clues at the scene

clues at the scene

Wednesday, September 11, 2013

I Hear You Were Something ...


I heard you were something in your formative years.
-Tori Amos - "Pretty Good Year"



Jack Schaefer wrote Monte Walsh which I read over thirty years ago. I remember there is a scene in the book where an old timer watches Monte have a go at a horse. He tells Monte "I was kinda good too, oncet."  That line stuck with me.

I've been away fighting blogger and a hosting bug. I'm back. I have been writing. I'm through chapter ten on my rough draft on the way to 25 or so (I have POV sections from the co-protagonists to add in their own roughs of the story then incorporate in the real "first draft" of all the parts moving together).

I'm now officially too damn old to have any excuses. I've tried the writing when quite young - 17/18/19/20. That was back when the things I actually knew about life didn't seem to be anything at all. Then I picked it up seriously from 24 through 31, lost a family through a divorce, picked up notebooks off and on for the next decade. I got steady in the mid-40's. I got serious - writer serious again - a year ago.

There was a lot of self doubt that went away when I admitted that I had less on the clock left than I've used up. There are stories I want to tell just because I want to tell them.

I used to ask an uncle why he did something. He'd tell me he decided to do it that way and that was it.

I didn't understand that answer much when I was young. I understand it just fine now.

I hope you're writing. I hope you understand the only thing holding you back is that big ball of "can't" in one pocket and "won't" in the other.

Take off those pants. There's work to do. Get after it. Nobody can do it for you.

1 comment:

Bart Elder said...
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