Chasing Zero

Two

With writing being the love of my life, I hated to admit any of its faults, one of them being the ability to get lost in the writing process. At times, it was great to get caught up in my work. The Writer's Zone was my favorite state of mind. The words would continue to pile up until I birthed a new story. And with each new one I wrote, I was on top of the world. Nothing could slow me down. Well, nothing at least until I'd lose track of time and almost wind up being late for class.

I hopped onto the elevator and pressed the first floor button before holding the door close button. Before the doors shut all the way, a hand slipped in and began to push the doors open. "Sorry," the boy apologized. When he saw me, his face lit up. "Hey, Spencer."

"Sky."

We weren't friends; we were friendly. We were in the same acting class, and he was incredibly talented. He was one of the better actors in the class and starred in multiple productions both on and off campus. He had a lot of potential. Everyone knew he was going to make it in bigger productions, like the shows on Chicago Shakespeare or the Cadillac theatre.

Like him, I was one of the better actors in class. In no way was that a humble brag or anything; it was just the truth. The class was divided into thirds. The first were the hard workers who took the class seriously and were thriving in their roles. The second were also taking the class seriously, but since they had no desire to be actors, you could tell it was little more forced. The final group were the people who just took the class in hopes of taking an easy class that would help them towards their degree.

I wasn't taking the class to try and become an actor or anything. I always like to joke and say that someone needs to write the plays they're going to star in, but it was true that I took the class for writing purposes. It taught me important skills to challenge my creative mind. When a script told me to express an emotion a specific way, I'd crawl into the mind of that character the same way I would for one of my original characters. To play a character, I had to create my own background for them based on what I knew about them through the dialogue. So I had to think about what motivated them to behave the way they did and draw on those created emotions and background in order to play an authentic version of said character.

When I wrote, I had to do the same thing. What the reader reads on the pages will be the only thing they'll ever know about my character's lives. But I have to create a background for each and every one of them, and draw back on those emotions to write out accurate dialogue and actions that would propel them to behave the way they do. Taking the acting class helped me with that aspect by having me act it out, so when I'm writing by myself, I know how to draw back on those memories instead of just writing what's on the surface. It's how I'm able to write well, flushed out characters for whatever story I write despite the length.

Sky and I rode down to the bottom floor in what I was sure he found to be an awkward silence. In the corner of my eye, I noticed him perk up as though he wanted to ask me a question, but he deflated each time my eyes flicked over to him. Not wanting to risk embarrassment of asking him if he wanted to ask me something when he really didn't, I kept quiet. But I never minded the silence. It allowed me the chance to think up a new book plot or scene.

The doors opened, and he gestured for me to exit first. I stepped out of the elevator and walked across the hall to the Black Box Theatre. Sky trailed in behind me, instantly joining a conversation that some of the students in the first row were having.

In the back was my best friend Gray. He held out his fist as I slid into the seat next to him and said, "Sup?"

I pounded his fist. "Not much. Yourself?"

"Just got off work. How did the meeting go with your teacher?"

Slapping my hands over my face, I leaned forward and groaned. My writing was unauthentic. I didn't have the right background to write about romance. People wanted to read romance. I couldn't think of an original idea as I waited for class to begin. My brainstorming session went nowhere. I was stuck.