Said and Unsaid, Remembered and Unremembered

I wrote a long post about a certain branch on my tree of discontent, rambling on and on with house-size paragraphs and even a list of angsty, bulleted proportions, but I haven’t published it. Maybe it’s best to hold on to such things before exposing them to other people?

So I am now sitting here in the middle of a three-day weekend (Memorial Day… am I supposed to barbecue?) trying to focus, to not get overwhelmed by all the writing pieces I want to get done this summer. Novels, stories, more revisions on freelance projects I didn’t expect, oh my!

For the life of me I can’t seem to re-create the draft of this story I lost. I am hung up on the opening paragraph I remember writing. A word here, a word there comes back to me, a visual, one lucky phrase. I wish I could hypnotize myself to bring it back from memory. I don’t know how to move on with this story without it; I just remember it feeling so right.

A part of me is tempted to bring the story to workshop with page 1 saying:

((MISSING BRILLIANT FIRST PARAGRAPH… PLEASE TRY TO IMAGINE))

It’s been years since I’ve taken part in a workshop, but I have a feeling that won’t go over too well. Do you agree?