And Then What
Ok, so I just spent an hour browsing through selections and excerpts of writing I did ten years ago. Whoa. Lots of words not really saying anything. I’m a verbose little bastard, but haven’t won any cigars yet. To be good at anything, you have to do it everyday. Spilling it all out like a child dumping his toy chest on the floor, then walking away, distracted by something else, leaving the whole mess for mommy to clean up...yeah, that ain’t gonna win any kewpie dolls either, unless you’re writing MTV music video scripts.
Maybe it’s good to go back and revisit old paths overgrown with noxious weeds. I tried to remember, pick up where I’d left off, but the trails had run cold. I discovered I wasn’t that writer anymore, I’m over here now. I dunno if that’s good or bad, but it is what it is and the only thing left to do is keep writing and exploring ideas from the sanctity of my off-grid, polar fortress of solitude. There are many old stories I haven’t told yet, many experiences that took until now to uncover the message within. Daily cobbling and scribbling is the only method by which to tell whether a story has anything left in it. My narratives will continue to evolve until either I quit, or die.
If you ask me at this very moment, I’ll answer I’m going to continue anvil hammering anecdotes, and sketch plots while canoeing across the Potomac. I just have to visit the meadow and butterfly net the words first. But instead of killing them, (those darlings) and pinning them to a board to be glazed and framed, I think it better to water board them in a cheese fondue and devour them on the spot. At least that’s how I feel today while writing this note. I can always go in and adjust my latest ink ribbon efforts later, post digestion, followed with a little aperitif or antacid or nice, calm stroll through the forest. Or more realistically, chase my hot mess fiction with a shot of Jack, a stomach pump and then try and out run a winter pack of starving wolves.
I entertain the delusion it’s possible to take an old idea, strip mine a line or two, talc it with the original flavor and send it to the publisher for starch pressing. But basically I’ll have to start fresh. Each time I write, I want to start fresh. Only the most original and creative of new ideas can start this way. So didja hear the one about the leopard and his spots?