The entanglement of the present with the past.

I think the inherent problem is that I'm writing a story I no longer want to be writing. It's not the story I'm still interested in telling, but rather, the one I was interested in telling at seventeen. True, the themes are ones which I probably will always be preoccupied with--familial relationships; rebellion vs. convention; what it means to be an artist/how you achieve that. Responsibility, sexuality, various emotional traumas. But the plot is veering off in two different directions, I don't feel particuarly connected to any of the main characters, and Aria, the protagonist, has become some odd version of who I used to be, and who I thought I wanted to be.

And yet my fiction tutor insists it is dangerous to just drop a piece. Advice which I foresee myself ignoring. If I am not in love with my story I've already given it a death sentence.

So tomorrow will be spent perusing photographs for inspiration, and just generally writing, since I did not get around to it today, what with sleeping later than I thought I would, thanks to a rather heartbreaking middle of the night conversation with my mother, then spending three hours searching through various city centre shops for an appropriate Queer Bop costume, then finishing Mrs. Dalloway & plowing through some critical theory. Of course, after the whole search, the only thing I ended up buying in town for my costume was a tiara. I have decided to be some version of a doll, making use of a pink silk /black lace slip I own from Victoria's Secret, nylons, and heels. Hair will be in pigtails, with doll-appropriate make up. I am envisioning something along the lines of Victorian plaything meets Lolita fantasy. Though perhaps the two are not that different.

I feel like it may have been a mistake to try a longer piece right off the bat. I want to play around with different characters instead. In any case, I desperately need to redeem myself this week.