give yourself away

the problem with starting is the threat of everything else you left behind. from the first word to the very last, there are stories abandoned regularly, an artistic menstruation one might call it. look away. none of us wants to see that. but that's exactly what it is to live, to write. the presence of one word is the execution of many others you will never know. sad isn't it? but let's not mourn for all those characters thrown by the wayside because the creator was too young or too fragile or too distracted or too scared. let us cuddle and coddle the one that does exist.

stories, like children, never grow up and never cease to be the little bud, three sentences long and a fraction of metaphor in weight, you first witnessed when passion and inspiration and timing miraculously invited you to the party. writers often wonder what would have happened if...what if i changed a scene? or flipped a setting? what if i was reading Ginsberg instead of Austin? what if i wrote in the mornings instead of the evenings? wrote in winter instead of summer? wrote while living in a hut somewhere in Guam instead of a cramped loft in Chicago? what if i went to the store on tuesday and then baked a ham? what would have happened? and so, we writers try to bring up the story with the best of ourselves, try to love our imperfections which the work reflects back to us with blaring intensity, try to accept what it is completely.

it's difficult to let go. cleaning up faulty phrases like messy diapers and pushing further and further the development of plot like tap dancing lessons and SAT prep courses, straightening implications like folded over collars and setting type and font like pressing labels to boxes that will travel across the country, where your story will circulate and impact strangers in ways you couldn't imagine. and then you sit and write and write and write about how much you miss it. miss when it was just the two of you, growing together through early morning inspirations and late night frustrations. now it's being handled by others and all you can hope is that they will love it as much as you do, that they will cherish it as much as you do, that you have raised it well and ultimately that you were able to give it the gift of everlasting life.