Realizing the patterns
When I started Camp
NaNoWriMo a mere 17 days ago, all I knew was that I wanted to rewrite
the remains of a 30 year old project. Incidentally, I have not read
this project despite being 48,000 words into the rewrite. I had only
planned on writing 50,000 words, so it seems as if I’m almost done. I
think I still have at least 10,000 to go. It seems this story is
worth more than I thought it was originally worth.
At the time that I
wrote the initial story, the spring and summer of 1993, I was in
flux. I worked at a picture framing franchise, and I lived in
Boulder. I moved from Boulder to Denver and I also stopped working at
the frame shop to work at the Colorado Department of Health. I also
stopped attending classes at Araphoe Community College and I started
at Metro State. It was a time of tremendous change. I so seldom think
about that time in my life. I have lost all contact with the people I
knew then, and I don’t go to any of the neighborhoods that I lived or
worked in at that time. Plus 30 years is a long time.
I’ve been an
introspective person since a very early age. I’ve kept a journal
since 1990. The journal is something I scribble in daily at times,
and other times, I go months without adding to the introspection. I
find it funny that there are themes over the years I write about and
write about and write about. Those things like who I want to be and
lamenting who I am, I think this is what everyone writes about. For
instance, these days, I write about the problems I have with the
YouTube rabbit hole. I can also expand that to Netflix too. Too much
time, and daily, gets lost and wasted just staring passively into the
screen. I mean, whatever, right? I’m staring into the screen now, and
so are you. But it seems different when looking into a YouTube thing
that is both disconnected from reality as well as anything else that
might be imaginary.
Last night, like
every night, I finished my work and opened up YouTube. I watched the
sorts of things I normally watch, fifty shorts and a few how-tos.
Then I watched a short video that asked if human beings were meant to
be monogamous. Incidentally, I don’t know the answer to that as I did
not watch it to the end. What I did see, however really affected me.
This physiologist
suggest that married people will step out even if they’re in a happy
relationship because they are trying to recapture who they once were.
She suggested that people do things like this because they miss a
part of themselves.
I instantly thought
about Exile and who I was when I wrote it. I am really trying
to recreate who I was when I wrote it as the main character of the
book. But it’s an idealized version because I am not that person
anymore, and I don’t remember who that person was, not really. Like I
said, too much time. It is fun to think about it, obviously, I’m
48,000 words into thinking about it.
I wonder if there
is a pattern to it. I wonder that only because I’ve written a great
many novels and they all seem to center around two specific places
and two specific times. Am I trying to relive something? Am I lament
who I was? It’s a good question only because I’m always revisiting
characters and struggles strangely familiar.
But this is funny
when I think about it. As I said, I write in a journal, sometimes
daily and I have since June 1990. If there is anything I’ve learned,
I do not lament who I was. I am simply amazed that I really have
become everything that I wanted to be. Now, if I can kick the YouTube
addiction.