After months of reflection and work, I feel stymied still. The outcome from being existentially clunked down in a rather inflexible and otherwise uncomfortable sitting chair. Like many writers, I sometimes think this way: I have a hint of what I want to do or where I might want to go (with this story or along that character's path), but the roadway to realization (at a level that I can accept --which is the curse of absolute perfection) just will not light up, it will not disclose itself.
There are two short fictional stories that I long to complete. And I believe I will wrap them up soon. One has had the title "A Dark Star" for some months. When I tentatively admit to myself that yes -- it is (probably) done, I find that I cannot fully let go. Heigh ho, heigh ho, back to wordprocessing I go. Some mysterious force will often whisper to me almost inaudibly in shaded sunrises and sunsets that there is something I must have missed or managed to misstate, or have crazily mischaracterized. "A Dark Star" is one of the harshest, most emotional "made-up" pieces that I have worked on for a long time, maybe ever. Its theme of evil actively at work in apparently innocent and bucolic settings in medieval Western civilization, to the point that the sinisterness begins acting in a persecutorial way to get that which craves. Personally (and I am biased, biased, biased here) I think the Dark Star tale holds a thought-provoking and subversive set of symbols and metaphors layered into its texts, that will aide readers toward the ghastly slice of real life about which I decided to write. But will it all ever suitably conjoin?
The second story has long held a working title "Leaving Normal." I first thought of it about Fall 1972 or '73. Its theme centers on the struggle to do what is right, despite one's predilections, dark desires, relationships, cultural temptations and other uncontrollable outside forces, because every person has at least a spark -- if not a veritable blowtorch -- of conscience that favors doing 'the good.' The fictional resolution of "LN" today, in 2012, looks and sound so very different than I first thought it would during the initial drafts I penned about 40 years ago. I guess that's okay, isn't it? Well, it just is. Well, I can see different points of view on that main theme of the work. Perhaps I am geared up to wrestle into a resolution about a way to "Leave Normal" (which I definitively did flee decades ago) but only in such a way that the major point and denoument will have relevance (i.e., something to say or to caution) about the viability of life in this hardscrabble culture of the early 21st century.
Now, dude. Quit gazing @ the dark stars. Roll back into that normal pattern; make a sentence for goodness sake. This means now, jack: back to work.
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