This is the story of a story I didn’t write.
A coupla idea coincided and I was deep into the planning of a full length novel about two years ago when I decided to shelve it.
First I’ll tell you what the story was about
And then I’ll tell you why I shelved it.
Two things coincided to give me the idea for the novel.
1. I read about a musician, a girl in her low twenties, dead of an accidental overdose.
2. On the 4th Floor of the building I walk in is a rehearsal studio. A big time one. I saw Katie Holmes going in one afternoon.
And I put the two together.
What interested me was how time feels (a subject I write about constantly). I suffer from instant nostalgia, I miss stuff as it is happening -the curse of an over active imagination is that as something happens I can imagine it not happening, I can imagine it happening differently and I can imagine remembering what happened. So, it starts with the guard of the building, 500 8th Avenue, picking up the Daily News, and discovering on the front page that the girl, a famous rock star, has died.
The death brings a flood of memories as to how they met when she was audition for a Broadway in the building, their relationship, her success, and their break up.
What interested me is how the guy felt about memories barely five years old but very very very over.
I couldn’t write it for two reasons.
1. It was in the first person (from the pov of the guard) but I couldn’t figure out how he had information I needed him to have.
And
2. I couldn’t write about the music she was meant to be making. I couldn’t imagine what it sounded like.
I messed about with it for around a year and knocked off a short story and a novella (the novella about a guy who comes out of jail for his fathers funeral) while waiting for it to gell before finally giving up and starting rock nyc.