Published Parity

"We are saddened to announce the passing of Maya Moore, of whatever rest home she was rolled into most recently. Ms. Moore, who dreamed of being a successful accountant, instead spent her life helping people, particularly the regional managers and corporate executives she made money for through their retail and service establishments. She also spent her life by eating crunchy tacos, which she believed were underappreciated in her time, but would soon rise to glory.

Ms. Moore leaves behind a trove of unfinished stories and writing samples which she never quite felt were good enough to publish or submit, a poorly conceived and similarly unpublished novel, and a vast legacy of snarky comments on the internet. She was preceded into death by her great, Great Aunt Loona, a couple of childhood pets, and hopefully also Rebecca Thomas who punched Ms. Moore and made her cry in the second grade. Maya will be kind of missed, although not as much as when she missed that shift at Cinnabon and was fired. More like how she'll be missed for a few seconds by anyone who happens to remember her nameless face while their senility is setting in. Rest in peace and may you rise to glory like a crunchy taco. Also, please note that the bathroom on the main level is out of order. Please use the facilities downstairs past the urn storage."

It seems so hard to complete a piece. It gets to a certain length and has a beginning, middle, and end, makes sense, but then... it just isn't right. My memory is good enough that I remember the experience of writing that part and how half-assed -- or even quarter-assed -- my thought process was at the time.
"Oh, this part. I wrote this after spending the day in bed scrolling my way into an early grave and then feeling guilty. I should redo it... by completely reimagining my main character as a medieval bro who finds god after being turned into a quail."

The same creative energy that I feel when writing makes me want to constantly change it, to make it better, to try something different. I think I was the kid Legos were invented for as I would constantly change it after finishing or even before. There's this seemingly endless, faceless audience I imagine when writing that makes me feel like I need to attend to the peers, then the teenagers, then the parents of the teenagers, then the Tony Awards committee. It's this neverending carousel of change that only stops when I step onto another. Or better yet, like one of those old time human pool table rides with the swirling discs. 

If anything, I would like to be prolific. To stand on top of a pile of stories with a masterpiece under my toes and a solid core of others beneath it. Then there would be other lesser works and others that people marvel in wonder after discovering them. 

"I didn't know she wrote a novelization of the 2022 WWE Season! Wow!" 

Being prolific would require more of a change than I think I'm capable of of, though. Because it isn't so much about producing and churning out work as it is about being fearless and willing to put yourself out there. That what you subsequently publish will be better and exceed what you have written. And yes you will be wrong, and you will publish sub-par stories. But at least there is a published parity to compare to, rather than a series of half-finished efforts that you forget where you saved it on your laptop.