It has been about five years since this book has been opened. Cocoon-like, I am escaped.
Here is what I believe.
Writing is storytelling; Good writing deals with Truths of some kindàRange of truth: simple to complex.
This is a defragmentation. I have been lots of bits, now forming into one whole. I would be a foolish not-me to believe this is not a change of events. And that is what will make it true.
Reality is indefinable (?). One defined by the individual. A story must have character(s), plot (“kind of” L.M.) and be defining.
Great work has been done (Joyce, O’Brien, Shakespeare, etc.) Bad work has been done (countless pages of HS and College material, not to mention failed adults).
Keats was 26 at death. Fitzgerald 44 (29 @ The Great Gatsby). These are anomalies.
What happens if you attempt to be an anomaly? Failure.
I have argued that Evolution and Creationism need not be opposite ideologies.
I begin by Creating.
There is a man, aged 29. He stands at a now ex-girlfriend’s house, realizing his life had just begun anew.
Our character finds his way home in the rain (he walked around her block before realizing his car was right there in front). Once inside, he continues a thought that he had four years previous.
“What if all this time I’d been saving up, and researching, and thinking, so all these things would come together at this exact time?”
He begins by jotting down a thought on paper about a group of friends growing up in a small town. They'd spend their time together in a park that begins to symbolize their moods and feelings. He cannot put his pen down for six hours.
As the sun begins to rise he realizes he must get ready to work. HE cannot decide if he should attempt a few hours of sleep or not.
(Author’s note: This part always becomes difficult. Do I write about his job? I have always seen jobs as bad/evil/unproductive. This part of the story normally ends up equaling the same.
Challenge #1: Leave out job, have him go then come back with nothing in between.
Challenge #2: Give him an excellent job to challenge the idea that the job is the fault.)
For now:
He comes home 9 hours later, having decided a little sleep is always better, and managing to wake up on time. Work is normally good (!) but due to the lack of sleep, it was long and uncomfortable. He was no prepared to talk about his recent break-up. He realizes that in order to keep working he had to focus and not let his mind wander. This was difficult.
His primary difficulty was “taking a break.” Just as writing was a necessary outlet of his unintentional research, breaks soon became new journeys into research. Normally, he imagined new research would not be looked at as a bad thing, but he had no end goal.
His research led to nowhere in particular.
The night he returned from work, tired, he realized he lacked a map. He needed to discover the X that would mark the spot.
However, the map had failed him before. As he had once before attempted the Outline he would often find he feeling inadequate with the goal. In a sort of ADD moment, he could not think too far ahead.
The X would need to be fluid. The path, solid. He would make the goal appear where it needed to be, when he needed it to be there. The way to prove time travel is to guarantee when you finally do it, you leave a memento somewhere.
He needed to rest, his synapses were firing at amazing rates and he felt a sort of high.
He needed a restart (Human inventions reflect human lives).
