Did you know I can write in the most popular language? Which is: real bad English. I´m again very close to a deadline and thus I feel the urge to blog instead of doing what is really necessary, which is to write the last sentence of my 750 word text. The problem is, I can spend as much time on the last sentence as on the whole text. Which is no good. Plus, after trying out so many endings, at the end I give up and write something totally boring and stupid. Which is no good. Here I have this piece which cost me three weeks, eight interviews, 50 bucks in books, lots of nerves and instead of ending it with tatata! Wasn´t I great, I end it with: I´m sorry, I just couldn´t come up with something more meaningful. That’s when I have this strong wish to end all my texts with just the same last sentence: fuck the last sentence. I think, psychoanalytically speaking, it reflects on a fear of parting. Which is ultimately the fear of death. Fighting (as usual) with my boyfriend, who always has to go over my texts, I tell him I’ve got to kill my babies. Which means, journalistically speaking, you have got to have the guts to erase the sentences that you thought were the best, the personal highlights that show how great you are. Which is never good. I mean, to let your narcism leak into your writing. So kill your babies. Astonishingly, this always makes the text better. I can do that. I also can throw other things away, like old birthday cards, Marty’s empty whisky boxes and Kant’s collected works. I can give up on what needs to go. Throwing things away is the little brother of writing last sentences. I have to give up on my text, make it ready for delivery. But instead of giving birth, I have to give it away for adoption. It will be adopted by the editor (very bad baby, try again) and the reader (Dear Dr. Huebener, I feel very much hurt after reading your article. You did not take into account that …). By avoiding the last sentence, the death sentence, I keep my baby. Maybe it’s missing an arm or a leg, but mine. OK, I´m exaggerating; texts are not babies. At least not my text. Since I´m not writing for the New Yorker. They are more like turds. Hard turds, that won’t come out easily, give me pain and pleasure at the same time. But to come back to my main and final point: fuck the last sentence. By the way, you might ask, how is it that, as opposed to what I said at the beginning, my English is New Yorkerian perfect? My boyfriend went over it. And again: fuck the last sentence.
(Foto: Roodinislas/photocase)
Zelzius 