This Is My Write Song

So, I don't write anymore. I just can't get myself to do it. It's not that I don't want to (I think about it all the time, little ideas here and there, tiny sparks like "he crashes his car coming home from his Magic: The Gathering tournament."

But I still don't write. I went to the library last week with the sole intention of writing. I sat down with no distractions . . . and couldn't do it. Instead, I edited an audiobook for the whole time I would've been writing. I even sit at the library now, trying once again to do it, and instead of writing, here I am typing up a blog post.*

In desperation after my failure at the cave--er, library, I called up Big Anklevich on Friday, asking if he might want to collaborate on a story with me.  He did not.

But . . . and here's the other reason I'm typing this up (the other being that I do not want to write), he suggested we do a Broken Mirror-type writing exercise, where we each write a short story based on a Metallica song, and then swap them the first week in March.  He gave us two weeks to do them, and said he'd publicly announce the "contest" (or whatever you wanna call it) so people would hold us to it.

I saw that he finally posted about it this morning**, which means the race is on, and I ABSOLUTELY HAVE TO WRITE, which, I guess, was the whole point of this exercise (and my desperate call to Big at work).  Oddly, however, he claims in his post that this was my idea, that I've been obsessed for years with writing a story based on a Metallica song, despite the fact that, a) I'm not even a fan of the band, he is; and b) it was his idea back in 2005 to write a Metallica-based story which inspired me to make a list of their songs and a sentence or two for the ones I thought had potential.  Nothing ever came of it (of course), but I still have that list, and hey, I guess it could come in handy now.

So, I have to write a story based on the title of a song by Metallica and have it to Big by March 9th, and he has to do the same.  His is going to be called "Frayed Ends of Sanity," but I already knew that, since he told me that a year ago, and perhaps as long as five years back.

Mine . . . well, I don't know.  I did go as far as to look up each of their pre-2000 albums to see if there's a song that grabs my interest.  There are a couple pretty good ones, like Trapped Under Ice, Disposable Heroes, The Shortest Straw, Harvester of Sorrow, Of Wolf and Man, and holy smoke, the greatest song title of all, The Thing That Should Not Be. 

The one I'm leaning toward right now, though, is My Friend of Misery.

Wish me luck.

Rish "Megadeth Fan" Outfield

*I got it into my head to write a story where a guy's car goes off the road and he ends up in a weird little town just as the sun is going down.  The people there are all very nice to him (too nice?), and seem oddly religious, talking about sinners and sinning and the like.  There's no motel, but an older man offers to put the guy up in his extra room for the night, and the next morning they'll go retrieve his car.  But, that night is the third night of the full moon, and no, they're not werewolves, but every month, on this particular night . . . something comes to visit the town, looking for the greatest sinner.  A friendly citizen (a pretty young thing?) warns our character about it, that if he's a worldly man who's used to sinning, he might want to leave town on foot before the moon rises.  He suggests just stealing a car, and she's aghast, as that would almost certainly draw the attention of . . . whatever it is comes for sinners that night.  Anyway, I thought about writing up a couple paragraphs about it, seeing where it could go (I could even call it "Pray For Us Sinners"), except I didn't.  I wrote this instead.
**Though he didn't admit in his post that he hasn't started writing his yet.  Which I couldn't help but interpret as: holy monkey, Big's actually started writing his story!  Of course, I'm sure I'm wrong, but it was still a chilling thought.