I don’t write to be famous, I don’t write to be known, I write because I am and I want to be read. How sad to fill a room with paintings no one sees or play music no one hears. Writing is talking without sound, singing without score and dancing without movement and yet, it is all of them. It is a solitary art conjured from thought and expressed by the need to communicate.

HEAD SLAPS, SPEED BUMPS and LIGHTBULBS, one woman's WTF, oops and ah-ha moments of life.

They were published once, and as every writer knows, once is not enough.




Thursday, September 28, 2017

Full speed ahead to an abrupt stop


Hear that sound?

It’s screeching wheels on pavement struggling to stop before a collision. That’s me coming dangerously close to a full on crash. My story, my BIG story has me teetering on the edge of lawyer vs. lawyer, time vs. deadline, memory vs. does anybody really care?


Do I use real names?
Do I speculate without proof?
Do I expand and interview and back up sources?
Do I delve?
And then what?

Do I throw out a short 2500 words as bait?
And if I do, where do I cast my line?
NYT, Huff Post, The Atlantic, The New Yorker, it certainly is (human interest) and nationally interesting but…I'm not a staff writer.
Hartford Courant, The Day, The New Haven Register?
Do I stay local?
Do I stay home?
Do I keep it here only?

How deep do I want to go, do I want to relive it?
My head is spinning.
What to do, what to do.

With what’s going on in the world and in this nation am I so naïve as to believe what happened to us is relevant?
It's (just) a story. It's (just) about an out of the blue,  magical rescue involving a company too big to fail... until it did. It's about the dream we all have when we put a dollar down to buy a lottery ticket.
Did our dollar exceed the reward or were we lucky. Luck had everything and nothing to do with it.

What route should I take and where do I park?

Have you ever stopped your journey before you had a destination?

7 comments:

  1. I am no help at all in finding an answer to your questions, 2Ns, but I would think the best place to look for that elusive "right answer' is actually in you. What do you want to write? What is the story you want to tell? Forget everything else and focus on those two questions. Then no matter how big or small or difficult the task you will be ready to face it.

    But don't take too long to work it out - I want to read =)

    I'm not sure I've stopped the journey before I've had the destination, but I've paused the journey when I haven't known the destination!

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    1. AJ, I'm just not sure. But to add to the decision there's a timeframe-deadline I do not want to miss.
      Why do we do this, why do we put ourselves in corners?

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  2. I love your writing! You are wonderful. Happy Birthday, dear Carolynn! <3

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  3. Is this the edited project from a few weeks back?

    Either way, I remember you talking about this before. What was it that made you stop from telling it then? Is it these same questions? Let me ask this...does this company matter today? You mentioned it failed. Did it matter when it did, and does it matter today?

    Maybe it's not about that anyway. Maybe it's about the story of what happened, how it happened, and how it affected you/your family. I recall you saying you had to change your phone numbers, etc. Maybe it's more about that, the fear, the angst, the "what's gonna happen to us now."


    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I'm going to shoot you an email in a little bit explaining.

      Delete
    2. The edited project is in the query pipeline, hopefully not to be lost down the drain.

      THIS project is something new which I have NEVER written about before because of its sensitivity within my family, town and state.

      Delete