While across the world many people have been participating in and finishing off what has been shortened to NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month, in case you haven‘t ever heard of it; but I doubt that should be the case in the blogosphere), it is frustrating for those of us who‘ve been stuck in writing rut to read about our friends‘ progress in their challenge.

It is not that I‘m not happy for them, but their success brings me to put unnecessary stress on myself.

These last few days, I spent looking up inspiring and motivating quotes on the internet and hardly any collection did not include one or two wise lines that Truman Capote shared with the world.

Born in 1924, Capote discovered his talent for stringing words together in quite readable form early and took up a job as a copyboy for one of the major newspaper by the time he had not even turned 20.

Not only did he write excellent essays, novels and articles, such as Other Voices, Other 
Rooms (1948) or Breakfast at Tiffany‘s (1958) in his time, he also tried his luck at a fairly new genre of writing: New Journalism, as introduced into literature by Tom Wolfe.

Truman Capote‘s most prominent work, In Cold Blood, finalised in the 1960s (1965), has a different quality to it. If you‘ve previously read stories as sappy and sweet as the ever famous Breakfast at Tiffany‘s and might have even watched the even more romanticised Hollywood version starring Audrey Hepburn, In Cold Blood might as well seem to you as if another author had written it.

Although it starts off with lush descriptions of a dreamy landscape, the narration soon loses its sweetness. Capote‘s aim had always been to display a real life incident through elements of fiction, turning it into an account of cruelty and violence.

If you read through the various and plenty articles that were written about the tradition of what would be Capote‘s last novel, it becomes obvious that not only he was a peculiar (and let me add on a personal note: selfish, arrogant and cunning) person but also knew how to work people.

“To me, the greatest pleasure of writing is not what it’s about, but the inner music that words make.” – Truman Capote.

A (rather long) while back, in late January 2007, I had the pleasure of taking part in a weekend class on New Journalism in the light of Capote‘s & Mailer‘s works and ended handing in a lengthy commentary on Capote himself, the Hollywood movie on his life (which, I might add, is just plain stellar, hands down. Hoffman deserved that award) and a comparison between book and movie.

While there were a lot of things that I criticised about him at that point in time, I now count Truman Capote as one of my favourite authors of all time. You see, I kind of have an odd love for poor, tortured souls and Truman Capote, being left by all his famous friends after the concept to his unfinished last book was revealed, certainly was one. He suffered from alcohol and drug addiction and eventually those addictions were what killed him in 1984.

After reading In Cold Blood, I picked up a lot of collections which bundle up his works. One of those was Music For Chameleons featuring the story Handcarved Coffins (1975) which is of almost the same style as In cold Blood but not quite.

In any case, it treats the case of a murderer as well, involving Capote as a writer just as much as in the writing of In Cold Blood, only that this time, he is in fact treating a fictional case.

It might possibly be my favourite work by Capote, simply for one little paragraph, which I want to quote and leave you with:

(Next summer: a lifetime away. The full moon, higher, whiter now, and celebrated by coyotes, rolled across the snow-gleaming prairies. Clumps of cattle stood in the cold snowy fields, bunched together for warmth. Some stood in pairs. I noticed two spotted calves huddled side by side, lending each other comfort, protection: like Jake, like Addie.)

(From ‛Handcarved Coffins‘ in Portraits and Observations. The Essays of Truman Capote. The Modern Library, New York. 2008.)