old manuscripts

I was transferring files to the new computer when I ran across a treasure trove of half-completed stories, poems and essays.

My favourite? "Funeral"...the backbone for a screenplay I have worked off and on over for a few years. It's about a writer who dies and the women who show up for the reading of his will, to see if they get his works.

It was written right after a certain ex told me of a dream she had in which I was quite old and in a wheelchair, and she was pushing me around at some big event, and was very happy with her life. Two flaws with that scenario: I will never be pushed around in a wheelchair, and she skipped out on me when times were okay...would I honestly think she had the character to stick if I was old and infirm? Unlikely.

I've learned some cold womb lessons about life over the last decade, and I am grateful not to have been embittered by them.

In the story she was just one of the crowd of women who had inspired the works, and she got her share of the rewards....of course this was back, before I revised my will.

I have undone all I can. Now it is time to weave new tapestries to outshine the older ones.

One of my personal goals for next spring is to complete my screenplay for "The Prince of Love" along with the accompanying novel. It will only be the second novel I've ever finished writing, and the first to carry my name (the earlier one was a gift of a ghost writing task, which obviously was unimpressive to someone who has no grasp of what it takes to write a novel...)

I need to pamper myself later today...I am tired and drained, not irreversibly, but clearly weary. I wear my sadness as a thick cloak of kudzu on an ancient willow, dragging me down but not conquering me.

We shall see, we shall see.

I will endure until the dawn, at least. Topanga calls.