Those who do not know, people who do not understand what it means to
live in the past, must live in their own little world, and have surely never
lived in the present. Day to day, the only thing that really separates us
from last week is the setting of the sun so many times that we can refer
to it as the past, and that which separates us from the future is the sunrise
which we have yet to see.
Thirty-some years ago, I tried my hand at writing a novel. I gave all of
my friends fake names and embellished their characters; some became
gods among their mortal companions, and I placed them all into a setting
somewhat removed from their usual environment and circumstance. It
was only meant to be a test of the waters, but got completely out of hand.
What was meant to satisfy my yearning for a tale that I had yet to read
and digest, turned into an obsession that I could not put down. In fact,
after having a good start of it, it became the most important thing to me,
and I took it with me everywhere, and through everything. It went with
me from one of house to another, from a husband to a lover, and although
time did not stand still for the story, the story endured for decades.
Twenty years, from hesitant start to frustrated finish, as it threatened to
consume my life, I laboured over each line and chapter. And then, with
encouragement borne of my friends who had found it irresistible and
delectable, I braved that path a bit too far, and actually sent out query
letters to agents near and far. And as is usual, after so many rejections,
I locked it away in the Dungeon, supposedly never to see the light of day.
Another would-be author among all of the would-be authors of the world.
I was in good company, and ever after, when asked if I had ever written
anything, I could say, with some satisfaction, that I had written a book
once, but nobody dared to publish it. And to all the raised eyebrows, I
just smiled, until one day, someone asked me why. After all the usual
answers of ‘well, it’s not mainstream subject matter,’ and ‘it’s too long,’
and ‘I never got it edited, and it really needs editing, bad,’ that someone
said, ‘what are you waiting for? To die, and leave it in your estate for
your relatives to make money? Bring it to me, I’ll edit it.’
!!!! I’m scared. I’m nervous. I’m hopeful.
Thirty years ago, I started out with pen and paper, and all of the books I
could find on ‘how to write the next best seller’ and ‘the elements of a
story’ and ‘characters and scenery’ and so on. And after tormenting
myself over all the details and lessons of writing, I decided to just write
and tell a story that would be of interest, and worry about the proper
technicalities, later. After hundreds of pages of long-hand scribbles and
scratches, I was able to afford a cheap computer. Back then, operating
with a cheap program in DOS, you saved your files to 5.25 disc, and
while it served me well, it was far from ideal. And then, one fateful day,
I went to the computer and turned it on, and the screen flashed once,
then nothing. I had a virus. The computer was locked up, and I was
stopped dead in my tracks… except that it was all still hand written on
paper. And as the computer store worked on my computer, I continued
to write.
With a thoroughly cleaned computer, I started over, re-entering my story,
and printing it out on a newly found printer. With another lover gone,
and my soul-mate finally found, my tale became a novel of great length
in another dwelling in another town. Over nine hundred pages and two
decades later, I put to rest the story of a girl and her friends in a time that
had long since been forgotten and was of no interest except for the human
interaction and the mystery the characters had endured. The endeavor I
had pursued was, at long last, accomplished.
There, the story ends, but for the fact that my book has been freed from
the Dungeon and has seen daylight, again. The first ten chapters have
been delivered to my first editor, and I wonder now if it holds interest
enough to make the next ten chapters in demand. In the meantime,
technology has grown in leaps and bounds since that first page was typed
on a keyboard and saved to 5.25 disc. My story’s first format is obsolete
and I undertook the task of re-entering it on a modern computer in MS
Word.
As I type the names I gave my friends, and put their challenges in front
of them, I am reminded of how much each one of them shaped and molded
me into the person that I am. Even now, I keep in touch with a few of them
that are still alive. My first lover has passed away, dead and buried, but not
the memory of how much he contributed to the me of today. Heroes are rare
and hard to find, and yet rarely recognize themselves as such. It almost
always takes a nobody like me to point them out to the world. While it is
difficult to point out a villain, they do exist and give purpose to those who
protect others.
We are all a product of our past, the incidents and accidents that affected us,
the friends and foes who influenced us, the people who sculpted us to their
purpose, and those we resisted for our own sake. And pressed between the
hundreds of pages of the tale I told, like flowers saved in remembrance, my
friends call out to me, and I miss them dearly, and wish that they were here
to read what I have rote.
