Puzzling out where to go as a writer after finishing my fake novel project

Today, for the first time since I was born, I’m going to try to write nothing. No words, no thoughts, no relaying of daily happenings, no characters, no comedy or tragedy. Just dead air. Static. The sound of a car driving in the distance, and maybe one bird chirping, but otherwise silence. 

It’s hard to avoid turning this blank scene into a nonsense tale. I want to add a person to the street and have them say something, but then that would lead to other things happening, and in no time I’d have another story on my hands. — It’s the ongoingness of the world of the novel that I want to avoid. I’m tired of waking up with a desire to wander but then having the content of my writing be dictated by what I wrote the day before. This might sound surprising to anyone who’s attempted to read any of my recent stuff, because, from one chapter to the next, I tend to have the bare minimum of continuity; however, even the smallest bit of necessity annoys me.

Having said this, my next thought is: Why not write in vaguely narrative form as much as I like, and then start afresh each new day? — The reason I’m against doing this is that I know I’ll end up very soon composing something that I think is good enough to warrant continuing. Well, so what’s wrong with a day or two of a continuing text, if I can abandon it whenever it feels done? Hmm, I guess that’s a good idea, but I stubbornly want nothing to do with it. 

I’m glad that I don’t have a headache today. 

I wish that it would rain for weeks on end. My only fear of it raining so much is that my basement might flood. On second thought, even if it meant that my whole house would flood, I’d vote for heavy rain. I said weeks at first, but now I think I’d like to change that order to months. I’ll order six months straight of nonstop rain. 

Why rain? Am I concerned about crop growth? No, I just like the sound, the mood; the way that there is very little sunlight when the sky is pouring hard. 

Can I say that I like the scent of earthworms that always pervades the air after a shower? No, I can’t even pretend to like that smell; but I’ll gladly put up with it, if it means that all the streets can remain perma-wet.

The youth lies awake in the cedar-roof’d garret and harks to the musical rain,

That’s a line from Walt Whitman’s “Song of Myself” (from §15); and here’s another (from §29):

Rich showering rain, and recompense richer afterward.

But this is the part that I was thinking about when I opened Whitman’s book right now to look for what I remembered as the raincoat line and found the above two passages first. This one’s from §46:

I tramp a perpetual journey, (come listen all!)
My signs are a rain-proof coat, good shoes, and a staff cut from the woods… 

I should get these things. I’ve never had a single one of them — I never thought to value them; I guess I’ve spent too much time indoors, where one can wear collared linen shirts, soft socks, and no type of wooden staff is needed. I’ve been caught in rainstorms before, even hail; but it’s always without protection… or maybe I’ve carried an umbrella. But I like the idea of a raincoat better. And I do own a pair of waterproof boots, but they’re not what I would call “good”. In order for them to deserve that label, they’d need to be more comfortable and less clunky. 

I’ve never understood why people use wooden staffs or walking sticks, tho — unless it’s because they have an injured leg. And Wordsworth’s leech gatherer, from “Resolution and Independence”, uses his stick to stir the pond. 

…he the pond
Stirred with his staff, and fixedly did look
Upon the muddy water, which he conned,
As if he had been reading in a book…  

Maybe if I walked greater distances, I’d realize the benefit of a staff; maybe it makes trekking or wood-wandering easier in a way that’s obvious if we greenhorns only would try it.

But where can one wood-wander nowadays? I live in the suburbs, so the forest is always part of some homeowner’s backyard. If I go wandering in my rain-proof coat and good shoes, holding my wooden staff, someone will surely call the police on me: 

“There’s a strange man in my backyard, using a large stick to stir the swampwater of our children’s plastic swimming pool. No, our children are safe; they’re all asleep in bed right now — the man’s out there alone. I think he’s stealing our leeches.” 

(I’ll let myself turn this entry into a story; I’m too lazy to fight the impulse.)

So the cops come with their sirens blazing and their lights a-flash. “Drop the stick and step away from the pool.”

I let my staff that was cut from the woods fall to the earth. The cops then shine their bright lights in my eyes.

“What are you doing in the backyard of these tax-paying citizens?”

“Just looking for leeches, because I resolved to be independent.”

The cops soften, upon hearing this: “Aww, looks like we got another rugged individualist, trying to be a rural wanderer in an urban landscape. Sad. Let’s cage him and bring him back to his native habitat.” 

So they build a bamboo cage of the type that I like, and they ship me, the famous author Bryan Ray, back to Africa. 

Now, I want to abandon the story here, because I can tell that this is the point where I will want to create all sorts of adventures for my character to experience; but I want to stick to my guns with regard to the idea of making things brief, short: no two day’s compositions should ever connect. — So I’ll just say that, in the first house I enter, a family greets me, and we dine together, and they introduce me to their children, and we all play a game of badminton together. Then I head back to England on a train.

I wind up at Wordsworth’s place. “Hi,” I say when he opens his door, “I just stopped by because I got arrested for vagrancy earlier in the day. Are you busy?”

“I’m creating a volume of poetry with Samuel Taylor Coleridge; please join us.” (Actually, Wordsworth refers to S.T.C. by his common nickname—the one that I gave him—but I spelled his full name out here cuz otherwise you wouldn’t know who I’m talking about. I wanted to brag that I have friends in high places.)

So after a nice day of relaxing with my comrades, I return to the silence of the street at my old home in Minnesota, with one car in the distance and maybe a bird chirping, plus constant heavy rain. I take a short nap. Then I wake up refreshed.