Taking It To Bed With You
It's spring break now and our writing critique got cancelled. I had so much prepared, yet, it is kind of nice to take a spring break.
It gave me time to think though. I've started a story I began long ago. I stumbled across some old stories I had forgotten I wrote. But one I was aware of and have intended to get to and made up my mind it would be this year. It's a novel.
As I cleared out old old computer diskette programs stored in my closet a week ago, I came upon these old stories I had written on Word Star way back, some short stories on a word processor you never heard of from England called Pipedream. I was living in Switzerland at the time.
The style of some of them was so different I had to reread and rethink, not sure they were mine. I was shocked. The novel I figured I would have to rewrite 90%. But parts I could not believe I had written. Was I me then?
I had seen an episode on British satellite, of an old series from when I was in high school, maybe college, called the Ghost And Mrs. Muir. I vaguely remembered the show so watched from curiosity. In it, the Ghost visited Hope Lang I think it was, as usual, but there also was a character of a twentyish Shelly Fabres. She was the sister of Paul Peterson in their own TV series, I think it was Donna Reed. But she had a crush on the Ghost, or something. I was inspired anyway and started writing my own story of a deeper involvement, Louisiana setting, because they have more ghost stories, so I thought. Better settings for sure.
So, I am rewriting a great deal of it already, but much came out so well the first time. But these nearly twenty years later, I have gone down a lot more roads and am so caught up in this story once again, it follows me everywhere. I take things to bed with me and I dream about it, and in my times of half sleep, it is constantly on my mind, plots, subplots, more details, this won't work, maybe this idea.
I was eating at a fast food before going home to work on it more. I am changing one of the characters in particular, and want to get the ghost and certain spiritual aspects down better, got out more books at home to read, you know, read a hundred pages to get a paragraphs worth of ideas or information. I ended up buying $40 worth of even more books, most of them on sale, clearance, so have so many more now to read and I love the subjects anyway. I even saw a book by Jonathan Edwards the psychic, talks to dead people guy. I've seen him on TV a few times years ago, and thought to give him a shot. Maybe I'll learn something, more ideas.
Parts just don't fit and it's horrible, I barely sleep. How to make this plot work, in sync, believable. Sort of anyway. Before the night is over, by dawn, in some glorious symbolic way, you think of something. Some of it seems good, some just a lead. More wrestling with it, more twisting and turning, more reading, more opening up to new places in the universe, more to yourself that you've chewed on for years, and here's a place for it now in this story maybe.
Writing, even for us unknown nobodies, probably never will be's, is fun. But it's almost like raising a child. And will you be a successful parent? It's not a hobby. You're simply not getting paid.
It gave me time to think though. I've started a story I began long ago. I stumbled across some old stories I had forgotten I wrote. But one I was aware of and have intended to get to and made up my mind it would be this year. It's a novel.
As I cleared out old old computer diskette programs stored in my closet a week ago, I came upon these old stories I had written on Word Star way back, some short stories on a word processor you never heard of from England called Pipedream. I was living in Switzerland at the time.
The style of some of them was so different I had to reread and rethink, not sure they were mine. I was shocked. The novel I figured I would have to rewrite 90%. But parts I could not believe I had written. Was I me then?
I had seen an episode on British satellite, of an old series from when I was in high school, maybe college, called the Ghost And Mrs. Muir. I vaguely remembered the show so watched from curiosity. In it, the Ghost visited Hope Lang I think it was, as usual, but there also was a character of a twentyish Shelly Fabres. She was the sister of Paul Peterson in their own TV series, I think it was Donna Reed. But she had a crush on the Ghost, or something. I was inspired anyway and started writing my own story of a deeper involvement, Louisiana setting, because they have more ghost stories, so I thought. Better settings for sure.
So, I am rewriting a great deal of it already, but much came out so well the first time. But these nearly twenty years later, I have gone down a lot more roads and am so caught up in this story once again, it follows me everywhere. I take things to bed with me and I dream about it, and in my times of half sleep, it is constantly on my mind, plots, subplots, more details, this won't work, maybe this idea.
I was eating at a fast food before going home to work on it more. I am changing one of the characters in particular, and want to get the ghost and certain spiritual aspects down better, got out more books at home to read, you know, read a hundred pages to get a paragraphs worth of ideas or information. I ended up buying $40 worth of even more books, most of them on sale, clearance, so have so many more now to read and I love the subjects anyway. I even saw a book by Jonathan Edwards the psychic, talks to dead people guy. I've seen him on TV a few times years ago, and thought to give him a shot. Maybe I'll learn something, more ideas.
Parts just don't fit and it's horrible, I barely sleep. How to make this plot work, in sync, believable. Sort of anyway. Before the night is over, by dawn, in some glorious symbolic way, you think of something. Some of it seems good, some just a lead. More wrestling with it, more twisting and turning, more reading, more opening up to new places in the universe, more to yourself that you've chewed on for years, and here's a place for it now in this story maybe.
Writing, even for us unknown nobodies, probably never will be's, is fun. But it's almost like raising a child. And will you be a successful parent? It's not a hobby. You're simply not getting paid.
posted by CottonSr @ 6:14 AM
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