The current story--which is titled "Gravel Chords" mostly because that's the temporary title that's stuck for the longest time--is finally under control. I think.
It's a difficult story. It's been difficult writing it, and revising it, and editing it, and comprehending it, and figuring out what the story is meant to be. Hopefully none of that shows through in the final draft (which I haven't arrived at yet). Hopefully, the final draft just reads well, and talks well with readers. Well, talks well first with journal and lit-mag editors, then goes on to find some good conversation with readers afterwards. I've lost absolutely all sense of perspective on it, so I don't know whether it will--or can--achieve that, but we'll see when I start sending it out places. Probably in a week or so. Ok, well, I'll send it out places in a week or so, and then we'll see--one to six months after I send it out.
I have reservations about sending it out. But I need to reach some kind of closure with it, and throwing it out there for editors to reject seems like a good way to do that. I have a weird, tiring relationship with this story, one that's been developing over the last two to three weeks. I like to think that my next story will be the literary equivalent of a pop song--quick and easy and like candy--but then I remember that's how this story started, before it grew out of all proportions. This story started out as little more than a goof and a riff, and it went on to be a heady head-trip into all sorts of unusual places. For me, writing it, at least. Whether the contents of the story reflect that, I'm not so sure.
I'm on a rough pace to complete a book's worth of short stories this year. I've fallen into a coincidentally-enough story-a-month rhythm and now that I'm on that rhythm I figure I might as well stick with it. I'm not in the mental space right now to tackle a new novel, and I still want to focus on writing short stories so I can have more material to submit to lit-mags in the hopes of getting published there so my lit-agent cover & query letters read like they've been written by someone who might actually be able to sell some books down the line, so this plan seems pretty acceptable. It should keep me focused on the work at hand, while reminding me that any one project is not the end of the world, and shouldn't exact all of my attention forever (as I was growing afraid the current story would do).
The January story ("Blasted") was a mere 3,000 words in its final draft, which was a shaved-down nugget's worth of maybe 4,000 words worth of story; the February story ("We Were Calm") clocked in at 3,750 after a maybe 5,000 word high. This story--the March story, and I use the month only for classification purposes, not to suggest agendas within each story that aren't present--is now sitting pretty at about 6,200 words...after ballooning out to 9,000 words at its high-tide point. The story should never have reached even 6,000 words, what with my hopes to keep the drafts nice and short each time, but. Something happened. Things got more complex than I'd intended for them to be. When an author says a story or a novel is meant to explore some ideas, I'm growing convinced that it's not the novel or story they're talking about; rather, it's the drafting process behind it, where the exploring happens. Not that stories and novels are all destination and no travelling, but. Maybe the completed pieces are more like signposts?
Either way, this thought comes straight out of my experience with the process of making this story into a final draft. The Janurary and Februrary stories, I had pretty good ideas for each of them, where exactly they were going. Not pretty good ideas--I knew. Each story was meant to reach certain points, plot points or otherwise, and writing the stories was the process of reaching those points. This story--well, first:
Thinking far ahead. Like, way down the line here. These stories I'm writing this year (plus the story I wrote a few years back) are intended to be part of a close-knit yet loosely-directed collection. Each successive story draws characters or events from the story before it and expands on them, or comments on them, or just kind of loosely brushes up against them before going in their own special directions. At least, this is how I conceive of things panning out. It's a convenient way for me to have some spring-board into the next story when I'm finishing work on the previous story--look at the previous story, find something in there that a new story could launch from, shake, stir, do with it as you please. I don't want the "final" collection to be too gimmicky--I'm rejecting the idea of circling back to the first story in the last story or anything too potentially hokey like that. I'm also not too concerned with any sort of over-lying all-encompassing direction or theme or anything, either. Reading the final collection of stories should be an interesting experience, but it shouldn't feel too forced or directed. They're still short stories, and they're still stand-alone pieces; but if you bring them together, they should generate...something else, for the reader. Something additional. That said, I realized tonight that that might make things difficult, when trying to pitch a completed book of stories--of which many, I hope, will already be published--for publication? If, say, an editor or agent or what-have-you suggests nixing stories, or what-not? But I rush ahead of myself.
This story, back to the point, didn't have that sense of direct direction the prior two stories had. This story was more of a...here's a chance to show another side of parts of the previous story, but where it went from there, I wasn't really sure. Where it did go, I didn't see coming. The links to the previous story, which were meant to be at most tangential, became major themes and plot-points. The goof idea the story started with became more serious than I'd originally thought it would be, and hence demanded more serious attention. Where I'd thought was sex, I found love; where I'd thought was meaningless death, I found reason to stop and think. And think. And think...and in the end, after all that thinking, I still didn't know where the story went. So I had to think some more. And some more. And some more.
And maybe it's still a gimmick, but I think the story came to reflect that idea of process more than I'd meant it to. Maybe the story itself is an actual act of exploration--for both the narrator, and the reader, as well as for me, above and beyond the process of writing and drafting it in the first place. Ultimately where I was seeking definite direction, I had to acknowledge there couldn't be one yet; where I was looking for an ending, I could only find a horizon, always just a bit out of reach. The narrator had to reach that point along with me, and while it's not an easy ending, I also hope desperately it's not a cheap one.
So. Because if you've made it this far, you at least deserve some kind of firm statements to take home with you. (Though expect none from the story, if you get the chance to read it.) Am I happy with the story? Yes and no. Yes because I think it is interesting, and complex, and in places funnier than anything I've ever written and in places more thoughtful than anything I've ever written; no, because, I don't even know if I know what the story is, anymore. Will I consider re-writing or re-visiting it down the line, after a handful of rejections? Yup. Do I think it might actually have a shot at getting accepted? Maybe. And is it ultimately just a stepping stone towards something else, or is it a stepping stone worth considering? Time will tell. I suppose.
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