Open Wardrobes

This past month, in my goal of trying to write five rough drafts in 2010, I've been working on an idea with the working title of My Wife the Dictator about a couple that goes to visit their friend in a reclusive (and fictitious) Eastern European country ruled by a ruthless dictator, only to find that their friend's wife is the dictator. This was one of those pieces, however, that didn't end up going at all where I thought it would. I started it with the idea that it would be a comedy, but it didn't take long into the piece to realize it just wasn't very funny. At this point I'm not quite sure what exactly it is (and I could tell while writing it that it was suffering from a lack of identity). And now, having reached the end of it this evening, I'm not even sure if there's much there.

That happens sometimes. You start a piece with high hopes, but somehow the idea fails to gel. I spent awhile before starting the draft sketching out ideas for characters and all of the various motivations. It felt like there was plenty of material, but then while writing it just didn't feel very interesting. If nothing else it was an exercise and good practice, but I'm not sure that anything will ever come from it. It may end up just being one of those rough drafts that gathers dust, never to see the light of day again. Or I may come back to it with a fresh vision on where it could go. I've learned that sometimes you have to write a lot of bad stuff in order to sift through and find a few bits worth saving. Certainly in writing Illinois Jane and the Rainforest of Retribution I went through pages and pages of truly atrocious stuff before I finally figured the piece out and ended up with something I'm very proud of.

I set myself the ambitious goal of five rough drafts in order to keep myself writing, to try out different ideas, and of course just to see if I could. After all, every word we put down on paper in the end makes us better writers.