story fish
I have this urge to write. But my story pool is dry. Rather, it's not dry but there aren't any story-fishes swimming around in it. None I want to catch, anyway.
I go outside and smoke furious cigarettes, kicking at the crusted snow gathered at the bottom of my office building's stairs. I've watched so many episodes of The Office that I think I've now forced myself to like it. Or appreciate it, in any case.
I'm eating my way through all of the new books that I've ordered and I can never seem to remember if I had salted my plate when I'm eating lunch or dinner. I have to claw my way out of bed these days, the bed itself feeling like it's some sort of black hole that I fall into every night. The dreams are the shroudy-things that I try to avoid like jelly fish, but they get me anyway. Stinging, wrapped around my neck...and no vinegar in sight. Ah, well.
At work right now, I'm absolutely furious with myself for not having caught a story-fish. A good one. Because I'm getting up there, and before I know it, I'll be an octogenarian who claims she's a writer when really she hasn't written anything more than a grocery list or this online journal in her entire life.
Nutty, man. Just plain nutty.
Labels: story fish, writing
Tuesday, September 30, 2008 7:13:00 PM
Fish need bait. Story fish need an interesting pond to swim it. Give them vivid visual images and good rich poetry and music. Etc.
Also, they're weird critters: catch one, any one, and work with it no matter how second-rate it seems, and the others will approach the hook out of curiosity. Better ones. Ones you want to make a meal of. top