There they were again, the characters whose stories I’ve left in limbo while life gives me other tasks. “I’m coming, friends, I’m coming,” I wrote, “I —”
I almost wrote “I promise,” but my promises can mean nothing. To paraphrase the Jedi master, “Do, or do not; there is no promise.”
A promise is a placeholder: I will do this thing, perhaps not here and now (unless the promise is to love you forever, and then of course it’s here and now and always). A promise to do something is an IOU, and sometimes — some agonizing and embarrassing times — you can’t deliver what you owe.
I hope I can use the memory of those broken promises — the pain of letting someone else down — to motivate my follow-through for my stranded characters, and all the rest. I hate disappointing other people and myself, even when — or perhaps especially when — the people are imaginary. Does that make sense?