I’ve been writing again. Wait, let me say that again. I’ve been reading what I wrote. There is a bit of writing taking place, but mostly I am going through the personal slush pile I have created over the years. It is a mix of exhilaration and bewilderment with a splash of WTH.
I lost the cord to my laptop a while ago. It may have been months, it may have been years. I have been so completely engrossed in 3year old and teaching…I just let that slip away. The laptop has been quietly waiting on the dresser near my bed. It blended in with the random things that accumulate on an unused side dresser. This is one of the many joys of being the only person in the bed. Aka, single. Did I say joys? Whatever.
Anyway, I decided I really needed to make sure the laptop worked. I’ve been purging stuff and didn’t want to throw away a useable item. Plus, I had a feeling I had some writing on that thing and I definitely didn’t want to lose that.
I found the cord, buried deep in a bag in a box in my closet. Amazingly, it still worked! The only trouble was that the cord got so hot it actually caused me to worry about my house bursting into flames. So, long story long, I ordered a new cord and got all the stories off of that thing and onto my big computer’s external hard drive. Yay me!
The fun part about going through stories I have written is that I don’t remember some of them. Some of the best ones are unfinished and it is really irritating! I get all caught up in the story and then it ends. I have no idea where I was going with some of them. Dang it! Maybe it will come back to me. Maybe it will become something completely different.
As I read through a few chapters of my Opus (isn’t that what you call your ‘big defining work’?), I remembered why I hadn’t worked on it for a few years. It’s a bit overwhelming. I made the mistake of listening to a few people who gave me advice that went against my gut. I changed my story to fit what they thought it should be. They had good intentions, but….now it’s muddy. The pure story has been shrouded in outside forces and I have to rinse it off to find the real story hidden.
This isn’t impossible. It is still in there…but it isn’t easy. Writing takes not only time and energy, but it also takes immersion. It can be hard to immerse yourself when you have a lot of things pulling on you. I’m going to try though….and when I’m done, I expect you all to buy this dang book.
Cause I said so.
Photo credit: PxHere
