I have been banging my head against a concrete wall with a story line. Okay, two story lines. Most of time I’ll wake up in the wee hours of the night and ideas start popping into what I use for a brain. For too many weeks now it has been mostly empty thoughts, ones that won’t let me go back to sleep.
Sometimes I get bits of conversations, or hints to some part of the plot, but nothing I can use to get up and write a few thousand words about my story.
My mind wonders. Moreover, it wonders to some strange and useless places. I do water aerobics two times a week. I listen to the instructor tell us what we are doing then attempt to run plots or new story ideas… Over the pool there are six florescent light fixtures running the length of the pool on each side. The number of tubes in each is six, which means there are seventy-two total tubes. And the second fixture on the west side at the north end has a burned out tube.
This class takes place at the Columbus Foundation for Youth. Did I mention my mind wanders? Over the door to the office of pool is the FFY swim safety poster. Along the bottom are a nice set of little waves running left to right. On the right side is a huge wave going right to left. It bugs me. Why? Hell if I know, but it does, and plot ideas and dialogue are not coming to mind.
So I try splitting wood. I tell my wife I need to get it split so it will season for next winter and it won’t split and stack itself. But the truth of the matter is I need time to think. I should say here that not paying close attention when using a machine that produces twenty-two tons of force on an eight-inch solid steel wedge is not… well… safe. I have the bruises to prove it. Don’t tell my wife.
The story is progressing in a fashion, but not as fast as I’d like. And my times laying there in the wee hours of the night are not as productive as I’d like either. If I am going to be awake anyway, I’d much prefer my mind be productive. Assuming I have a mind.
I do remember waking and having an idea for my blog entry… Now where did I file that in my mind?