“It is overcast in Morquesla today.”
When I pulled the Rubbermaid bins out to take a look at my old writing from high school. I was disappointed to discover that much of it is actually missing. For sure all the printed drafts are there, and several of the disks I saved stuff on are present. But only about a half dozen of the notebooks remain and parts of one sketchbook. Three folders and one giant three-ring binder of loose papers. Much of the bulk of the two bins I thought was entirely Morquesla, turned out to include other works I thought I’d lost.
Short stories, a few note pads and the first draft of a completely different book I’d given up on and didn’t remember keeping among other things.
I realized as I was digging through it that I must have whittled much of it away during moves, packing and storage, cleaning and divorce. Perhaps a third is lost to who knows where. And when I started to wonder where the stack of journals were – I remembered – when I was sorting through a box in 2000, I found them and read maybe the first three pages of one and was so ashamed I tossed the whole set.
I’d forgotten about that, until I went looking for them. All this time I thought I still had them.
Still, there was plenty to make me shake my head and moan and want to hide my face. It is obviously the writing of a teenager.
The thing I’m most disappointed about is the set of journals. I’d written maybe five or six day to day accounts of my time in Morquesla.
Each journal entry began with an accounting of the weather that was reflective of my current mood.
“It is a rainy day in Morquesla today.” “It is a beautiful day in Morquesla today”
And then I’d begin with the accounting of the goings on of Court or the gossip from the Mermaids or the latest news from the Borderlands.
I’m really mad at myself that I gave those up – and I remember exactly what it was.
I found them when I was boxing stuff to move into the house we’d just bought in Battle Ground. It was my first real house, my first permanent residence. Something that I could make a future in. I remember being so excited because I was going to have a writing and art studio finally that would have roots – a cave – a sanctuary where I could let my imagination out of my body to run free in the 7 acres of woods we’d just purchased.
I’d always wanted a quiet place in the woods. Someplace where I could talk to fairies and not be interrupted by telephones or nosey neighbors. It felt like I was finally going to be able to focus – and write.
I’d already packed the kitchen and the bedroom and when I got to my writing and art supplies – I wasn’t sure where to start. So I began going through everything to see if it even needed to be moved.
The box of journals from Morquesla stuck out like blister from another age. I hadn’t been to Morquesla in a couple of years. By then I’d put away the idea of ever finishing the novel because I knew I’d never try to sell it. But it seemed so long ago…
I was 22 when I looked at the stack of journals and felt like I was a woman and these things were written by a child. I was embarrassed and didn’t want anyone to know I’d written them – didn’t want them tied to me in any way. I knew that as a writer you should never EVER throw stuff away. But I couldn’t even finish reading the first journal entry. It was that bad in my mind, nearly ten years ago.
So I threw them away and decided to begin fresh at my new house. A new creative space with the voice of a woman and not a child.
Now, I’m a couple weeks away from 32. Ten years since I was so ashamed of my writing that I threw it in the dumpster. Ten years later I’m ashamed that I was so ashamed.
Alas, perhaps I just need shame to keep me company.
The point is, I blocked it out. Only remembering when I went looking for them and couldn’t find them anywhere. I had to really think back on all my moved and try to remember the stack of notebooks and where I might have left them. Which city. Which house. Which year.
The thing a writer is never supposed to do. And I knew it. And know I actually know why.
Those jottings from 17 years ago are hard on the eye. They make me cringe for sure. But they are a window to a place that I no longer visit. Those perspectives can be dug out of my memory – but not easily and not with the grace of having them already written down.
And as hard are they are to read for the awkwardness and how clumsy they are – from what I have left I am also still entertained. I still laugh. I still got teary. I was amazed at a few images that I didn’t think the 15 year old me would have had the smarts to write – and then I wonder where those smarts went off to.
But I am, for the most part, surprised. How did I do that? How did I chart so much into a whole world.
I failed Drivers Ed and US History – but I designed a language and wrote hundreds of pages of story. How the hell does that even happen?
The point of all this reminiscing, was to jog my memory. To push my muscles and try to regain at least a fraction of the limberness from the days when world building was like breathing. It happened when I wasn’t thinking about it – maybe that’s how I failed Driver’s Ed.
World building felt like a second life, and while I’m not trying to get to a second daily schedule – I am trying to recall the ease with which I could see everything that everyone else did not.
I think it’s helping. So far it has helped me to remember that I’m still learning. I am not a perfect storyteller and it wouldn’t be any fun if I were. I’m remembering that I need to process more information about my characters, pay closer attention to the nitty-gritty details of their surroundings and not to dismiss the parts that feel awkward – keep working the clunky until it has grace.
So with all that I give you a few scans of notebooks that haven’t seen daylight in far too long.
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