This morning, Facebook memories felt moved to remind me three years ago today I printed off 360+ pages of A4 paper containing a tome I penned in spring 2010. Not the most ecologically friendly of undertakings on my part, however, at that time hubris fed a need to possess paper copies of yours truly’s art.
These words, quilled upon chaste pages, portraying a fictional tale of an emotional support organisation (based on the Samaritans). A piece of work incorporating an amalgam of light-hearted prose along with deeply dark episodes. Among them, anxious callers seeking a friendly voice when placed in mental solitary confinement by their capricious emotions.
Through manipulation of the book’s characters, this literary topic gave me the opportunity to relay a host of emotions and styles. From the whimsical, such as a man ringing to ask if the group could help him locate his missing red socks, to the utter despair suffered by those unable to purge their demons.
It’s a piece of work that requires a fairly significant re-write before I’d let Richard & Judy read it. However, I feel there’s enough decent ideas within those 360+ pages to warrant me persevering with the project. I can’t help but feel intrigued to witness what a good edit of the tale could bestow to it’s reader.
It’s ages since I read any of this work of fiction, so am unable to recall great swathes of my lexilogical outpourings. However, once re-acquainted with the characters, hopefully I can transform the tome into a worthwhile piece of work.
One fictional element I do recollect about the tome is one of the emotional support team’s members lost his wife from cancer in her 40’s. Bearing in mind this was written six to nine months prior to my own wife being diagnosed with the same illness there’s a certain poignancy surrounding those related chapters.
A journey, at the time, I was painting the scene with no experience of living with this odious disease. Little knowing, when penning this section, that within months I’d be experiencing the very same rollercoaster as the fictional character, caring for a wife in the exact scenario of coping with incurable illness.
Within the chapter of his wife’s funeral, I wrote a poem that the character started to relay during his eulogy, but was unable to finish after becoming overcome with emotion. A scene I found so powerful it brought a lump to my own throat while typing it on my laptop.
In the above paragraph, I was going to pen ‘An emotive scene so powerful it brought a lump to the throat of the Word document upon which I transcribed my words‘. However, that would’ve been a ridiculous notion…….. After all, Word documents are notoriously black-hearted souls who’d never exhibit their emotions!
I did start re-writing this work, with a working title of BEST (Birtdale Emotional Support Team) earlier this year. However, after revamping the first twelve pages I stopped, returning to spending creative time journaling my daily thoughts into a blog format.
At some point, I owe it to myself not to waste the work that took scores of hours to create, revamping the tome into literature worthy of a read. Keeping the good stuff and purging that less fit for purpose.
On completion, will I vain gloriously print off the hundreds of pages of overhauled literature to store in folder, as I did with the original?…… You bet your ass I will!
