3 Things I Hate about my Past Self
Really it comes down to one main thing. She is a dick. Sorry but it’s true. Past-Judith is a lazy, slap-dash, sketchy slacker who has no consideration for Future-Judith, also known as Present-Judith, i.e. me.
Today I am not poeting. I am fictioning. In fact, I am editing “Swim”, my Young Adult novel. I am currently on draft nr. 2, and Past-Judith who wrote the first draft is driving me up the wall with her selfish carpe diem attitude. Here, itemised, are some of the reasons I hate her, illustrated with examples from my annotated paper draft (snarky comments courtesy of Present Judith).
She doesn’t do her homework
First drafts of science fiction screenplays often have the word ‘technobabble’ as a placeholder, to be filled in later with some plausible sounding scientific jargon that Explains Everything. Past-Judith seems to think that she has a team of researchers at her disposal. She doesn’t look up the vocabulary she needs. She doesn’t research yachts or sea life or ancient civilisations or the political system of Ancient Rome. She just leaves her placeholder and forgets that her team of researchers is me, Future-Judith.
2. She leaves plot holes the size of craters
She just leaves me to sort it out with Plot-Polyfilla. And she doesn’t even care. Bitch.
3. She skips the hard bits
This is the absolute worst. To make sure she could keep her momentum going, Past-Judith would sometimes gloss over tricky scenes by leaving little notes to that effect, like unexploded landmines, for me to discover later.
4. We have seen the enemy and she is us
The problem is, as Michael Ende already pointed out in his masterpiece Momo, that the future changes into the present, which changes into the past. I keep changing into Past Judith. I am quick to scorn and dismiss her, but really Past Judith’s main sin is optimism. To her, Future Judith is a tantalising image of everything I hope I can be as a writer, always just around the corner, half a breath away. I have so much riding on her brilliance. I trust in it completely. She will know how to fix the plot holes. She knows how boats work. She can answer all the questions.
Sadly, when the future arrives, all I find is me, again. And all I have is more questions to answer the questions.
