Death of a Tree Climber

My explanation for prematurely abandoning this piece.

I've been trying to see how long the streak could last, you know, until I had to give a difficult blog. I got on longer than I thought I would, to be honest. Things got slow, I got bored, I wrote decidedly neutral things mostly, things got slower, I got boreder, I got too bored to write anything at all. But that dismal subject isn't for tonight.

My writing is, though. For months, I've been nibbling away at this epic transcendental novella in my head. I thought it would be the one, the work that finally defeats my contempt for my own writing and gets finished. Granted, the last attempt only got stopped because of a freak coincidence to its subject matter (VA Tech, basically) but I really think it's quite irrelevant.

Naw, the reason my story can't go on is because I made the mistake on relying on my memories. By all means, they're awesome memories for an incredible story, a beautiful character sketch, a mysterious conflict, an unlikely romance, a surprise ending. But it all depends on me resolving memories that haven't finished yet, and without giving them a fair chance to do so. It seems my own honesty's tricked me into doubling back on myself. Really. I haven't even tried to change some of the names. It's obvious who's me, Sammy, Gene, etc. It's about 50% pure summary of real events in my life. But I just can't keep going and still be able to honor my friendships, which is what this book was about in the beginning.

It's also the matter of what I'm doing to myself. I overestimated my ability to handle these memories. The wrong ones are coming back, and every sign is telling me that more will arrive if I keep pushing ahead. And personally, I prefer they come back with Sammy, not before him.

In any case, I've still got loads of other ideas in my book book. Next for me, I think, is going back to historical fiction where I belong. Hopefully I'll still be able to touch some of the same themes, use some of the story plots from the cancelled book. And I'm also going to post everything I have, uneditted of the first book. My inrevised first act of the novella. I've written a chapter six, but it's awfulness was what realized I need to stop, so it's not included. And finally, I've thought of a name that truly suits everything the story was supposed to be about. It's called "The Tree Climber". Read if you like.

-Andrew