Trove

It was one of those days when the mass of clutter on my small office desk dangerously threatened the faux-Zen sensibility I ostensibly try to wedge into my life. Mail, envelopes from music review submissions, the music review submissions themselves, just all manner of crap and clutter had reduced my (ahem) workspace from two feet down to about two inches. I purged.

And then I cleaned my desk.

ba domp bomp. I'll be here all week.

As the detrital tide receded, I found a couple of 3 1/2" floppies tucked back under the monitor shelf. (If you are under the age of 18, I'll wait a moment while you Google "floppy disc" and catch up with the old timers.) One was marked "Misc." I popped it into my computer--after a moment where I lamented that I currently work on a computer that shows it age by even having a 3 1/2" drive in the first place--and took a look.

When what to my wondering eyes should appear but a handful of fiction pieces I thought had been lost to the ages. Or at least to moving three times in five and a half years. Here was a horror story that has always been in my head, written right to the point where it kicks into high gear; here were 80-plus pages of a fantasy novel (naturally the first of a trilogy, right?) from the late 90s or very early 00s, I don't recall which; and here, perhaps best of all, were nearly 50 pages of the novel, written in the early 00s, based on the radio soap opera parody I'd written in the late 80s--the novel I have always wanted to get back to and actually began re-writing a few months ago. (Naturally, I haven't gotten far...)

It wasn't just finding the manuscripts that mattered, though. It was that when I read them, I was honestly struck by the language. This is going to come off as egotistical but...there's some good stuff in there. Sharp, descriptive, compelling, funny where it's supposed to be. I expected to read some of it and wince or slap myself with an occasional "Oh, John, what were you thinking?" Even though much of it comes from less than a decade ago, I had convinced myself that one of the reasons I had done so well with plays was that I wasn't all that great with descriptive writing--that dialogue was my forte. I have also long told myself that the odds are that I don't have a novel-length idea in me. Believe me, I've tried. I've tried since I was in my teens. Thirty years of NOT doing something can go a long way toward convincing you that you can't. Reading some of this, however... I daresay there's a slight chance I may have been mistaken.

Is it brilliance? Of course not. Everything's been held in stasis in an early, semi-completed/barely started state. If you write and you convince yourself that whatever drips out of the pen on the first pass is stunning, then you'll never get anywhere as a writer. (This applies to the next two, three, six, twelve passes, whatever it takes until you actually get it right.) Is it, on the other hand, a helluva start? Could be, should I choose to use any of it. What I found on this disc is a nudge. I have been locked in a state of I have nothing to say for a few years now. And while I still may not have anything to say--or nothing new, anyway--I have things I can knock around now. Things I believed in for a while, and could believe in again. Or at least use to whack some rust off the writing gates and see what happens when they creak open.

There is an essay in Ray Bradbury's excellent collection, Zen in the Art of Writing, where he talks about keeping a file-card box with index cards in it, each one bearing an idea. Sometimes it's a word, a phrase, a sentence. I recall him pointing out, for example, "the toy box at the top of the stairs." The ideas go into the box when they don't seem to be going anywhere, writing-wise. Then, when Bradbury is stuck, he can open this box, draw a card and maybe find inspiration. And here's the thing: the idea that went in the box is not necessarily the idea that comes out. The kernel, the seed that was planted there has the potential to sprout into something new and entirely unrelated. Or maybe it does reawaken the original idea, but it gets considered with fresh eyes and mind.

So what I found the other day was not a floppy disc, really. It was my 3 1/2" Bradbury box. It was a little box I'd tucked away, layered with possibility.

Let's see where it goes.


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