Yesterday, after feeling bad about not getting anywhere with stories, I sat down (well, laid down actually, I was sleepy), and wrote a story that is not complicated and sort of just there for the sake of being there. Like technique exercises in piano. All plunky and wrist hurting (writing while lying on my back and holding the notebook up with my right hand and my pencil in my left was not too clever of me. Frida Kahlo painted in bed using a special easel. Perhaps I need a special bed-writing-desk.)
We went to Schnitzel Haus on Wednesday. So on Thursday, I wrote a story about people going to Schnitzel Haus. To make it not so autobiographical, I made the story people go to Schnitzel Haus on a Tuesday and not on a Wednesday; actually, the story isn’t autobiographical at all other than the characters in it have been to Schnitzel Haus and I have been to Schnitzel Haus and so has pretty much everyone who lives around here so maybe my story is about them and not me in any case.
I wanted to do one short story a month this year. I missed January because of my failed attempts at satisfying my mentor for my course. So I’m only one behind now. So far, I’ve written about an ad for a psychic in a newspaper, a lifeboat, yelling into a fan while it’s on, and now Schnitzel Haus. But it’s only May 9. Maybe I can fit two short stories in in May and catch up. If I can think of something new to write about now. I’m out of ideas, which I always say when I finish a story. I announce I will never write again, and then write a new story. So maybe tomorrow. Tomorrow I’ll write something new.