Skip to main content

A Bit About Me

Green journal with the words, "Progress Journal" on the cover.
Photograph: Daria Nepriakhina/Unsplash

I have been toying with the idea of writing for a long time. I started and abandoned my first novel over a decade ago. I didn't know how to flesh out the idea in my head, so I set it aside and eventually let it go.

Throughout the years, I'd pick up the pen off and on, writing poems and streams of consciousness. I have a folder with several abandoned short stories, some of which are quite interesting, even though they're unfinished.

Part of the problem is an abundance of ideas. They come to me faster than I can write them. Another part is not having practiced enough to develop the skills I admire in other writers. A third part is being perpetually burdened by perfectionism and self-criticism. I'm constantly destroying things before they have a chance to take root.

I was sitting outside in the sun on a tiny purple chair with my Freewrite in my lap when I gave myself permission to just type whatever came to mind. I instantly started getting pieces of a story. A main character, melancholic, was reflecting on her life and the ways she felt out of place.

The words flowed. But when I tried to identify the plot points and determine where it was going, I couldn't. All I had was this piece of something. Handed to me through the ether and echoing some of my own thoughts and experiences.

I knew that "finishing" the story would be unlikely. I'd get busy. I'd get plagued with style and literary decisions that would prevent me from getting to done. It sounds defeatist, but it's reality.

Then an idea came. What if I just release this piece of something and let that be it? Completely Undone was conceived.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

IV - Part 1: The Dreamscape (Rough Draft)

  Photograph: Michal Hlavac/Unsplash A white owl perched in a tree with brilliant green leaves. Its yellow eyes glowed as it stared down at the woman lying on sanguine dirt. She was motionless, but the owl watched her closely, tilting its head slightly. The sky was blood red, as if the world was ablaze, but there was no fire in sight. Someone’s watching me. Althea’s eyes flew open in a panic. She sat abruptly, her heart pounding in her chest as fear gripped her throat. The owl in the tree shifted as if it was commanding her attention. Startled, Althea looked up at the bird. It simply gazed down into her eyes with the same contemplative stare. Where was she? How did she get here? Althea tried to remember the events that brought her to this moment, face to face with this dazzling creature, but she couldn’t retrace her steps. Althea examined her surroundings. The green leaves of the tree were in sharp contrast with the sky. The white of the owl against all the red made it look like an...
Post a Comment
Read more

Unnatural Fate

Photograph: Sourabh Panari/Unsplash I didn't know what to do, but I knew I couldn't go on much longer. It had been years since I felt...right? Normal? I don't know what word fits. I just know that it had been years since I experienced it. Maybe never. My life was good, envious. Yet, despite all that, I couldn't stop the despair. The sense of impending doom. The feeling of unease. On paper, I was healthy. Everything was in the appropriate ranges and ratios. Except maybe my weight, but who wasn't a bit chunky in modern times? Pounds aside, my bill of health was snow-white. But that's only according to the things that can be measured. The things that we know to count. The things that technology is capable of measuring. But what about everything else? Numbers unseen, unknown, and unknowable? How was I in terms of those? I have no way to prove it, but I was deathly ill in the realm of the unquantifiable. Somewhere deep inside of me was a pit, a void. I could sense th...
Post a Comment
Read more