Perhaps there’s a plausible reason, I don’t know it. Ok, clumsy but I’m self conscious now of the opening word of anything. Microsoft word says things that way, I mean that’s the default, the opening characters of the first word and/or words. I, It’s and And --- I start off a lot of entries that way. Let’s try this again shall we?
I have this thing about thirds and fifths. On Friday I wrote a flash. On every Friday I write a flash, well, as long as I’m loose about what constitutes a Friday. I can’t say I really liked it or disliked it, more like, I don’t know, it needed some time to ferment. So I wrote a second one. That’s a problem for me. Why exactly I can’t really explain, but it needs a third piece or a third fourth and fifth piece, or so many pieces that it becomes just one. Doesn’t even make sense; there is no number requirement in my head for how many words constitute a piece, it’s more the space in between. From the moment I start it I have an indefinite amount of time to put it to bed, but, once I do; that’s a piece.
Granted flashes have borders. But it’s not a flash until I call it one. It didn’t bug me to have done the one flash. I wasn’t compelled to write a second piece, but now that I have it’s going to crawl around my skin until I write a third.
This is probably not a wise thing to say, but, I kind of want to know how the story ends. It’s both a bit exhilarating and a bit frightening to pursue; it’s possible that one more piece won’t do it, that means at least two more or, possibly, weeks. Then that means cleaning it up because you can’t have weeks of work looking like it’s been playing in the mud all day. It’s possible that at the end the story sucks.
It’s an odd motivation, it feels a bit like Asperger’s or catching the 24 hour autism. I’ve certainly have gotten excited about stories before, some of which turned to shit, but this is more like number anxiety. I also kind of want to know what the fuck I’m going on about; it’s like losing your goggles underwater, the shapes are all still there just less distinct.
I don’t know if the story is any good, that’s beside the point. I don’t know if one more piece will improve or ruin it, but I need to write one more. At least one more. With three pieces I can look at it. I’ll know if it’s worth saving, honing, and whether it has anything else to say. The ground is fertile enough, I think the farmer might be mad though.
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