Endings and Beginnings

Last year I wrote about squeezing into corners.

I talked about it as a good thing, but it was also me trying to live within a life that was happening to me.

My sister was sick, and my time and my space were compressed. I was sitting in hospitals and hospice—managing, fitting my life around appointments and meeting schedules, trying to be there for my family. 

And I squeezed my creativity into those spaces too, writing short fiction and poetry and sharing them here.

But now that I am on the other side, I am rethinking that.

Compression

When I wrote that first letter, I was sitting in Montreal at a small cafe, having a coffee at a tiny table, using my phone and portable keyboard.

I loved it.

But the compression wasn't just physical. It was stylistic too. I like the craft and art of stripped-down writing: the focus, the hard choices you need to make, the process of cutting out extra elements without taking too much.

It's why I love Hemingway's short stories, or William Carlos Williams's "The Red Wheelbarrow"—writing built with an economy of words. 

So for the past year, I tried to practice it.

Expansion

But after Judy and Mom passed away, things changed.

Some things needed doing first: the business of death itself—funerals, wills, sorting through their belongings. And then the big stuff I'd put off, like the last Counios and Gane novel, and the shed.

But once that was done, I started feeling the emptiness, and my mind kept going to my own writing.

Working on the novel felt good. I'd get 500 words one day, 1000 words another. It was nice to show up and spend a few hours writing.

It makes me want to do something on my own. Something longer than just a short story or a poem, but not a novel. After four years of working on Wolfe's Blood, I need something I can finish faster.

I've been thinking of a novella. If I write 300 words a day for 100 days, that seems reasonable. Give myself a few more weeks for edits and clean-up, and I could finish something in half a year.

Going forward

For now, I'll continue to take a break from short stories and poems on here. I'd like to give the novella at least a month and see how it goes.

Until then,
David