Writing

I haven't been doing much of today's title lately. In the past couple months pretty much all that I've done involved starting another story ('cause I don't have enough partly-finished things on the go, obviously). Maybe one and a half lines of bad poetry. And of course lots of things that make me go: "Oh hey, that's a wicked idea for a story! Write it down!"

ASIDE: ["Dream Lover," the aforementioned story (from the first paragraph, remember?!), is actually turning out at least slightly better than anticipated (which isn't necessarily saying much). And, essentially, it's completed. The ideas are, that is (and of course they're written up in that nice little WordPerfect file). It's been a long time since I've actually finished something. Even something very short (which this one won't be. Not really, anyway). It'll be nice. Not the story, but that finishing something deal.

Next on the list (once all my bigger things are finished): a play about Richard Wagner. Seriously. I mean, I spent all that time reading My Life, so why not put it to good use, right? That's a lie: I bought the book and read it with the express purpose of writing about Wagner. Which might be better than just reading about him for enjoyment. And that is why I wrote thirty-five pages of notes about this book in my little coil-bound notebook.] END ASIDE

I have a lot of notes for everything. An envelope that is burstingly full of little pieces of paper - receipts, pages torn out of vehicle driver's manuals (only the back pages - the "notes" pages; nothing important), little scraps torn off sheets of stuff that's already considered scrap paper, Post-It notes... you get the idea - sits on a lower shelf of my computer desk. Using my powerful gift of foresight, I've actually typed out (most of) the stuff written on these things in a WordPerfect file. But little ideas that make up about three lines of text do not a story make.

Lots of those little ideas written in little letters on little scraps do, however, when combined, tend to make up a story. Or, at least, that's what they try to do. Which brings me to my exciting news!

I worked on Jürgen today! For the first time in well over a month. Well, that's not entirely true, I suppose. But it is the first time I've added at least a thousand words to it in over a month. And the really good news? I passed fifteen thousand words tonight! It seems like a nice, simple, minor milestone. Well, for most writers, it, no doubt, is a minor milestone. For me it's large. Giant. I work at the same pace as that at which fossils turn into fuels. Jürgen, though, is probably pretty close to completion. Not in any written state. But in my head. Pretty much everything's there. It just needs to be excavated. And all the big bits need little bits to connect them. It's mostly exciting. For me, anyway. Frighteningly, I think that it wants to be massive. Probably(/hopefully) not Joseph and His Brothers massive (bless your heart, Mr. Mann) or even Infinite Jest massive ('cause I don't have any chewing tobacco), but massive enough. I'd like to finish it some day. If only so I can say that I've finished something that big.