Muse box...
replicant_008
05-07-2007, 03:57 AM
I was searching through boxes the day before yesterday… I have 98 boxes that most of my life's possessions have been stored – waiting for the day that I move into my next residence (which is another story). Clambering over the boxes with a manifest, checking my description against each box number… Opening another box looking for one of my scuba fins and why I didn’t pack both together beggars belief… but then "nothing will be missed."
Anyhow somewhere between box #75 and #81, I came across a box of unfinished works… most stories I started on and put down, waiting for the blinding piece of inspiration, epiphany or a just a hook to join the meandering narrative together. Some of it was near- complete stories but needing that piece of rework or just Post-It notes with the bare bones of an outline or a couple of facts. There are maps, scribbled notes on the back of roadhouse checks, photos taped to A4 sheets even a couple of 3.5 inch floppy disks of documents that I never did get around to doing.
Some of them aren’t much to look at. They’d be the bargain bin runts that you’d clear out at some clearance sale – or give away with some greater work as buy one, get one free (obeying the universal law that something free is never as good as the one you actually handed the folding stuff over for). Or as Robert A Heinlein[1] (http://www.automotiveforums.com/vbulletin/showthread.php?p=4747207#_ftn1) once put it “There’s no such thing as a free lunch.”
But there’s gold in them thar hills, just needing some hard graft and some time to glean the shiny stuff…there’s a reworking of ‘Sentimental Journey’ – my trip back along the roads and memories on the way to Central Otago – intended for a magazine article that I never did get around to submitting.
Bits of a story called ‘Homecoming’ about going to the People’s Republic of China on a Cantonese speaking tour which was a little ambitious since I don’t speak or understand it very well. Stories about travels along the Great Ocean Road, Wine Tourism in the Yarra and HunterValleys…
A story called ‘How We Didn’t Actually Ski the Wrong Mountain…’ involving volcanic eruptions, a bar full of rednecks and walking through an avalanche field and an interlude about a trip to buy a bag of carrots for dinner ended up in a puddle that ending up being deep enough to swallow a SUV.
Observations of my last trip to Europe and chapter notes of a novel that hasn’t and probably will not see the light of day – mainly because I don’t know how to finish it any more and I no longer have my muse for that story - she’s long gone, went to Europe and probably grew up, forgot about me and returned after her OE[2] (http://www.automotiveforums.com/vbulletin/showthread.php?p=4747207#_ftn2) – and if I tracked here down has 2.4 children, an estate wagon or an MPV, an organic vegetable garden with fruit trees, a dog and a husband who dotes upon them.[3] (http://www.automotiveforums.com/vbulletin/showthread.php?p=4747207#_ftn3) And doesn’t resemble the person I wrote this story for.
Meanwhile, I think I’ll get around to tidying up some of the works and doing something with them. But in the meantime, I’ll slip them back in this nice tidy box and put them away for safe keeping until I have some spare moments and inspiration to complete the story.
[1] (http://www.automotiveforums.com/vbulletin/showthread.php?p=4747207#_ftnref1) Incidentally, the late Robert A Heinlein was one of my favourite writers of my early adolescent years – although the movie adaptions of his works have been crap eg Shadow Masters, Starship Troopers.
[2] (http://www.automotiveforums.com/vbulletin/showthread.php?p=4747207#_ftnref2) Overseas Experience – rite of passage of living somewhere else for most antipodeans
[3] (http://www.automotiveforums.com/vbulletin/showthread.php?p=4747207#_ftnref3) I made that up… well the bit about where my muse is now… although a large proportion of the women of past are, by all accounts, happy contented mums raising children and purely on a statistical basis – contrary to demographic trends, still married to the father of their kids
Anyhow somewhere between box #75 and #81, I came across a box of unfinished works… most stories I started on and put down, waiting for the blinding piece of inspiration, epiphany or a just a hook to join the meandering narrative together. Some of it was near- complete stories but needing that piece of rework or just Post-It notes with the bare bones of an outline or a couple of facts. There are maps, scribbled notes on the back of roadhouse checks, photos taped to A4 sheets even a couple of 3.5 inch floppy disks of documents that I never did get around to doing.
Some of them aren’t much to look at. They’d be the bargain bin runts that you’d clear out at some clearance sale – or give away with some greater work as buy one, get one free (obeying the universal law that something free is never as good as the one you actually handed the folding stuff over for). Or as Robert A Heinlein[1] (http://www.automotiveforums.com/vbulletin/showthread.php?p=4747207#_ftn1) once put it “There’s no such thing as a free lunch.”
But there’s gold in them thar hills, just needing some hard graft and some time to glean the shiny stuff…there’s a reworking of ‘Sentimental Journey’ – my trip back along the roads and memories on the way to Central Otago – intended for a magazine article that I never did get around to submitting.
Bits of a story called ‘Homecoming’ about going to the People’s Republic of China on a Cantonese speaking tour which was a little ambitious since I don’t speak or understand it very well. Stories about travels along the Great Ocean Road, Wine Tourism in the Yarra and HunterValleys…
A story called ‘How We Didn’t Actually Ski the Wrong Mountain…’ involving volcanic eruptions, a bar full of rednecks and walking through an avalanche field and an interlude about a trip to buy a bag of carrots for dinner ended up in a puddle that ending up being deep enough to swallow a SUV.
Observations of my last trip to Europe and chapter notes of a novel that hasn’t and probably will not see the light of day – mainly because I don’t know how to finish it any more and I no longer have my muse for that story - she’s long gone, went to Europe and probably grew up, forgot about me and returned after her OE[2] (http://www.automotiveforums.com/vbulletin/showthread.php?p=4747207#_ftn2) – and if I tracked here down has 2.4 children, an estate wagon or an MPV, an organic vegetable garden with fruit trees, a dog and a husband who dotes upon them.[3] (http://www.automotiveforums.com/vbulletin/showthread.php?p=4747207#_ftn3) And doesn’t resemble the person I wrote this story for.
Meanwhile, I think I’ll get around to tidying up some of the works and doing something with them. But in the meantime, I’ll slip them back in this nice tidy box and put them away for safe keeping until I have some spare moments and inspiration to complete the story.
[1] (http://www.automotiveforums.com/vbulletin/showthread.php?p=4747207#_ftnref1) Incidentally, the late Robert A Heinlein was one of my favourite writers of my early adolescent years – although the movie adaptions of his works have been crap eg Shadow Masters, Starship Troopers.
[2] (http://www.automotiveforums.com/vbulletin/showthread.php?p=4747207#_ftnref2) Overseas Experience – rite of passage of living somewhere else for most antipodeans
[3] (http://www.automotiveforums.com/vbulletin/showthread.php?p=4747207#_ftnref3) I made that up… well the bit about where my muse is now… although a large proportion of the women of past are, by all accounts, happy contented mums raising children and purely on a statistical basis – contrary to demographic trends, still married to the father of their kids
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