Tuesday, April 27, 2010

 Pace yourself, Sandra.

Today I felt tired - not bad, just tired. Sleepy. After a stop at the body shop to set up an appointment for poor Bentley, I took a twenty-minute walk along the waterfront. Then I headed for The Vault. I've decided to haunt the place for a while, because it makes me feel like writing - and because they make an awesome soy latte.  Then I went to work, where fortunately I only had to stay awake for four hours.

Several times in the last few days, I've been moving things from purse to purse or drawer to drawer, and I've come across messily folded pieces of paper with my handwriting scrawled all over them. When I unfold them, I find that they are timed writings from months ago, things I wrote while sitting on the ferry or waiting for my latte to be served - and although I know they're drivel, I can't throw them away - because you never know. As I walked out of The Vault this afternoon, I heard snippets of two conversations, and my first impulse was to write them down. I didn't, because my notebook had fallen victim to my current need to lighten my load. Now I can  only remember one snippet: A young woman told her friend

"She said to me, I wish I could trade my legs for yours, and I said to her..."  

A man outside the door muttered something, but now I can't remember what. I was thinking that if I just wrote down every one of these snippets that I heard in the course of a day, I could probably weave an interesting narrative out of them. Weight or no weight, I really must put my notebook back in my purse - or just put a sheet or two of paper there, and replace them daily.

Meanwhile, I'm just beginning to hear little voices calling to me from inside my NaNoWriMo story. "Hey, Sandra. Remember us?  We're still here." Then the chant begins: 

"Why are we waiting? Why are we waiting?"

Sheesh. Some characters are just so impatient.

3 comments:

GingerV said...

sounds like you need a loose leaf notebook - take your snippets and glue them to regular sized paper and slip into the notebook - then you can from time to time read through the notebook, even shuffle them around to make a different sense of them.

Mary@GigglesandGuns said...

I think you may have something with putting all your snips together. lol
Admit it. You missed those little story voices but sometimes.......
Welcome back. I missed you.

Giggles and Guns

Sandra Leigh said...

GingerV: Now isn't that a sensible idea? Thank you.

Maribeth, thank you, too. I feel as if I need a refresher course in computer skills! As for the characters, yes, I did miss them.