Precursor to the BlissQuest

Talking to Erisian last night, I told him a story I’ve told only a few people.  But as I finished talking, it occurred to me – that I hadn’t actually revisited the story in my mind in over a year in which time the strangeness has gotten more involved.

The first year I moved down to the Portland Metro area from Alaska, was the year I became a housewife.  A role I swore I’d never accept, a job I didn’t particularly want and a title I loathed.  It was all part of the “team effort”, avoiding the “two-income trap” and a lot of confusion of the time – it seemed like a good idea. That year the first Greenlight Screen Writing competition took place. I sat down and wrote my first complete screenplay in about three weeks and submitted it.  Since it was the first year, the boards were still new and my category was a romantic comedy (RomCom) and they asked for a volunteer to practice critiquing on.

I volunteered.

I was pretty certain, after the amount of “critique” I received that I would never write a single word again. So I boxed up the screenplay and shelved it where it didn’t see the light of day for 5 years.  During my divorce, the box re-emerged as I cleaned and packed.  One day I thought, “If I could just sell it for a few bucks…” So I took it to a friend’s house where I sat on the couch and opened the box.

“EXT- DAY- LOS ANGLES

CASSANDRA staggers out of a coffee shop juggling arms full of her backpack, coffee and laptop. She’s in her mid-late twenties, black t-shirt, faded jeans and a choker.   Tossing her bag into the back of a souped-up, black, muddy jeep – she takes a moment to look around the street before putting on her sunglasses and climbing in.”

I stopped reading and looked out the window at the souped-up, black, muddy jeep parked in front of my friend’s house – my jeep, the jeep I’d purchased only a couple of months prior.  Then I looked down at my faded jeans, black t-shirt and touched the chocker on my neck.  I knew then that I couldn’t touch the screenplay.  I closed it back up and put it away. 

Whatever, was inside of me when I wrote it five years earlier – whatever need I still had for adventure, selfhood, and the need to be free – was not ready to give up, so I wrote it out.  I lived vicariously through that character until I was safe to be who I really wanted, and as I sat there on the couch – I realized, I’d only just started to be free again, and I didn’t want to mess up the process.  Instead I put the script away.

But it gets better.

As I told the story last night I realized it had been a year and a half since I’d opened the box.  I also realized that I’d done more to parallel the screenplay.  The premise is about a woman who travels the United States for a year in her jeep and writes a book about the adventure, love happens and chaos ensues.

As I talked to Erisian, I realized that about six months after I opened the box and promptly put it away again, that I’d accepted a book contract and packed up my jeep and gone on a year long road-trip…

I traveled the states for a year in my jeep and I’d written a book -just like my main character. I thought about it all night. Where was my head 7 years ago as I sat in my writing room, married and lonely? Confused and full of the sense of dying.  Happy to be in love and depressed over what I felt like I’d given up to have that love.  What did I dream of, as I wrote – day after day – in utter solitude…

Evidently, I dreamed of the freedom of the open road, the hum of tires on asphalt and curving landscapes, stretching horizon lines and sky too big to fit into the mind.  I dreamed of passionate love and a life without walls, chance and synchronicity and personal empowerment. I dreamed of writing, travel and meeting kindred spirits.  I dreamed of the kind of life, love and challenges that you only read about.  Better than fiction, more improbable than any twist of the creative mind.

So I wrote it, and seven years later…. the quest continues.