Strangely, some stories fight me, as they don’t want to be written. I know everything that is supposed to happen, and even though the words are on paper in front of me, the stories don’t have the feeling or the vibe I am going for. The easiest would be to archive it forever and not think about it ever again, but at that point, it is too late. It is stuck in my brain, and I want it to turn into the story I envisioned. And it can take me a long time.
It has happened twice to me, once in Collection One with the story The Mirror on the Wall, and yesterday, I finished what I expected to be the final draft of another story doing the same to me; its work title is The Woman in the Tree. It fought me. Now, it is resting until I have forgotten it, and then I read it once more and hopefully approve it as the final draft; then, it will be a tense wait until my editor gives me feedback. Yes, writing a book is a long process. Even though it is Flash Fiction, it should still have all the care and attention a longer book should have.
Since the first time it happened to me, I have wondered the difference between the stories that fight me and those that fall into place easier – not in the blink of an eye but are more willing to fall into place within a thousand words. I am equally motivated to write, but it is not it. I have narrowed it down to I want too much of the story, the vision I have demands too many words to come to life, and it starts in the first few sentences in the beginning, so I am off in the wrong direction, and the problems await later.
I wrote a beautiful story that I love, and it turned out that a thousand words is not enough. It is in my archive, but I couldn’t delete it. It is stuck in both my brain and in my heart. I want to give it life; maybe I publish it here someday.
If you are wondering about the image in this post, I will tell you a secret. It has something to do with the story The Woman in the Tree. You will find out if you read Collection Two when it is published.