I think I spend too much time being
haunted by conversations, mainly my responses.
What I should have said, what I meant.
Like anyone ever has a do-over.
It’s a useless occupation, the situation arose and it went the way it
went. The question was asked and
answered. The opportunity was bungled or
handled. My words were said. The mistakes were made, the impressions were
formed. It is time to move on.
However, these hauntings contain
potential for story plots. Or insanity
if I continue to overthink the incident!
I’m going to choose story plot.
Here are some steps that have worked for me in the past to move from
disturbed to inspired.
First I will make brief notes, with
dates and names of what happened. These truths
are then filed. I have found that
because I have recorded the facts of the matter, I can then move away from
further mental review. It (the
disturbance) is ‘put away.’
Sometime later, I will be ready to
create fiction around the situation. I
will give my feelings to another, or I will create another who thinks and
reacts very different than I do and let the incident or something similar happen
to them. I will stretch and exaggerate,
I will think of dire results or causes.
I will let the seed from my own world grow in a world of its own. But unlike the gardener, the seed is not
predictable. The end story may bear
little resemblance to the inciting incident.
It is true, at least sometimes, that the
writer writes towards what he knows. A
story can be part of that search. “To
really perform, you have to give yourself over to the fact that you don’t know
what you’re creating until you’re done.”
