February Sweeps - Day 16

Uh oh.  I might not make it today.

I got an idea for a new story last night as I was going to sleep (these sorts of things almost always seem moronic by the light of day--the most recent story I wrote, "Fatherless Child," was one of those where I thought it was great until I wrote down the idea the next day.  I suppose it's possible I was right about that, but I still wrote the story through to the end), and I might start writing it tonight.

There are two problems with it, however, that are making me reconsider.  The first is that it developed in my mind as a screenplay, and I think it would work best like that, with a simpler structure and a lot more dialogue than a prose story is.  I used to be pretty good at it, but I haven't written a screenplay in years, and I really ought to never write one again (of course, if somebody paid me, that's another story), but will this story work as a short story/novelette/novella?

The other problem is, it's kind of a nasty* story, and it's giving me pause right now about writing it.  Now, don't get me wrong, it's hard to be a Horror writer and be squeamish or sensitive or puritanical, and that hasn't been me for years (okay, sensitive yes), but I just wonder how I will feel about myself when this one's said and done.  I know how it's going to end, and that's maybe where I shouldn't be going this week.  I think at one point a few years back, if I felt this way,  I would've told myself, "If you're worried about it, then that should tell you something."  In the same way as, doing stand-up comedy, if you're afraid a joke will offend people, then you probably know it will.**

We'll see what I do (it's only eleven o'clock, I still have time).

Tomorrow is President's Day, which means I have no work (yay!), but it also means the library will be closed (nay!).  I really need to go there and write until the time runs out again.

But the point of this writing every day exercise is that I have to make myself do it, even if I don't feel like doing it (like now), because I want to train my body to think, "I haven't written today: I am incomplete right now."  It needs to be something I do all the time, even on days when my muse is on an extended holiday weekend at a resort in Southern Idaho.

Too much?  It's hard to tell with typing.

I didn't get to writing until I was already tired and ready to sleep.  I wrote about three hundred words and was going to call that good, but forced myself to write just a little more, figuring 500 words would be a fine stopping point.  I got just a little more than that (the story still should be a screenplay--I'd have it on page ten by now), then allowed myself to quit.

Words Today: 678
Words Total: 22,121

*By "nasty" I mean, mean-spirited and nihilistic, rather than obscene/pervy.  Cold, in other words.  I very rarely write that stuff anymore, although I suppose that's debatable.

**The thing is, it's not really any darker than "Stormy Weather" was.  That has a bleak and unhappy ending, and I've never had any qualms about that (I quite like that story, actually).  I think that, hypocritical as it might seem, my worry is that, because this has a female protagonist, I will feel bad being as heartless to her as I was to the poor mayor in that story.  I'll keep turning it over in my head.