So, having finished another story yesterday and being free to go onto something else today (to either a previously-abandoned story or a new one), I'm tempted to work on the "Lara and the Witch" story I considered doing for Valentine's Day (already a fudgin' month ago). I was talking to Big Anklevich about it, and came to the realization that, as much as I enjoy the Ben Parks stories, they're harder than they should be (since they're set in the 1890s and are Westerns instead of Horror) . . . but that I far prefer to write the "Lara and the Witch" stories, and if I could get away with it, I'd write a whole series of stories where:
1) Lara encounters someone with a problem*
2) Lara decides to use magic to solve that problem
3) The consequences are unexpected
4) Lara realizes that magic was not the solution.
The beauty of this concept is that the next story would reset to one, and no matter how many of these I wrote, LARA NEVER LEARNS HER LESSON!!!! It seemed so brilliant to me when I was talking to Big that I thought, "Dang, I'm gonna write one of these a year. Heck, maybe I'll write two or three a year! Imagine the possibilities!" I also hand-waved away any consideration that doing this might make me a hack like the worst cartoon or sitcom writers out there,** and you can watch those shows in any order or combination because nothing is ever going to change . . . maybe not even the clothes the characters wear.
But I'm still tempted to do it. I'm always getting ideas for little two or three page Lara stories, like the one where a dumb boy in her class (she's in the 7th grade by this point) farts and blames it on her, so she casts a spell so that every time he farts (for the rest of his life, mind you), he must announce that he has farted to those around him. The consequences are . . . well, not unexpected.
Sit-ups Today: 100
Sit-ups In March: 542
I said that my fall yesterday didn't hurt, but I will admit that, doing my sit-ups today, my tailbone ached not unlike the first day back from Bible Camp.
Well, the library's about to close and I've only gotten 333 words in (I sort of stopped when I reached that number, more OCD than superstitious). I looked over a sketch I wrote about Bryan Adams songs, a spiritual sequel to the Kenny Loggins sketch I wrote a couple of years back. I wrote this one in 2019, at my mom's computer, and I must not have saved it or something, because when I went looking for it, it was gone. Then, the day last year I went hiking in the same canyon I so pitifully failed at this past Sunday, I stopped at a park and wrote the sketch out again, as best as I could remember it. It's not good, and it's certainly not funny, but I'd still like to sit down with Renee Chambliss and record it, to include in a future episode. I decided to call it "Bryan Adams, At Large."
I also looked through my works-in-progress, hoping one would catch my attention, and I grabbed "Meet the New Clerk," which is the next "Dead & Breakfast" story I should record and put out there. It's supposed to be a scary one, with a Nightmare on Elm Street vibe, with Meeshelle Lovett being the Nancy Thompson character. I scanned through a few paragraphs--found two typos--and stopped at an interaction with Mrs. Bice, the owner of the bed and breakfast. I liked it quite a bit. I've found that, sometimes, to make a scene scary, you don't have to describe anything particularly frightening, you can just convey that the characters are afraid, and that does the job for you.
In this scene, Meeshelle (still spelled Meechelle in this draft), has to do a night shift for the first time since coming back to the hotel, having quit years before after a run-in with a nasty Fred Kreuger-like ghost.
She heard a sound to her left, and whipped her head in that direction, expecting . . . well, expecting to see something a lot more terrible than the elderly owner of the establishment, slowly coming her way, a purse and light jacket on her arm.
Bice crossed in front of the reception desk, then hovered there, looking down at her hands, clearly uncomfortable. "Well, I'm off. Are you . . . ?"
"I'll be fine," Meechelle said, letting her boss off the hook.
Mrs. Bice looked eager to say something else, but she didn't.
"You don't stay here at night, do you, Connie?"
No response.
"Is it like me? Do they scare you?"
The old woman looked torn whether to answer or not. Finally, she said, "I've seen things too, over the years. Lord knows, I've seen things." She shuddered, but Meechelle didn't know if that was genuine or just theatrics. "You say they like Mason. And that may be so. But there are some, and well, they don't care for me much."
Push-ups Today: 50
Push-ups In March: 455
I'd hoped I could sit down and record something, and presumably add a few words to my total, but it didn't end up happening. I have other obligations, and I'm often too easily distracted, and the time just flies (by the time I could've recorded, it was past one, and I thought I'd do a short story--I've got a bad one called "Lemon Pledge" that wouldn't have taken long--but even that took a back seat to watching a YouTube video on the conspiracy theory that lizard overlords masquerading as human are among the elite in society--including video evidence where the Queen and Mark Zuckerberg have reptilian eyes. I only pray my Uncle Len has not watched this video, since he would surely--Oh, he's Liked and Subscribed, as well as Commented on it, hasn't he?).
There are people who have much bigger writing days than I do, and there are also folks that manage far fewer words than I do, and I need to simply remember that and try to be proud that I've gotten as many words as I have, for as many days as I have. Good luck to us both.
Words Today: 524
Words In March: 4111
*This could be a student or friend or teacher or neighbor . . . OR somebody who's mean or rude or in need of a little correcting, so the spell could be a positive one or a negative one.
**I'm reminded of an old "SCTV" episode where there was a hotel John Candy ran, and Eugene Levy checked into the hotel and said, "I'm here for some time off and relaxation. Oh, and I have a irrational, debilitating fear of gorillas, just so you know." Of course, there's another guest that checks in that owns a gorilla suit, and well, it just writes itself.
***Oh, and I forgot, in the first scene, John Lennon speaks to Meeshelle. That will be a blast to record!
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