A few short years ago I got grabbed by some stories. God knows why; I've never written much of substance before this other than technical manuals for the software companies I've worked for.
But the stories were persistent: they just wanted to come out.
One came to me fully worked while I was visiting Howard in the UK and we were on the Eurostar, stranded in snow on our way back from Paris. We were dozing on the train, waiting to move gain when it just leapt into my mind. I wrote a short e-mail to myself that night when we got back to his house, then wrote non-stop on the flight home from Gatwick to La Guardia.
The other one I wrote from a personal beginning, and haven't figured out yet how to continue, but it stays ever-resent in my mind. What are they doing? I left my characters in a cabin having just found a semi-comatose young man who tried to commit suicide by asphyxiation in his SUV out under the stars on a stretch of land that happened to be their ranch. So. they've all been stranded in that cabin for about three years in my mind now, and I just need to get them out!
I have this weakness of thinking inside the box. My mind tells me that I'm no writer, so who am I to be so bold as to think I can write a story? Leave that to the professionals, says my mind. But another quieter, more persistent part of my mind says, they're only stories; what's the harm in writing them down and polishing them for your own sake? The characters have grown since they've been stuck in that cabin. They really want out now, and I think I'm going to have to write them out of there pretty soon.
I just am finishing Richard Bach's "children's" story, Writer Ferrets: Chasing the Muse in which he talks about this phenomenon of characters and stories who just won't sit quietly by and not be heard. I truly wouldn't have believed it had it not happened to me, myself, I.
So I've dropped labels and categories and boxes, and am just going back to rescue those poor guys who've been in that cabin waiting for the next amazing thing to happen to them.
Maybe I'll let you hear about them ...
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3 comments:
I am intrigued. I have stories running around in my head too. Come to think of it, they are actually more like fantasies. But when I write them out and string them together they will hopefully be a good trashy romance novel.
Still coming over this Saturday?
Do not listen to that voice that says you cannot write. Of course you can! I enjoy your writing every time you post. Please rescue those poor dears now.
--Brent
Brent, AZ, I've started writing again. I sat down today and resumed, and the story just leapt out of my pen, taking turns I hadn't expected! What a totally amazing process. I started this morning at the coffee shop, and then had to bring the laptop to work so that I could work between breaks since my longhand is so slow and messy. Glad the story is on the move again.
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