I guess what I have is an image looking for a story. Well, the image is really a collection of images, which could be filed under "the experience of the Plains": those long empty vistas and the way the weather takes over with nothing there to stop it.
I grew up in the Plains and then spent my college years making that seemingly endless drive in rain or snow or sleet or dark of night, so it has great resonance for me. And by now I've spent enough years away to mythologize both the good and the bad of that place. I feel like there's a really great story to be told based out of this concept of transit over the flat, open land.
But an image alone does not a story make. I've been writing sketches under this idea, but nothing holds together so far. It may be that there is no story here, but I can't seem to get away from the idea. So for good or ill, I'm assuming this means that there must be something to be written here. I just need to figure out what that is.
The experiment is to amass various sketches and approaches to this story and see what emerges. For me, I think the most important aspect of this story is to find the right way to tell it, the right style. This may be the key, or it might just be the exact fixation that's kept me from moving forward with this project. The goal is to post two (or more) writing exercises pertaining to this project a week.
Why not just keep it to myself? No good reason. I'm assuming there will come a point when I'll be ready to commit to a certain telling and so I'll have to work alone. But right now, the idea of the accountability, the imperative to produce, and the possibility of feedback that comes with a public forum has gotten me excited for what's become a stymied project. Well, not that there is any public so far. But eventually perhaps...?
While the main goal is to work on this project, I also hope to post as close to every day as I can manage. Photos, random thoughts, perhaps even guest posts (?), I want this to be a daily excuse to indulge my creative life, a life that's become kind of unfocused over the last little while.
Travel across the flat open plane is one of those elastic experiences that has both a very solitary, personal appeal, as well as a universal commonness.
ReplyDeleteIt's not surprising it would have a strong impact on your creative mind. The emptiness of a canvas or a text field perfectly reflects the artist's ideal state: present at the origin of the universe.