![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
from today's poem
Dec. 26th, 2019 08:04 pmI don't want to be looking behind me
With this sudden thought that
I might have left something there,
Dropped like breadcrumbs to find my way back.
I wish for hungry birds.
Dec. 26th, 2019
Rambling around a problem
Dec. 26th, 2019 08:33 pm I had the inspired idea to write a highly structured, non-linear short fiction without planning it out completely. Divine meddling, time travel. Yeah, not the kind of thing to pants. As I'm trying to resolve it, I am becoming more aware that I don't clearly know what the main characters "deepest wish" was.
I went into this thinking that it was a relationship thing, but then I started thinking it was more about core values. I think there are elements of wanting to know that he is doing right. Because there is an outward appearance of confidence, but that doesn't mean there isn't underlying doubt. Don't we always doubt ourselves, even when we are sure? I just can't quite pin that down.
I also believe there is a yearning for things he doesn't believe he deserves. I need a clearer focus on that. That's almost it but not quite it. And then there is the question of, why does the original timeline unravel to give him his heart's desire?
Because as it stands, the canon story is that he doesn't get to keep what he wished for, and I want to re-position the events so that the altered timeline and the rejection of the altered timeline result in the fulfillment of the real wish (not what we are told the wish was). It seems too bloodless to say that he wished for closure, and that having the wish and then letting it be undone gave him that closure. He doesn't act as though he has closure, afterward. Just before the wish, he had a situation where he was living in a false world that kept him content, and he did not wake himself up out of it. It was a sad rag of a dream, too. It seemed to show that he had small dreams, because anything bolder would be too much, more than he could merit. I can't help thinking that he would mull over that when left alone with his thoughts.
So maybe his wish is for personal enlightenment. Not only the answer to a question, but the question itself.
I think that my main problem is that I want it to make sense. Not only internally but in the larger context, and that, I don't think I can do. And I want it to read like a poem, circling back with repeating rhythms, structured with purpose.
I'm just rambling. I thought it would help sort me out, but I'm not sure it has.
I went into this thinking that it was a relationship thing, but then I started thinking it was more about core values. I think there are elements of wanting to know that he is doing right. Because there is an outward appearance of confidence, but that doesn't mean there isn't underlying doubt. Don't we always doubt ourselves, even when we are sure? I just can't quite pin that down.
I also believe there is a yearning for things he doesn't believe he deserves. I need a clearer focus on that. That's almost it but not quite it. And then there is the question of, why does the original timeline unravel to give him his heart's desire?
Because as it stands, the canon story is that he doesn't get to keep what he wished for, and I want to re-position the events so that the altered timeline and the rejection of the altered timeline result in the fulfillment of the real wish (not what we are told the wish was). It seems too bloodless to say that he wished for closure, and that having the wish and then letting it be undone gave him that closure. He doesn't act as though he has closure, afterward. Just before the wish, he had a situation where he was living in a false world that kept him content, and he did not wake himself up out of it. It was a sad rag of a dream, too. It seemed to show that he had small dreams, because anything bolder would be too much, more than he could merit. I can't help thinking that he would mull over that when left alone with his thoughts.
So maybe his wish is for personal enlightenment. Not only the answer to a question, but the question itself.
I think that my main problem is that I want it to make sense. Not only internally but in the larger context, and that, I don't think I can do. And I want it to read like a poem, circling back with repeating rhythms, structured with purpose.
I'm just rambling. I thought it would help sort me out, but I'm not sure it has.