More like a house


back cover of draft with inspirations

I’m moving along with a project that has been on-again, off-again for the past few years. It’s called Too Much and I really love it.

The above photo is the back cover of the legal pad that contains a finished rough draft. It has various inspirations written on it that make up the essence of the project.

The quote in the bottom right is a portion of an Alice Munro quote. The rest is as follows:

“A story is not like a road to follow … it’s more like a house. You go inside and stay there for a while, wandering back and forth and settling where you like and discovering how the room and corridors relate to each other, how the world outside is altered by being viewed from these windows. And you, the visitor, the reader, are altered as well by being in this enclosed space, whether it is ample and easy or full of crooked turns, or sparsely or opulently furnished. You can go back again and again, and the house, the story, always contains more than you saw the last time. It also has a sturdy sense of itself of being built out of its own necessity, not just to shelter or beguile you.”

Alice Munro

I have left and come back to this project since I started it my Sophomore year of college where it began life as a poem.

The story has changed each time that I’ve returned. But I keep on coming back.

That must be a good sign, it must.

“And I grew up in rural coastal Cornwall, miles from anywhere, so I know the feeling of being in a small town that, as soon as you’re conscious of where you are, you want to get away from—even though you’ll always be drawn back to it.”

Mark Jenkins