Draft...

I'm down to the last two May blogs. I have a rant in my head but I don't really want to write it out. It's tied to yesterday's blog and my status update and I just don't feel like giving it more attention. I might end up doing it anyway, because that happens sometimes. Things get lodged up in there and won't make room for anything else until they are written.

And then there are the other things. I have WIP (work in progress) folders on my desk for short stories and longer stories that have been started but never went anywhere. Those are the things that actually get edited and rewritten and worked on to get a little more polish to them. The submittables. My blog is normally the write, read, post, fix a typo when someone sends me an email pointing it out.

Usually.

But I have 9 draft posts here as well. Things that were started but not posted. Two were things I wrote and then when I read them before posting thought, "Yeah, this is too personal for even me." A few were things that were obviously just ideas and I wrote them as loose notes on the blog instead of in my little notebook like normal. One I just couldn't figure out how to do the format style I wanted to do. I still think it would be a really clever story, just beyond my and my blogs formatting abilities. And there are two that are full fledged starts to short stories. One of them I really like the beginning. I remember writing it and then sitting back and asking out loud, "And then what?" because there is a moment of SOMETHING but nothing after it. What in the world was going to happen? Where was my mind going before just stopping?

I read it again today, fixed a typo, re-saved it to drafts so now it looks like I wrote it today instead of 8 years ago. Eight years ago. I'm trying to remember where I was going with a story that I started 8 years ago.

The other fairly interesting thing is how my style has changed a bit over the years. For one these characters have names. They actually have two full names each! And another character that pops in has a name. And the people they interacted with have names! NAMES! Crazy...but even without that there is just something different in the tone and voice. I have a really strong voice when I write. Obviously in the nonfiction. When you read what I am writing you are listening to me talk. I "sound" the same on paper as I do in real life. Some people don't. They have a different speech pattern than writing style. I blend both. I use commas and periods and ellipses to try and get my pauses and stutters in on paper. It's why my grammar sucks so badly. (that's my story and I'm sticking to it) But not just in nonfiction, in fiction as well.

I have a style. You know that most of my stories are going to be a little sideways. I try not to twist every story because I want you to be surprised when it happens, but you never really trust what I'm writing to be "true" until you get to the end. I like writing things that surprise even me. The story I was reading this morning is kind of a twist at the beginning. It's a setup that you are in on from the start. Then something else happens and that's where I stopped. What was it? Was it going to be a double reverse twist? Was there a dead person just waiting to make their appearance? I don't know. Partly because it's not as strongly my voice as what I write now. It's like reading something by someone who writes sort of like me, but not exactly.

It was interesting.

And of course now I'm trying to think of where to take that story. Because I do like the beginning. It's odd, in that it's not exactly like me, but it's kind of interesting. And I think there could be a fun story waiting to finish up there. Or maybe a terrifying one. Who knows...

I am hopeful that it doesn't just sit there for 8 more years collecting virtual dust before I figure it out.

And now I only need one more blog for the month of May...whew!