The Willingness to Let Go
For the past few months I’ve been working actively on a story I started more than three years ago. Yes, three years. I haven’t been working on it three years straight though. It’s taken many hiatuses (hiati?), left in a folder untouched for several months at a time, but the story has never fully left my memory. It’s crossed my consciousness frequently, especially in the summer, perhaps since that’s when it’s set.
I pulled it out at the beginning of the just-passed summer and over the last few months rather gave it an overhaul. Since then, I’ve been ready to consider it finished minus about the last three or four paragraphs. I’ve reworked them over and over, and it hasn’t yet seemed to fit.
What seems funny to me about that is that the last line of the story was written about three years ago. It was one of the first things to emerge after the basic shape of the story took place. So I’ve been working with these final paragraphs preceding it for several weeks now. Yes, I have spent hours at a time working on three, four, sometimes five paragraphs. No, they are not done. I have seriously found this confounding.
Finally I started wondering if maybe the story just wanted a different ending now. It did change substantially. The ending still seemed to fit to me, but maybe I need to let go of that last line that’s closed the story for so long and give it some space to do what it wants. Maybe it will end up wanting that line to end it anyway, but perhaps I have to let go of it first and let it decide, not me.
As that occurred to me I was reminded of something A. H. Almaas said: “[T]he most elementary requirement for growth is the willingness to let go of what you believe will make you happy.” (Diamond Heart Book One p. 153.) The idea of such a letting go of course makes no sense to the ego. Which, generally speaking, is another way of saying it’s incredibly hard to do.
So hey, since it’s something I’ve seemed to like to do here, I’ll talk about sex for a moment. To put this in the context of sex, it would be like believing we want a certain exact sequence of sexual activity to make us satisfied. That may work, but at any given moment there may be something else too that has not even occurred to us, that we don’t even know to conceptualize or plan. If we approached sex every time with a fixed idea of what we were looking for that would satisfy us, does it not seem such would limit sexual interaction, experience, possibility? Yet this is how the ego sees life, because it doesn’t know any better, and often times we don’t even recognize it because it feels so “natural” and familiar to us.
So seeing the need or at least possibility of letting go of this final line and allowing space for whatever else may be there to emerge has reminded me of a much broader offering. I don’t really know what any of this means right now, which actually seems to fit the theme of this post somewhat. It’s just what seems to be here, and seeking and articulating a meaning for it doesn’t right now feel compelling to me. Perhaps it is an invitation to openness, and I appreciate this story leading me there.
I now plan to go attend to it for the first time sans previous final line and see what comes.
Love,
Emerald
-Clare Dacey “Ordinary Beauty”
I wrote a story, where the first line was the inspiration. That first line exploded into the tale.
I thought that line was quite clever and tied the whole thing together.
I submitted the story, the editor came back and said “I like the story and want to include it, but I’m having trouble with the first few paragraphs. I reworked them (leaving line 1 in tact,) and the editor came back, “I’m still not getting the opening line.”
Though the opening line inspired the story, and as attached as I had become to it, I realized it was not essential, and could even be a distraction.
I said “go ahead and cut the opening line.”
And the story was accepted.
The first line was essential; the story wouldn’t have happened without it. But it was not essential to the final story.
It outlived its usefulness.
Most of the things I write build off of once sentence, and like you, and Craig, I tend to cling to it. I love that sentence, it was my adoration of that sentence that inspired the rest of the story after all!!
But it is definitely hard to let it go.
I can’t wait to hear how the rework went.
I suppose I have several stories (don’t we all?) that require attention – a little or perhaps a lot of tweaking is in order before the little darlings are pushed out into the world to find new homes with editors/publishers.
I usually start with a mere idea of something, not a specific line, like you did in this case. However, after saying that, I think it’s the same thing, really. We should be growing as people, hence writers, and yes, sometimes those first lines, or thoughts written years ago might not fit like they used to. And you know what? That’s a beautiful thing.
Good luck with this, Em. Please keep us posted where your little darling finally ends up, okay?
p.s. thank you for yet another inspirational post here. :-)
Sorry I took so long to say thanks here, guys. (Spacey!) Thank you for coming by and for commenting.
And Craig, I really liked your story (no pun intended) about the opening line. “Outlived its usefulness”…beautiful. Thank you.
Hugs and appreciation,
Em
Beautiful post.
Thank you A. Hugs.