That Time I Lost Half A Novel And A Whole Album
In highschool I decided that I was going to build a media empire. I figured having the infrastructure to produce any kind of artistic work I'd like would be a superpower. To make it happen, I needed to generate as much material as I could while maintaining a high standard of quality. At the time, that was an album's worth of music and a novel. I figured I should figure out financing myself with lower-investment projects before I tackled filmmaking.
Building this empire possessed me. The last two years of my time in highschool consisted mostly of me sitting with my laptop open in class, headphones on, writing or composing. Why pay attention to my classes? In the words of Kevin Abstract, "Finna be Beiber in the fall"
Fall, as it happened, knocked me on my ass.
A few friends and I hopped into a friend's minivan and drove up to Laurier for Halloween weekend. I'd given in my notice at the butcher shop I'd worked at in the last couple years of highschool, so I was ready to fuck shit up. Everyone else was pretty much on the same page.
The majority of the weekend went well. Meeting new people, hopping from party to party. I can't recall what I dressed up as, or if I did, but I remember enjoying myself immensely. We drank, smoked, and made merry. The weekend is mostly a blur, but a pleasant one.
My memory of the weekend begins to crystallize on the second last day.
I couldn't find my bag.
I called off my last shift at the butcher shop, explained the situation to my boss. He understood. Naturally, my friends and I retraced our steps. We searched everywhere we'd bee on the campus, but the bag didn't turn up. Security was clueless. The lost and found attendant hadn't seen anything.
I didn't quite feel bad. At this point in my life, I was still rather out of touch with my emotions (smoke pot in moderation, kids), and I remember standing in a dingy apartment-style dorm room, speaking to the host's then-girlfriend.
"I'd be crying right now if I were you." she said.
I can't remember what I replied, but before we left, I asked the friend who was driving if we could stop by a local electronics store. I bought a tablet and a Bluetooth keyboard. At a nearby convenience store, I grabbed a new notebook.
That evening, as my friends were vibing, I sat at our table in a student pub as I transcribed from memory as much as I could remember about the plot into that little notebook. My friends questioned me about the plot as I wrote. It helped me remember to talk it through.
On the drive home, a day later than everyone had expected, I wrote the whole drive. I didn't feel it at the time, but that writing hurt. I'm tearing up at the memory. That writing was desperate, mechanical, uninspired. The antithesis to what I was used to feeling while I wrote.
Looking back, that feeling might be why I've yet to finish writing a novel.
The album, I decided to re-record from memory.
I never did.
It pains me that neither of those projects ever saw the light of day. They meant a lot to me. From there, the media empire plan sort of derailed. Still, I wanted to keep up with my creative work. Maybe those projects would never see the light of day, but I was still an artist. I had been shaping myself into a being that creates. The desire to create hums in my chest.
I still make music, but writing a novel feels too painful. I feel blocked. I still love the story & the characters. On reading the intro, a friend told me, "You need to write a book."
Maybe one day I will.
