I'm not going to claim it's the mark of a good story, but I can't seem to leave it alone. If you've been following along, you know that life circumstances have prevented me from writing, and I don't foresee any reprieve coming. I've been reworking Second Chance for a few months; transforming it from a dull novella into a full-blown novel, but a few weeks ago I learned that my two-a-week regular writing sessions would need to end. I slowly got used to that reality.
Here and there I would pull up the manuscript and add a sentence or two, but that was all the time I ever had to work on it, and it was wholly unsatisfying and kind of pitiful. There was no point to it. Yesterday, again, I opened the doc to see if I could give it just a little nudge and I found myself writing an entire scene.
I can't seem to stay away from it. Part of that is because the story has no resolution, but another part is that I just like it. It was disorienting trying to adapt my writing style from abrupt to expansive, but once I committed to it, it became easy. I felt free to add as many scenes as I could conjure, and frankly, all of them worked. I'm detailing the main character's journey, which in this case isn't a cliche, but an actual journey. She's traveled a lot, in fact.
And I'm still finding myself in the space of not understanding her or what she wants. It's not my fault; she doesn't know what she wants. In fact, she's really frustrating and her instincts are bad. She had an inkling that the record label that signed her wasn't exactly in her corner, judging by the things they put her through, but rather than have it out face to face with the guy in charge, she simply gave up and went off the grid. And now she's killed any chance she might have had to resurrect her career. She's not even clear on whether she wants a career.
I don't think it was an accident that she left her club tour and her hired musicians behind and sped off down the road, only to awaken to the reality that she only had enough gas in her tank to make it to her adopted hometown. She seems to think it happened by accident. Likely, she just wanted to feel safe and secure for the first time in months. Now she's back home, and penniless, and is in no hurry to find the money to return to Nashville, at the very least to retrieve her belongings. She tried at first. She tried hocking her boots and her guitar, but finding no takers, she let it slide. She refused a loan from her old friend and even from her mother. She doesn't want to leave Chance, yet she's still subconsciously yearning to prove herself as a singer.
There are so many details left to resolve. What about her industry mentor? She somehow needs to step back into the picture. What about facing the proverbial music with her label? What about the love interest who caused her to flee Chance in the first place? They require a meet-up at some point. And then there's the "new" love interest, who hasn't been heard from (in the story) for far too long.
I can't accomplish all those things one sentence at a time, yet I can't let the story disappear. I'll need to try the one sentence method, though. If the story had turned boring and had nowhere to go, ceasing writing would be easier.
Maybe I could shoot for 2025.
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