Starting Over
Believe it or not, there IS a difference between a transition and simply starting over. For example, if you move from one apartment to another or one house to another, that is simply a transition. You have to figure out where everything goes and maybe the cats have to find new hiding places. The same thing with a new job. New co-workers, new systems, but you were hired because of your same old skills.
A relationship is something different. To call going from one relationship to another a transition is to belittle all the parties involved. People are unique and different and deserve the respect of individual consideration.
But what about writing? When are you transitioning and when are you actually starting over? Of late, I have felt more like the latter. A few examples:
After completing a four book historical fiction series, I was diligently at work on a new series. I outlined and researched meticulously. I had already gone through three drafts after doing everything possible to make this first entry as real as possible. It was then my existing publisher indicated to the historical writers in their stable that historical fiction would be just that. There would be no reference to real people, real places, real events.
Now, I was not about to go off the deep end and rail against this “injustice”, especially after four books which they lovingly published. Nevertheless, I was not going to alter my vision nor diffuse my passion for this new series, which was designed to be closer to home than anything I had written before. Therefore, I am seeking out a new publisher for this series, or starting over.
I recently had the good fortune to attend the OWFI Writers Conference live after three years. The 2020 event was cancelled; the 2021 was totally virtual. It was like a family reunion, at times feeling as though we all picked up right where we left off, continuing a sentence or conversation from three years prior.
Yet, despite the enormous joy at seeing old friends and attending some insightful sessions, I had an underlying feeling of awkwardness, perhaps because it was the first major social event I attended since the start of the pandemic. An overwhelming feeling of starting over.
The Pre Conference workshop was a unique open mike. I chose to read a poem written nine years ago that referenced events in the Boston Poetry Scene from over twenty-five years ago. Reading it aloud made me feel as though I might have prematurely abandoned writing poetry. Additionally, I attended a session on playwriting by Frank Steele, a talented writer and old friend. Along with a second place finish in the play/script category of the OWFI Writing Contest, I had to remind myself I majored in screenwriting and had a minor background in theater in high school and college.
I have not lost the intense compulsion to write. I don’t think I ever could. But the past two years have been largely about surviving a world of health uncertainties and deep divisions. And what it might take to get back moving forward on solid ground, at least in a literary sense, is slamming on the brakes and take a good look at my surroundings.
To move headlong into the same genre or even the same discipline might be setting me up for malaise and boredom. As I grow older and closer to retirement, I need to maintain an unrelenting interest in all that I do at a keyboard. I need to keep a challenge before me to work through, around, or over. I need to know that I am capable of great creative things from now until the very end.
That might mean needing to start over.
