Semi-Urban Cartography

Running, always running.

When I was in grade and middle school, the mile run test was abject torture. My feet are bad. I preferred the sit-up or stretch tests. There has never been much strength there in my ankles and flat bottomed feet, and at random times throughout my youth I could be described as quite out of shape. Mom’s cooking, you know. In those early years, I would finish the mile through a combination of walking and running, a fair amount of gasping short of breath too. In my worst years, I applied a theory of running the long ends of the gym and walking the short from the third or fourth lap. It was how I dealt with the indignity of being unable to finish the mile.

As a freshman though, I was in much better physical shape. My Nintendo phase was gone. I worked out that summer with my Dad. That year I finished the mile for the first time without walking. I remember it, 26 laps around the gym without stopping. We had to signal to a spotter in the bleachers. Coming around that last bend felt really great, even if the time of up near 8 and a half minutes was no great feat (beginning of the realization, I’ll never be “fast”).

There was a starkly different sensation in that instance of surmounting significant distance. Whereas before, I moved sluggishly toward the finish line, this time I actually finished the task as described: the “mile run”. The sense of completeness was incredible. It was only in this later scenario that I had a sense of accomplishment.

That distinction between two different mile runs came to me today as I wrote the last planned scene of “The Promise Before The Sword.” A bloated, meandering, 110 or so pages of screenplay. Sub plots scattering in all directions like a dropped handful of pencil sticks. Some never completing. Pieces of story picked up and dropped. Characters exiting stage right with no compelling reason. For the first time in my life, I could see a distinction between “Finishing” and “Writing To The End” of a work. Perhaps now is a good time to know that. It seems like a worthwhile lesson as a creative person to learn. When is this work done?

I believe in this screenplay, this story of tangled moralities and endangered innocence. There is some meat on its bones, but a skeleton is all there is right now since I’m being honest with myself. If I allow the optimism to creep in on the fringes, I can see this feature length as the “smartest” most “compelling” work I’ve ever written, still it’s not all there in its proper sequence. When I was younger, getting to the end brought with it a sense of satisfaction. No more. I’m a better, more complete writer now and I understand that writing is rewriting and that when I sit down in the right amount of time with this screenplay again, the process will allow it to continue to take form.

The end isn’t where I need to be. Rather the right, appropriate end is.

I still can’t run a mile. That freshman year’s 26 laps around the Oregon City gymnasium was a halcyon day of physicality. Wandering into the self-help or exercise psychology section of Border’s Books isn’t my idea of compelling literature, still, I can glean some wisdom from my long ago experience in tennis shoes. What stage I completed today is distinct from the stage of finishing a screenplay. I wrote my story to the end. When I sit down to it again, that will be a matter of getting it into shape.