Yes, I am late again. I am still trying to work out a schedule for these updates that I can commit to regularly. I do not expect my schedule to be too crazy for the next month or so. It certainly will not be as crazy as the last couple of weeks. So I do not have much an excuse if I get behind again.
Last Friday and Monday I spent about a combined seven hours on the road. Maybe a little more. This was great time for me to focus on this project. I do my best thinking while driving. I went through each of my ideas and mentally listed the strengths and weakness of each. I evaluated the story itself, the story structure, the uniqueness of each story, the characters, possible themes and symbolism, possible plot holes and pitfalls of each, and my ability to write each story. I broke the stories down into Acts and evaluated some of the more compelling scenes in each act. It was exactly what I needed to do to determine what story I want to write. It suuuuure was a shame I could not write any of it down! I definitely need to bring a audio recorder with me on those trips. Yesterday afternoon I went through everything again in my office and did my best to get it all written down. I had mixed success. I recalled maybe ¾ of it, maybe a little less.
After all of that I still did not have a decision. I had a top three, slightly different than my original top three, and I was still learning towards one story over the rest but I was not sure. All the work I did above actually reinforced many of my doubts. I started to see great opportunities for compelling themes and symbolism that I previously overlooked. I felt stuck again and I was a little frustrated at myself.
The solution hit me as I was driving home from work yesterday. Of course it would occur to me while driving. I realized that my perspective on this “choosing an idea” process was a little off. The question was not “which story do I want to write?” The question was “which story do I want to write first?” That little word makes all of the difference. Even though I knew I could write any of these stories later, or all of them later, that was not the way I framed the choosing process and that is certainly not how it felt. I felt as if I was giving up on the potential of these other ideas. If not chosen, they would fade away into nothing. Everything changed with the question “which story do I want to do first?” You can think of it this way. In my old mindset I was on a road trip and I could only choose one destination before returning home. In my new mindset I am on a road trip and I only need to choose what will be my first destination. A choice must still be made, but the pressures are different.
With my new perspective on the problem the answer was rather simple. I chose my idea in a matter of minutes. I still have strong feelings about my other stories and it is important to me that they do not fade away into oblivion, but I am more confident now that they will not fade away. They will remain.
Another thing I had to realize was that I was not choosing a story that was perfect. There are problems with each story and there are a couple of big ones with the story I chose. The biggest problems I see at the onset of the project involves tone, theme, and symbolism. However, discussion of those topics can wait for another day.
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