A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away . . . Sorry, wrong story. But this did take place a long time ago, before the age of computers, when writers used typewriters.
I was in high school when the dream of being a writer first came to me. At that time I was an avid (maybe that should be rabid?) Science Fiction reader, so of course my first novel was a science fiction epic.
Yesterday, while trying to purge the storage closet in the spare bedroom of useless junk, I came across a box with all my notes for this space opera. And I mean ALL my notes. I didn’t throw anything away because you never know what might come in handy. I spent the entire day reading some of these mostly hand-written notes. Trust me, what I read is just the tip of the iceberg.
All I can say is: Oh, my! The original idea is not too awful, but the execution leaves a lot to be desired. Some of it’s corny, some of it’s just plain bad, but it’s all pretty dated. I changed the leader’s name five times and he went from being a man to being a woman. I changed my main character’s name three times. Somewhere along the way I decided to make it into a trilogy; there’s notes and scenes that have nothing to do with the original story.
Still, after all these years, the original plot still sticks in my mind. There’s something salvageable here. Some day I’d like to organize all those notes. But today is not that day. So it’s back into the loch with this monster. Like all good monsters, your day will come. It’s only a matter of time.
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