Stories need a roof over their heads too
Writing has its fair share of difficulties, like any other occupation out there. It’s an exercise of will first, patience second. Imagination is the necessary foundation of your work, yet imagination on its own won’t carry you through if you lack the discipline to hammer your text into shape. One of the trickiest ingredients of discipline, at least related to writing, is learning to let go.
Standing in a battle line, crammed tight like salted cod in a barrel, you see your whole world through a new pair of eyes.
My name is Joe. I’ve the most important job in the world. I polish the Button. The big fat round one says ‘Don’t Press the Button’ above it, in brass lettering. It’s really the only button in the room, you can’t not see it. It’s red. The Button’s the first thing I see when I wake up in the morning and the last when I lay down on my cot.
Backtracking to the reason I started writing, I inadvertently dig up a painful piece of memory.
It was three years ago, my dad had been ill for a while, his condition seemingly not changing by much. He was soldiering stoically on. We all sort of believed things would work out all right.
I was dreaming again. An uncomfortable dream, yes. The kind where you want to shuffle your feet, only it feels like they’re leaden. You try to speak, but someone has sewn your mouth shut with invisible thread. I hate dreams like this. They turn me into a simple passenger.
Ah, but you will likely want to know what it was about.