It's been four days since I've gotten to work on my story. Four days since I let my mind disappear into the fictional world I created. Right now, Monday morning, the characters are in limbo. They can't move and they can't speak until I get back to them.
I'm a little impatient, and I bet they are too. I say that in jest, but there are times when I think of them as people with free will. They have the capacity to choose their actions and their speech, and it's my job to capture it; of course, I nudge them in one direction or another. But when I don't have my document open, we're all static. A movie on pause.
In writing class last week we did a short exercises in which we took a teacher's name, a subject, an emotion, and an age, (each supplied by a different woman) and turned it into a short story. We only had fifteen minutes, so the final piece had fewer than 300 words, but I enjoyed it; in a tiny pocket of time, we created something interesting.
It also gives me something to think about: just because I don't have an entire day off work doesn't mean I can't work on my writing. I can take a lunch break and sketch a character; I can take an hour before bed and write a tiny story.
But I have 30 minutes before I have to leave for work. I'm going to savor my coffee and catch up on my blogs.
3 comments:
My characters were stuck this morning too. I took off writing for four days too - too long apparently. By the time I got back on track, my time was up. Maybe tonight or tomorrow. I am very impatient to write the first chapter.
Of course the characters have free will!...and your post reminds me of the flash piece I did for the letter J. It talks, in a way, about characters in limbo.
Also forgot to tell you that my I post is based on your prompt :). Thank you!!
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