I know you aren’t but what am I not?

I found shadows while revising my book:

Shadows weren’t where they should have been.

Have you looked for shadows, only to find something else instead? I know it’s a strange concept, but something I used in my writing to show disappointment. Why look for shadows rather than the real thing? Well that answer, my friends, will have to wait.

Shadows surrounded me between the lampposts on Canal Street.

Have you ever been weighed down by your own shadows? Too many people or things looking in?

I understood shadows went where they had to, so did I.

Sometimes, we stop fighting inertia, we just go to where we need to be – to that space where a compelled source directs the absence of something that just may be inferior.

I’m clearly not the first person to use shadows, but I must admit that I find the entire thing pretty interesting. It’s the best part of writing, sometimes I’m intrigued by my own work. I used shadows to illustrate different things: disappointment, anxiety (note that the passive language was not necessarily intentional – I can’t remember – but I think it works), and ultimately acceptance. It got me to thinking.

Shadows surround us, constantly. They lurk from one CCTV image to the next, sweep from storefront windows to the crosswalk buttons we press. We are cast to ticket stubs and finger prints, Google Earth, name badges and reward club stints. We are left on voice mails and mailing lists, pass codes, yearbooks, and our first kiss; we are on satellites, my friends, in garbage nobody shows, on pieces of paper touched by pens, and in the prayers that make our grottos glow.

But what if we look for those shadows, and see nothing? Doesn’t that mean something, too?

Categories: Creative Writing, Life, Perspective, Quotes, Revision

Tags: CCTV, Grottos, Pee Wee, perspective, Rolling for Coal, shadows, why i write, writing