If only an idea was enough. Below are pictures from 2018 a year before I abandoned the novel with a working title “Poetic License.”

It was my process to make a mess to map a twelve-month timeline, four characters, and a quest toward true friendship while in a Great Lakes small town. This book also contains forty-eight original poems! (More than 30 completed.) Fortunately, I have the space to spread out. I would lay out the pieces of the novel in the basement, and stare at it. Rearrange it, stare at it some more. Jot in a legal pad. Return to the computer. Print more paper, cut it up, color code it, lay it out again (this time in the dining room), more longhand work on legal pads. Then, gather it up in folders. I worked on it for five years.

I had to shelf this project as circumstance took me away from my creative life. After 180 pages and many encouraging writing circle and beta readers, it is stuck at three-quarters done. And that’s an optimistic calculation. It may need to be leveled to ground zero, or to be told as historical fiction rather than contemporary fiction at this point, ha!

My goal is to edit the draft (I lost count as to what number draft it is). If it’s salvageable, I’ll go back to the folders which contain all these artifacts of the story I am trying to tell. Maybe my muse can dig back far enough to pull the story out. Or, maybe, I just trash the whole thing and move on.

While it was shelved, I played with more accessible shorter-form work of blogging and poetry. During the time away from this novel pursuit, my voice changed as I matured as a writer. I am entering a curating phase of my creative life. If the piece of writing doesn’t bring me joy … it’s out! I’m critically looking at each short story, poem, essay, novel in progress. I’m afraid to read the journals! Yikes! But I don’t want to leave this work undone, incomplete. My husband is under strict orders to burn it all upon my death. I do hope I figure out the ending before then!

Regardless, it’s fun to come across artifacts from my creative life. Seeing photos like this remind me how much fun it was to live with that novel in progress. I enjoyed the pursuit of that idea. I remember the characters like old friends who have drifted away. I am looking forward to revisiting them to see if they still have something to say.

Ideas are easy. It just isn’t enough. Discipline in my creative life would serve me well. Prioritizing my creative work as a soul nourishing hobby would help. Recently, I was talking to a friend who is a musician. He is good. Really good. But you probably don’t know his name. He is not alone. We are all creative beings with talent. We just need to be brave enough to own it. We owe it to the ultimate creator to develop our gifts. My friend’s band drifted apart as life has a way of filling the space, but he never stopped playing guitar and singing, albeit in his basement and kitchen.

Both of us, in midlife, are now recommitting to the follow the ideas in pursuit of greatness. He has booked some gigs with new and old bandmates. I have written new material and am seeking publication for some of my better scraps. Here’s hoping some discipline stays with me to make these ideas work.