in the storyteller's voice

if you leave something for a while, and then come back to it years later, that idea you conceived should make more sense now. that is, if it is a dream, or if it has been placed within you by a higher power. 

i put aside a novel for several years and came back to it today. my memory of it has not changed. the setting is still the same. i can still picture the main characters. but some make no sense anymore. 

when you have less noise to work through, your focus sharpens, and the writing moves to a higher level. what you thought worked before, does not work now. not because the world has changed so much. but because you have changed so much. or, at least, i have changed so much.

when writing was a passion but not a more tangible part of a successful future, the story journey was exciting just for the journey. just for the creative process. just for the "writer's high."

now, as i work toward fulfilling dreams, the finished piece is now workable, because i have an actual framework from start to finish, without sacrificing the quality of the storyteller's voice. when you start a piece with passion but without fashioning the finished product, it is a little like putting out to sea in a boat a bit too small for the bay. before you finish a third of the way, you'll be heading back to shore because you can't make it to the island without a bigger boat.

so, it is with a different mindset that i type letters to a page now than how i did ten years ago. when a recent snowstorm became a blessing, rather than an impediment, it allowed me to reconsider how i approach those longer pieces that have remained unfinished. i must, like Saul Bellow, quote "carpe diem," seize the day, and follow it wholeheartedly, rather than take a two-hour break to work on it. instead, i can take a whole day here and there, apart from the cares of this world, and tell the story, with story fresh in my mind.