Writing Scraps

Appendix. Write or Die! | Aborted Draft

Appendix. Write or Die!
Fox-Trot-9

[Summary: After taking up a cursed writing challenge, an struggling writer struggles to write amidst interrupting parents, writer's block and the dread that he might die if he doesn't me the deadline on time.]

* * *

Here I am, just one hour till the deadline ends at midnight on October 31. I'm at the computer in my office trying to reach the 1,000-word finish line; so far, I've only written about half that and with another 500 words to go, I've never felt more terrified in my life.

I wish I never took on this writing challenge. It had cost me dearly in the slow erosion of my sanity to realize the true peril of this challenge. It's cursed, I tell you, this fucking writing challenge is cursed! That's all I can say about it, really. After 30 days, that's ALL I can say about it! And now with half a blank page glaring at me, I don't know what else to write about it. That's the worst part, really. It's a fear every writer has. Not knowing what else to say, even when your life depends on it, as my life surely depends on it now with every damn minute ticking by towards the end.

Here I lean back on my seat and recollect the day I received the challenge online. It seemed utterly stupid back then, a joke really. God, how I wish I took it more seriously and write it down! ANYTHING!

* * *

It started with an e-mail in my inbox on the morning of Tuesday, October 1. It was 6:00 a.m. on a cloudy day, I remember. Maybe 65 or 70 degrees outside, a sure sign that summer has passed. Anyway, fuck the weather.

It started with that e-mail in the listings with the heading of "WRITE or DIE! The Easiest Writing Challenge to Get You Writing Again". I had to smile at that. For months before, I'd been trying to write short stories. It was hard, let me tell you, like sticking needles in your finger tips.

In my experience, writing has four requirements. First, a writer needs guts, because there will always be people who will disapprove of what you write, such as your parents, but mostly yourself; somehow, you're gonna have to turn off that little voice in your head that tells you: 'It's not good enough!' Second, a writer needs the energy to get the words down; I've found that if you're too tired to think at the end of the day, chances are you'll be too tired to write. Third, a writer needs discipline, because if you can't sit your ass down on the chair and type a certain number of words every day during a fixed period of time, you can't write consistently. But most of all, and this is my biggest problem, a writer needs focus to ignore the distractions; in my experience, everything is a distraction. Everything. It doesn't matter if it's the internet, homework, parents, or just the need to take a shit. Everything distracts me.

That's why I've struggled to get going on my stories again.

Things hadn't always been that way, though. There was a time last October that I could write without distraction, doubt or parents badgering me. I could take writing challenges and type away towards those deadlines, cutting it close at times, but managing to get it done within the hour of the deadline. I wrote my first story, "Behind the Mirror", during October of last year, all 11,000 words of it before the deadline; it's the size of a novelette, really. All through the time of its composition, I had few interruptions and little fear of failing at it. In fact, that story was the easiest story I ever wrote; the words flowed out of me like crap through a goose, and the result won my first writing challenge. The second story, "Lilium's Ghost", written in November of that year, was even longer, a nearly 14,000-word behemoth worthy of Poe or Stephen King. Then life got in the way, preventing me from writing during most of Winter Break, until the last week in which I pounded out 7,500 words of my latest story of the collection, "Look Before You Touch". It proved more difficult than the other two stories, because my parents began badgering me to get a job.