In regards to a story I have been trying to forget for two years…
Tonight, I realized I cannot name the main character—or his counterpart—of my first major “serious” fictional story. That makes me a bit sad, because I know at the time of writing it that I dwelled upon the name for awhile. I drew a picture of the opening dialogue’s setting, as I’ve always pictured it in my mind. And it’s always in sepia tones that I remember it; the story had sepia smeared up and down. I remember bits of the story, and the main point that came from it, and the drafts that preceded it, but I do not remember why I thought it was something much more significant than it was.
I invested meaning into the city I wrote about—New York City—even though my own view of it was idyllic and warped. I knew what everybody knew about the city; nothing more. I wrote of a place I’ve been in that city. I wrote of characters I thought I liked, though I did not want my “ideal reader” to like. I assumed the dislike of the two central characters would grow into an understanding and then the vague content and over-thought ending would redeem the thing that it was. And there was no humor—aside from sarcasm and darkly coincidental moments.
I wrote it for an ideal reader that I thought would reject any form of unpolished silliness without consideration. I felt the “coming-to-a-life-changing-realization” was the type of story I could be good at without registering how blatantly stupid the entire idea of the story sounded.
So if you read that story and wondered, “what the hell?,” I agree. I agree wholeheartedly, now that I’ve been able to get away from it for long enough, and now that I’ve been able to draw a picture of the opening dialogue’s setting. I want to rewrite the story: I am nostalgic for that time. I want to get back to thinking what I am doing will someday be relevant, even if it isn’t there quite yet.
