Melinda R. Smith

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I may have stumbled—I may have stumbled on something, today I will see if that is true or not. I do not think it is wise, I have never thought it wise to reveal the process of creation before the thing is fully realized. As I have put it before, a thing cannot be known until it is known. That is not how I've put it in the past, I cannot remember how I once phrased it, although I've repeated the phrase so many times, the first time I wrote what I cannot at present remember was when I was living in Topanga Canyon after first moving to Los Angeles and I wrote a book, it was a novel that resembled a play and was the thing I wrote that made me realize that I was better suited to writing plays than novels, I did not like writing novels, I do not like details, I am not a detailed woman!, this novel was called "Will Trees Grow Out of My Mouth if I Am Good?" and it consisted mostly of dialogue, and it was in this novel where I said something about something having diminished capacity to withstand I guess something like scrutiny...I don't know! A thing needs to be careful not to reveal itself—no! A thing has no choice, it is the maker of that thing who must take care when the thing she is making is still unfinished, she must be very careful not to reveal it to the world, because...because an unfinished thing does not have the strength to withstand...something. I was excited, I thought I had it. My mind does not work as well as it used to. There is a lot to tell you! There is very much and very much to tell you, but I cannot tell you anything about what I hope to achieve today in my work, for that would be putting my potential achievement at great risk. I worry. I feel that even saying that has put it at risk, that this words business seeks too soon to encapsulate what is far too weak to withstand encapsulation, what will be crushed to fine dust in the act of it, in the act of trying to encapsulate what is as yet very weak! There will be pictures, at some point, I am sure, but I do not know how to append them yet. If you have made it this far through this ragged post, with its ragged syntax, you are stalwart and I like you. You will need to be, I must tell you that now, I must give you that information. You will need to be stalwart, for this is how it will be.