I’m still reeling. I ‘m not the only person who is. The deep anger is bubbling, and I’m not sure what to do with it.
Tangentially, I’ve had the longest writing drought (except for blog posts) that I’ve had in my life since I started writing–which was when I was seven. Back then, it was poetry. A bit later, I wrote a short story for school that was a murder mystery (I found my love for it at a young age). It was about a young girl, Birdie, who was ostracized by her peers (yes, I was drawing on real life. Which is still what I do). There was a teacher found murdered, I think? There were red herrings galore, but it turned out that Birdie killed her. I drew the illustrations to accompany the story as well (they were shitty). For some reason, playing cards played a part in it as well? I can’t remember why Birdie committed the murder, but that was very Agatha Christie of me–writing from the point of view of the killer. And, no, I hadn’t read Agatha Christie at that time.
By the way, The Murder of Roger Ackroyd, the book to which I’m referencing, is one of my favorite Poirot novels. If I remember correctly (and I’m not going to Google it, so I’m right in my own head), it was controversial at the time because while some people thought it was brilliant, others thought it was cheating. The reason why? Because the narrator was the murderer. Yes, I’m spoiling a book that came out nearly a century ago. Deal with it.
It was different to begin with because Captain Hastings isn’t in it. I have to admit that I prefer to have him there because he anchors the stories. Plus, he’s a good stand-in for the reader while simultaneously making me feel smart (because he’s not the brightest bulb in the garden). He has a good heart and an impetuous nature. He is credulous and susceptible to women who have hair that was a certain shade of auburn.
In this book, Dr. Sheppard is the narrator. Poirot has retired and moved to the countryside. He has dedicated himself to growing the perfect marrow, which I never knew what that was. It’s a courgette, which is zucchini in American English. The book opened with Poirot gardening and being angry because the marrows weren’t doing what he wanted. He was throwing them around, and one landed in Dr. Sheppard’s yard.
They struck up a friendship and when a murder happened, Poirot leaned on Dr. Sheppard to do the legwork. The book is written from Dr. Sheppard’s point of view as a journal of sorts. At the end, after Poirot denounced him as the murderer, Dr. Sheppard revealed that he had intended the journal to be his magnum opus after he got away with it. I have some quibbles about how Christie wrote the book because she did have the tendency to dance on the line of being not fair.
Side note: In mysteries, most people prefer that the author be fair with the clues. Meaning that if the reader catches every clue and reads it correctly, they should be able to figure out the mystery for tthemselves. Most mystery readers do not like to be hoodwinked or led down a red herring path.
People have very divided opinions as to whether Dame Christie played fair or not. I am on the side of she danced very close to the line and sometimes crossed it. There were some leaps of faith she made and some ‘ha ha ha I’m so clever’ moments, but in general, she gave you most of what you needed to solve the case.
I love The Murder of Roger Ackroyd. I thought it was so clever and I did not see the twist coming. I have wanted to write a murder mystery from the viewpoint of the murderer ever since. When you don’t know it’s the murderer narrating, I mean. I have no interest in the genre of the perp being the narrator when the reader knows the narrator is the murderer. It’s of no interest to me. I will admit that I have a prejudice against psychopaths/sociopaths/extreme narcissists, and that seems to be what most people like to read in that genre.
My NaNoWriMo is going exceedingly well. People have really fallen off NaNoWriMo for several reasons, so this will probably be the last year I do it. I’m only using it as a word tracker, anyway, because I never got involved with the community. There was a big controversy last year because it seemed as if they did not safeguard minors against explotation (that was the accusation), and this year there was a big controversy over AI. I don’t want to get into it because it’s not really of interest to me, but I think I’m ready to move on.
It really helped jumpstart my writing this year, and I’m grateful for that. My brain works this way. I can’t make it do anything it doesn’t want to do, not without a lot of effort and a huge mental toll. I have to trick my brain into doing what I want it to do, which was why I did NaNoWriMo. I figured it would signify to my brain that it was time to write, and I was correct. November is NaNoWriMo which is time for me to write. I have over 20,000 words already, eight days in (not counting today as I have yet to finish my writing for the day), so I’m well on track to get my 50,000.
I am not as angry as I have been for the last few days, but I’m almost inconsolably sad. The anger is buried deep inside, but the sadness is overflowing. It’s painful to me that my country hates me so much. And even though I will probably not feel the hurt in the beginning because I’m insolated on several levels, I know the hatred is there. I know it will eventually trickle down to me, especially if I don’t hide cetrain aspects of my being. I’m so tired of this. I know that–you know what? I’m not going to mouth platitudes. This fucking sucks, and I am so disappointed in my country. It has really fucking let me down.