewerage pipe that spans the E. coli-infested Jukskei river, drawing what inspiration I can from the graffiti — “AC/DC” and “Dean4Val4Ever”.
(Fantasising, impaired ability to distinguish between what is real and what is not)
But behind my blank, expressionless eyes, I am living a secret double life charged with adrenaline and cortisol. I have “borrowed” a twist in someone else’s life story, cast it like a veil over my own. Mine is no longer vanilla-flavoured life lite spent in the arid wastes of suburbia. I have abandoned myself to a sordid ménage with a married man, whose slow, lopsided smile and louche decadence too easily disguise for me his treachery and lies. Soon, my surrender in a baroque hotel room that smells of linen, sweat and expensive perfume gives way to a darker nihilism. I will be discovered. I know it. As my husband stands framed by radiant light in the doorway of that sullied hotel room, I know what I will say. I will sigh and look into his eyes and then utter but one word, in a final self-serving act of absolution. “Finally.”
(Delusions of grandeur, mania and paranoia)
I am ablaze with righteous glory, the words falling from me faster than I can type. I am The Word. And the Word is me. Even when I’m showering, I have to leap out to scribble X-rays into the human psyche, naked and dripping all over my desk. I don’t reread what I have written, I don’t need to. I could weep for its brilliance.
Oh, the world will gasp and sink to its knees, especially those who gave me less than four stars on Amazon last time. And
I have abandoned myself to a sordid ménage with a married man
after their editors have printed a retraction, those critics who damned me with faint praise will be sent to my literary focus camps in the Gulag, where they will be forced to watch footage of me on the red carpet wearing a ravishing gown at the premiere of the movie they’ve made of my best-selling tale of erotic obsession that has stunned audiences worldwide. Because it sees straight into their damned souls.
(Depression)
At last I stop, reread what I have written and wince. I avoid it for a few days and then read it again. It’s a joke. My hackneyed plot, my saggy pace, my cardboard cut-out characters and childish preachiness. What do you expect from a grown-up still playing make-believe, indulging in an ego wank because she is bored and bitter about her own existence spent mostly sitting? I’m the joke. Nothing screams “desperate” like having to spam your own friends on Facebook to come to your book signing. — @LaurenLieben
Liebenberg’s latest novel is Cry Baby (Penguin, R230) • Ben Williams’ column returns next week Link love: Books with Bodies Ingenious people match their bodies more or less perfectly with those on book covers on http://bit.ly/CorpusLibris