clues at the scene

clues at the scene

Thursday, October 17, 2013

Long Time Until Spring

At left, a picture by Mr. Miscellanious (sic) from wikicommons. Something that doesn't exist anymore: Tiger Stadium. Armpit of a ballpark, anyway.

I'm feeling a little like the weather in the picture though in truth there is no snow. I just feel like I'm in that almost winter where you see no one, go nowhere. You just get by hoping for a spring day.

I'm a little lonely. I'd like to have fun but I'm tapped for friends right now without getting on a plane. I also don't want to have fun because to do so means I'd slack off on the writing.

Yep, I hate it. Hate It. It's Sunday night before an English paper is due every bloody night. I'm calloused to the pain - just like you - but it sure isn't fun. Making stories from lies? That's fun. Writing them? Not so much.

Spring is coming. All that success and pride at accomplishment and acclaim and whatever else we delude ourselves into believing the writing might produce. For me, it might produce a relief from these damn stories I feel compelled to tell.

I feel compelled to write my lies for others in the same vein as a saint feels compelled to tend the poor or die for God's glory. I sure as hell don't understand it but there it is. There is some sort of compulsion and I cannot for the life of me understand it. I know it doesn't go away. I know ignoring it doesn't make me happier.

It's a lot like the late winter craziness. You shrug on the parka and head out the door without even looking at the weather because it just doesn't matter. It's March and you don't believe the warmth of the sun will ever return.

Why do we go crazy over this?  Have we been crazy all along? Have we been this crazy? This lonely?

There's nothing for it but to write something. For me tonight, I'm going to re-write something. I have the whole story in front of me and I'm going to write it again, slowly, all the way through. I've got a few notes of things I want to say I didn't get in the first draft. I've got some hope that I'll stumble on things to say better than those I've thought of already.

I'm going to re-write something. You should, too.




2 comments:

Elizabeth Spann Craig said...

Well put! Of course, down here in the South it's more like the summer that won't end, although I understand we're supposed to have a cold winter this year.

I do enjoy writing. Like you, there's a compulsion and a real drive there. The hardest part of writing is knowing it's never as good as it is in our head. But the rewrites sure do help.

jack welling said...

Thanks!