Image by Dunechaser via FlickrIt feels like it's been forever, but I wrote a short story today and my writing muscles are sore. I've been so out of practice that I had to sit for a few minutes and stare at my computer screen before the ideas would come. I joke sometimes that I don't know where my inspirations come from, and often I'm right about that. But when inspiration does strike me, it hits me hard and knocks me backwards with its intensity.
One story that I started as kind of a random writing project to distract me from my more serious projects is called The Wild Ones. It's part dysptopian, part naturalism. I like to think that I've captured a little bit of Jack London in what I'm writing. Call of the Wild is one of my favorite books and his short story "To Build a Fire" gave me chills the first time I read it.
I want to be able to impart some of that bleakness and utter ruthlessness of nature to what The Wild Ones embodies. I struggled with maintaining my own voice and yet still exploring the twisted nature of humanity versus extinction. I'm not what one might call a "dark" person. I'm more rainbows and bluebirds than fog and crows.
But...somehow I can't get this story idea out of my head. I figure that I'll just have to write it out of there.
It's frightened me a few times to see what I've come up with. I think that may be a good thing, it means I'm writing something stronger than my own rationality. If I can out-write my own logic, I think I'm on the right track to really capturing something good.
Whatever the case, I set out to answer the siren call of the Wild and I wrote an introductory short story to The Wild Ones. The main character is a man who witnesses the end of the world as we know it. He's one of the first to return to the Wild.
In a way, he's Adam after the exodus from Eden, except I didn't give him an Eve. He's going to have to find her on his own. Or perhaps I'll go back in and write her in.
I haven't decided yet. I like the way the story ended, though, but I'm liable to change my mind. It happens more often than I would like.
Until next time...stretch those writing muscles!
