Learning To Start Again

It’s been a long time since I’ve sat down in a chair and wrote something. At least something that’s not about sports or backed up with a lot of statistics and trends. It’s not that ideas haven’t been popping up into my head. Lately the flow of ideas have been coming on stronger and stronger. I think the depressions of Covid-19 have officially hit me over the last month or two. I think whenever I have time to pause and look inward the topics and questions continue to climb on top of each other until maybe the best ideas are berried on the bottom. Since I haven’t been writing on a regular basis like I once did in years past it’s almost like I’ve forgotten how to start. The ability to start a project, finish it, and somewhere in the middle find a message or answer has always been a struggle when it comes to writing. I think it’s that way for a lot of writers though. Since I haven’t been able to start anything new I’ve been looking to the past. I’ve started several writing projects that I’ve gotten very deep into and then never finished. Or I finished the project and didn’t have the focus to go back and try to edit it or judge my own work. I tried to have friends peer review my writing but that didn’t seem to work and essentially left a finished work sitting in the figurative desk drawer.

It is amazing to me how, even though stories were never finished, those characters and their stories still live on in my brain. Do other writer’s have this as well? Or do those characters simply die off when they finish their books or series? I know personally when I really fall in love with a character in a story I might put that book down for a few months at a time because I want that character to live in their world with me for awhile longer before I know the climax and resolution is about to happen. I loved reading Roger Lancelyn Green’s version of The Adventure of Robin Hood. I knew this wasn’t going to be a story with a happy ending and was going to lead to the death of Robin Hood. So I read about 3/4ths of the book and then stopped. I let it collect dust on my night stand and every few nights I would glance at it and in my dreams I was in the forest or on some adventure with Robin Hood and his crew trying to make the world a better place. It was silly dreams and fantasy and eventually I did finish the book, but you get the point. As long as Robin Hood was still alive in the fictional world then I could still enjoy his character as if he were alive.

There’s a quote out there along the lines of “having is the death of desire.” That sometimes longing for something is almost better than actually having it. We say the love of an individual for example. We have this idea of who they are, how they’ll treat you, and we romanticize what it would be like to be with them. Then after whatever trial and tribulations you do get the relationship and love of this man or woman but it’s not quite what you expected. It might be better, it might be worse, but more than likely it’s just going to be different. You’ve built up this person of who you think they might be, that when you actually get to know the person for who they are, it never lives up to it. Sometimes creating these characters can be like that. You write the stories, you develop characteristics, and you allow the reader to make their own judgements and opinions based on their own lives. But at the end of the day as the writer you have to define certain aspects of the characters and where they end up. That’s always been a struggle for me. I want my characters still alive in my fictional world off causing mischief, breaking hearts, rebelling against the system, and all doing it in style with witty dialogue. If I end the book I put a period to their life span.

I can’t honestly say I had a point to this writing. If anything it’s just me scribbling in a notebook at a coffee shop or classroom. Except we can’t do that these days! I’d like to think that writing can be like practicing a sport. With the right muscle memory it starts to flow and becomes natural. I actually own a copy of those “642 Things to Write About.” I may use a few of those ideas to get me started. It might not be the best material, but it’ll get me started.