A Pause from Artwork and "Olive Park"

“A Pause from Olive Park”

I have decided to take a small (very small) break from completing new artwork to finish something else that I have put off for far too long already. Some of you know about a short story I wrote a while back called “Olive Park” and even though it was completed, I always felt like the last half of the story needed some elaboration; it just seemed rushed to me. So, yesterday I began the long and arduous task of rewriting most of it…well, at least 70% of it. It’s true that I am only scratching the surface having only one day into it so far but I also felt like I haven’t written much in the past year or so and I thought I needed to give you just a little something here-you know, while the feeling strikes me. Writing a love story; based on a true story nonetheless, is a very tiring job and it gets you thinking about a great many things while you are in the process. I want this to be so much more than it already is; I have always felt like it was an unfinished story and I just keep thinking that it’s just not right. The truth in the story lies in events that happened so long ago and I guess the one thing that I have always hoped for (and the real reason why it never seemed quite finished to me) was because I was always holding out for a happy ending. Olive Park deserves a happy ending; I want a happy ending and although things have happened since the actual events occurred that briefly made me hopeful that I was close to one, it just never materialized. Now, as I sit here and relive every moment of that story, I see the end in sight and I shutter at the thought of how I will write an ending to a story that doesn’t end happily. It makes me wonder about life and love and what’s in store; I know that every ending is only the beginning to another great adventure but I want so much for this story to have a happy ending that I have had this reluctance to finish it for many years. Maybe deep down inside I don’t want Olive Park to end; maybe that’s it or maybe I want it to end badly just so I can write the next bit, like a continuation. I think I want something to just jump out of the blue…someone to just jump out of the blue to help me make this story complete. I want that reason to come to me that makes me want to tell the world an ending; a reason to shout it to the world…something amazing that only happens once that I can be proud to be a part of; something just as unique and just as special as Olive Park was or maybe even more so. Not so long ago, I thought I might be able to write that ending; it would have been an amazing ending but twists and turns are always present in my plots I suppose and any chance at an ending or even a new beginning fell quite short. Even now as I take my mind off of the story I have been rewriting to think and dream a little, all I can do is think about how fantastic it could have been. I even have this little argument with myself about why I don’t just write that wonderful ending but I always lose that one because I don’t want to write a story that is completely true right up until you get to the end-and then what? The end will be fabricated; fake…like a wish that never came true-as if I were hoping for something great but settling for whatever I could think of. I know how stories go and I know for certain that the best stories just happen. No matter how good you are at guessing or planning how you want a story to go, there is just no substitution for what real situations that could arise (and have arose) instead of that clean story you have planned out in your head. Within everything I have written, there has always been some truth but this story, Olive Park is just something more finite to me; if it ends badly then deep down inside I will feel that when everything is said and done, I will have ended badly. It’s true that this is only a little sliver of time out of a lifetime that happened a half of a lifetime ago but it is still my life. The search for love in every fairy tale and love story has some sort of realization or moral to the story that makes you think or understand or even relate it to some time you went through it. It should make you feel good and happy to finish it with the main characters; having been through everything along with them. It should be a triumph of soul to reach the top of that mountain together and feel accomplished and I suppose that I want that more than anything for this story. I know the way I really want this story to finish and I will always hope that I will have the opportunity to write that ending but I hope someday I will be able to rewrite this ending into the one ending that I never could have imagined it to be. I know there is at least six new characters that I would love the chance to introduce…now that- that would be a great ending and the perfect beginning to an even more amazing story; that is for sure.



-You know, just sayin’.



-jason