Yup, this is the snippet that wanted to be a story, that I tried turning into a story, and now I have started this story three different times in three different ways, and none of them are resonating with me.
I go back, read them, and wonder where to go from there. We have all heard of writer’s block, but is there such a thing as story block? Because if there is, I have it.
This story is as cursed as its storyline. I have no clue if it will ever be a story. These are my problems.
The first time…
We all get an idea and have to write it down. You can find that idea by clicking on the link here.
You can find me expanding on it by clicking here.
I had such high hopes for the first part. I felt I was really taking in a direction I would love, but then it happened?
The doubt and the questions started seeping into my brain.
“Where do I go from here?”
“Do I flashback to when she first started seeing the things?”
“Do I start following the dad and how he came back to save Morgan?”
“Do I go through how Morgan felt after her father died?”
Then there was the dread of having to rewrite the story if I did any of those things. So, it was shelved to be revisited every once in a while, stared at with no way to continue, and leave it in the drafts.
The second restart…
The idea popped into my head of writing the whole thing from the perspective of Morgan after she was grown, like a flashback:
The earliest I remember seeing things from the other world is when I was eight. It started with small things, shadows out of the corner of my eye, whispers, and little gremlins running here and there. It went downhill from there.
And that’s as far as it got. After the last line, my brain went in the same direction as the story, downhill.
Try number three…
Then I thought, let’s start with her mom’s funeral and then flashback. That would be a good idea.
There wasn’t a cloud in sight when the crowd gathered to put Samantha to rest. Closest to her casket was a girl in her early teens wiping tears from her green eyes while her father held her close.
The pastor stood at the head of the casket giving the prayers before the casket was lowered. The feeling was oppressive in a graveyard. Not even a breeze dared to move through the crowd. The heat forced beads of sweat from the most shaded in attendance. What took only fifteen minutes to recite felt like hours.
Morgan looked up at her father and smiled with a tinge of sadness. He was able to save her but not her mother, and the guilt was on her father’s face. Allan looked up to see the detectives looking back at him. He gave Morgan a squeeze and nodded toward the police. She nodded and took one step away from him toward an aunt who was scowling at Allan.
“Do they have to be here, Allan?”
“They seem to think we had anything to do with what happened. All I did was take Morgan out of there. Can you watch her while I walk over there?”
The aunt nodded, “Please, be careful.”Det. Grissley tipped his hat as Allan approached, “You don’t have to approach us until after the ceremony.”
“My daughter and many of my family members don’t think you should be here at all. What are you doing here? Haven’t I been nothing but cooperative?”
“There are some things that do not add up. We need more information, and we think Morgan can help with that.”
“I told you my daughter has been through more than enough. I told you what I know. Why is that not good enough?” Allan asked even though he could guess the answer.“She was there, and she would be able to fill in a lot of gaps.”
“She’s ten. You would not believe her. You almost did not believe me.”
Grissley shrugged, “You have to admit demons and such are hard to believe.”
“Not if you lived it.”Morgan looked at where his father was and shrunk into her aunt. The little demon had returned and was sitting on the detective’s shoulder. Her aunt turned around and kneeled in front of Morgan, “What do you see, honey?”
Morgan looked at her aunt, “It’s the demon that helped kill momma. It’s sitting on the policeman’s shoulder.”
Her aunt’s sigh was deep, “This isn’t good.”
“What if he wants to talk to me? What are we going to do?”
“No one can talk to you without your father’s permission. What’s your dad doing?”
“He’s arguing.”
This got to here, and my brain started with the questions:
“So, do we pursue the questioning?”
“Does it get to the questioning?”
“Do we get to the questioning and flashback or treat it like a police interview?”
“If we do get to the point where the police are taking to Morgan, would people like it if I write how a 10-year-old would talk?”
“Would I write the flashback as a narrative in an adult’s voice?”
And so, like the title of the story, its writing seems to have a curse around it. Could I have kept this under wraps and not shown you, my readers, the trials of stories that stall repeatedly? Yes, but that would not be who I am. I want to show you my writing process and style with all of its ups and downs.
Until next time,
Anissa “Maddy” Walker
House of Geek 