I fell off the horse in 2014. The writing horse – a
metaphorical horse, not a literal one. I set my goals to write a certain volume
of words and a certain number of stories, and fell short in each case.
I suppose I shouldn’t kick myself too hard – I did write one
more story than last year, and we should always try to see the silver lining in
things. But the second half of the year I almost completely FELL off of the
HABIT of writing, and that’s a hard thing to get back onto.
Getting back on the horse,
or on the bicycle: these are metaphors for the times when you experience
the pain of falling on your butt (another metaphor – my pain is embarrassment
at failure), and it’s time to stop thinking about the pain and get right back
on whichever mode of transportation it was that threw you off.
Of course, when we’re talking about transportation, then that
implies a destination. And (at least in my case) that is almost always
undiscovered country. No, not THE undiscovered country – I’m not dying, it’s
just that, the way my writing happens, I almost never know where it’s going to
end up.
The horse metaphor is probably a better one for me – you can
imagine a wild horse just deciding to take you where it wants, possibly
throwing you off along the way, but probably not a bicycle. Of course, I don’t
have to IMAGINE it – I once had a bicycle throw me off, run over me, and keep
going down the hill until I caught up to it and put a stop to its foolishness.
I’m not sure where it thought it was going…
The fear of the unknown can be stifling, can keep you from
taking that step into a darkened room (I seem to have whole mansions of those
in my mind), to see what’s waiting for you. That’s the fun part for me, though
– finding out what the story is and where that wild horse is going to take me.
The scary part is the not knowing whether I’m up to staying in the saddle and
finishing the ride.
“It’s not how you start, it’s how you finish” is true enough
in just about everything. As long as you finish, does the start really matter.
AND as long as you DO start, so it’s time to get back on. I don’t know where
I’m going this time, but wherever it is, it’s better than going nowhere.
Just
saying…
<<<>>>
William Mangieri’s writing (including his
latest ePublication “The Final Ending?”) can be found in many places, such as:
- His Amazon Author page: http://www.amazon.com/-/e/B008O8CBDY
- Barnes & Noble: http://www.barnesandnoble.com/s/william-mangieri?store=book&keyword=william+mangieri
- Smashwords: https://www.smashwords.com/profile/view/NoTimeToThink
- Createspace: https://www.createspace.com/pub/simplesitesearch.search.do?sitesearch_query=william+mangieri&sitesearch_type=STORE
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