As I type this, I have three unfinished stories dating back several years in my projects folder and I don’t think they will ever get finished. Not because I’ve had a major case of writer’s block, but for another reason.
When I began working on these pieces, I was in a much darker place and the tenor of these work reflects that – very dark and brooding. Times have changed and I am no longer in that place and despite reading over what I do have down, I still can’t get back to that darkness and in all honesty, I don’t want to. Still, there are some wonderful descriptive passages among those words, but I can’t figure out how to incorporate them into new pieces. Here’s an example:
“Rattle, clatter, clunk.” The lid of the letter box announcing it had been fed intruded into his consciousness. Hoping there might be more than rejections, bills and flyers, Colin hurried to check. Three pieces of paper awaited his grasping hand.
“Looks like the usual stuff: ‘occupant’ and ‘householder’. Oh well, I suppose it’s better than no mail at all” he muttered to himself. Ever since Colin had decided to become a full time writer he had developed the habit of talking to himself, but with so many story lines chasing each other around in his mind, he hadn’t noticed that he did so. “Well, let’s see. We have something from a local business, addressed to ‘occupant’. Sorry folks, ‘occupant’ doesn’t live here anymore.” He folded up the flyer and threw it into the recycling bucket. (With the amount of paper he went through, mostly from having to re-write frequently, Colin was very conscientious about recycling.)
“An envelope from a publisher. Let’s see what they say. Hmm, they think the novel has possibilities, but the genre doesn’t fit in with their catalogue. Oh. Well, that’s an excuse I haven’t heard in a while. I’ll just add this to the collection. Maybe one of these days I’ll just put out a book of rejections I’ve received and call it something like ‘A Thousand Times “No” ’. ”
But despite some of these descriptions I find myself stuck. I can’t get back to the dark side on these and can’t find a way to recycle the good bits into something else. So I suppose I’ll have to do what I do with photos I screw up and hit delete. This is what an artist friend of mine suggested, reasoning that because they were started during a black period, there is lot of negativity attached to them, so I’d be better off getting rid of them. And I have to agree with her.
Oh well, there will be brighter stories ahead, I know it, so I’ll just carry on and keep blogging until those stories appear.
Enjoy your day and remember to hug an artist – we need love (and ideas) too.
Cat.
Catseyeview 