Spectacles, Testicles, Wallet, and Comb…
I’m still here, at my weekend writing spot, trying to kick this dead-horse of an idea into form. In the wise if somewhat whiny words of Thom Yorke: “you cannot kick start a dead horse / you just cross yourself and walk away…”
My lapsed-secret Catholic side is already performing the necessary gestures. This poor writing project simply cannot be revisited until the site of inspiration itself has been revisited. One hour in Grampian, PA will undoubtedly bring it back to life. Since I am in Chicago, IL and broke/carless, that is just not going to happen anytime soon.
It sounds like a flimsy excuse, doesn’t it? That I cannot continue writing this without seeing the place again? I swear, it’s true! The land and the feel of the land, the culture dying with the land, etc is more than the setting I’m working in. It’s a main character all in itself. And it’s huge, overbearing, and menacingly beautiful. It is my feeling of ‘home’. That complicated heart-stab that hits harder when I am there than when I am half a continent away.
Perhaps you’re reading this and thinking how it’s a newbie mistake to throw in the towel for these reasons, but I really don’t feel like I’m doing it any justice out here all the way in IL. I can’t connect with it for long enough to make things happen just *so* right now. So the shelf it is. Not the wastebin, just the shelf. It’s too important to me, and doing it wrong will be ten time worse than never having done it. I hereby slate this for my third or fifth novel.
The cantankerous novel that all four of my readers will eye suspiciciously as being ‘nothing like what she normally writes.’ The novel that sits in the back of the bus and makes lewd jokes and shoots spitballs. The novel I will love in spite of all of that. And because of all of that.
“The novel that sits in the back of the bus and makes lewd jokes and shoots spitballs.”
i need this. i’ll wait as long as it takes.
Newbie mistake? No. I get it. But I want to read it, so let’s work on getting you to PA.
I hear you on this. Place is so important. Be glad you didn’t choose Ireland, like I did. Hah! Talk about blowing budgets!