I woke up before my alarm again today. Instead of going back to sleep, which I do 70% of the time, I got up and showered, turned on my laptop, and actually wrote some words before nine am. Neat.
Well, maybe not so neat. I just checked, and it was only seventy-four words.
If you're anything like me, you're sick to death of this blog. No, that was a joke--I'm actually much more passionate about this blog than I am about writing. And that's the problem. What I'm sick to death of is starting stories and not finishing them. A month ago, I was all excited about what I was calling The Egg Story,* and I haven't worked on it in weeks. In October or November, I came up with that story "Podcatcher," which should've been short and simple . . . and it still isn't finished (just checked, and it's at 9,369 words). And just last week, I started the Halloween decoration story, and there's no way in hell or Little Rock, Arkansas I'm going to finish that one.
More on that later.
I went for a long drive today, listening to an audiobook and talking to Big A. on the phone for way longer than he was comfortable with. I usually (sometimes always never) go on hikes on Sundays, but I thought I'd check out the lake this afternoon because I was in the car and it was 94 degrees out. I had read that there were places--marinas--where you could drive up to the lake and not have to pay the ten dollar fee that they started charging a couple of years ago (I only paid once and then never went again). So I drove to the next town over (well, two towns over), just to look. But they seemed to have a tollbooth at this one as well, so I parked on the street with a bunch of other cars and walked in. To my surprise, even people on foot have to pay to go in there, and the girl running the tollbooth looked to be about fourteen to me.
But in for a penny, in for a couple of bucks, I was already there, so I gave her the money and walked around, checking things out. And, well, there wasn't much to see. It was a marina, with a little beach area where a handful of people were swimming and boating. On the other side was a section where people could tether their boats or . . . I don't know, get attacked by sharks or 1998 Godzillas? I walked around for an hour or so, soaking up sunlight and listening to a Drabblecast episode.
I enjoyed listening to the short story as I tried to make the most of my little visit to the water's edge, but I couldn't help but wonder, as the story came to a close, if my own stories are better or worse than that one. It wasn't a remarkable one--and really, how can all of them possibly be?--but it was finished, put out there, sold, and sold again to Drabblecast to be produced for thousands of listeners to enjoy. And I can't finish a story to save my life.**
Still, I have a couple of listeners that seem to really like the stuff I write, so I guess I have to decide whether that is reason enough to keep going. Maybe it's something I have to decide day by day.
The water seemed really, really dirty, and there were dead fish floating along the shore. The only living fish I saw was a huge carp, big enough to swallow a man's arm.
There were swarms of thousands of what I thought were mosquitos, but turned out to be midges, which are annoying, but don't bite or spread diseases.
It was the hottest day of the year so far (or close to it), and before long, the fun of walking around the bad-smelling water and getting awful sticker weeds in the bottom of my shoes ran out along with the podcast episode. I would have turned tail and gotten the heck out of there earlier, but I'd paid to get in, so I forced myself to stay an hour, for the principle's sake. As I was walking out through the gate, I saw a little culver and stream off beside the road, and approached it for a photo.
It was actually a pretty neat-looking place. Good for a book cover or a music video.
Or I could've gone there to sing a Storage Unit Serenade, I suppose (he realizes a day later).
Sit-ups Today: 100 (I could do better, though. And I will)
Sit-ups In July: 748
I'm definitely at the end of the line as far as the daily writing goes. I might have to amend my goals from here on out.
Words Today: 598 (and even that was a cheat, as I forced myself to write three hundred or so words when I woke up early the next morning)
Words In July: 3796
*This was me trying to write in prose the idea I didn't have the guts to pitch to the producers that asked me for story ideas for their anthology show. Don't think I ever mentioned that, but I was pretty impressed with myself by turning it into a short story . . . at least until I stopped working on it. What's the opposite of impressed with myself? "Depressed with myself?"
**Didn't I mention just last week that "Podcatcher" was close enough to done that I could sit myself down and just work on it for a solid hour or two, and it would be finished? And yet . . . 9,369 words sit there uselessly, when it's possible that at 10,000, it would be complete.
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