I decided to take Creighton’s advice and do something completely different. I thought about my NaNoWriMo success(es) and what worked there and how much fun I had working on that project. He was right that part of the reason for that success was that I wasn’t invested in that piece in the same way that I had (have) become in some of my other works. (You may know what piece I’m talking about, in particular…)
So it’s not that I have given up. I just got serious about putting real space between me and that … that … that werk.
Good whisk(e)y is aged 14 years, right?
Anyway, the wink-wink-nudge-nudge admission is that part of my time on this vacation was spent putting pen to paper in a bargain-basement sketchbook, kinking out a first draft of a short story using a lot of the same methods and techniques that I picked up in November. I guess since I’m back from my vacation tomorrow, I can tell you all how it went.
(Or not?)
currently playing: Stephan Riedel “Gene Ratio”
I am returning to St. Mary’s for one last semester. My room assignment is a single but when I arrive, it’s entirely too large. Almost three times the size that I expect. And there are closets along every interior wall. And all of my stuff is already here; my belongings are disorganized and stacked strangely and do not initially look like mine but every item fits neatly into my personal inventory. I start to move things around and get settled but it’s all very uneasy feeling. About halfway through my un(-re?-)packing, A. shows up and convinces me to watch a movie with her. It stars Queen Latifah and Bill Murray in a Ghostbusters/spaghetti western style cross-over.
Sitting in a local bar, the lights dim and mostly neon ad lights reflected in the mirrors and other shiny surfaces. Samuel L. Jackson tends bar while the natives are telling stories about … me? They’re laudatory and embarrassing and patently untrue. These stories are not necessarily lies but they’re blowing these events out of proportion. I was never that generous. I stood up to that man but he was certainly not that tough. I try to get them to calm down, change the subject, talk about someone else but it’s like I’m not there at all. They go right on talking about me.
I can’t take it any more and I take off. Racing through the streets toward my house, the night seems to cave in around me. The sky gets blacker, the street lamps dimmer, the echoes of my footfalls resonate. I cannot put enough distance between me and them fast enough. And as I arrive once again home, I startle. I’ve been followed and I just barely get the door slammed before this man tries to slip inside behind me.
