La Vie En Rose for 2007 November 29

It's a bit late in the month to be having dramatic self-relations, but there are some things I can no longer ignore. For one… the greatest irony is that my historiography is in direct contrast with my novel. On the one hand I am arguing the need to deconstruct the myth of the first world war that is the public memory—and one the other, I am encapsulating it. How can I really reconcile the two? As though I were two different people with one doing exactly what the other is arguing against. There's a word for that—oh yeah, hypocrisy. Oh well.

Also, my side characters have hijacked my story. I set out to write a typical romance and it turns out my side characters are the ones with room for complexity, for an imperfect relationship. It turns out they are the ones interesting to write about. Why is it that I find it much easier to write from the point of view of a girl who loses her love, goes to France and tries to bury herself in work in order to forget, in order to compensate?

Oh.