This morning, I woke up with the greatest idea for a story. It was an original concept, and I had a strong character in mind.
And then…
I fell back asleep.
And I forgot the idea.
The only thing I remember is that the character was female, and I believe she was a young girl.
Tonight I’m going to bed with a notebook and a pen by my bed again.
“Kiss me.
I want you to kiss me.
Do I get a kiss?
So what about a kiss?
How about a kiss?
Goddamn it!”
Shannon’s face screwed up and she put her fists over her eyes, blocking the view of her rapidly reddening face in the mirror. She breathed deeply, trying to calm down. She felt the blush recede slowly, and took her hands away, although her eyes were still closed. Puckering her mouth, she made a soft kissing noise and then uttered a loud “yech!” Turning away from the mirror she grabbed the phone off her bedside table and scrolled through the texts she’d received from Peter. They weren’t many of them, but they all seemed to indicate that he enjoyed the two evenings they’d spent together.
So why won’t you kiss me? she thought fiercely, trying to telepathically send him the question burned across the coils of her thoughts. She wasn’t obsessing. She’d been warned not to obsess again, not over another one. The past three men had been nothing, bodies that she remembered stretched naked in her bed, unappealing in the morning when the alcohol and excitement had worn off. But Peter was different. He and she had known each other for years, had worked together companionably at the factory. There was that one week when she’d been transferred to make up for a lack of employees in some other section, and it had been horrible, full of men trying to hit on her and women who looked at her tank top and low-slung jeans derisively.
Peter saw past that. He told her about his troubles at home and how his wife’s last miscarriage had been the final blow for them. He was a widower, and three dead babies hadn’t helped him emotionally. But Shannon thought that she might be helping. She wanted to see him in her bed from the first time they’d met, but, uncharacteristically, she’d never made a move, even when he and his wife were separated. She waited until the divorce papers went through, and still never hinted at her interest in him. Instead, she continued to date others, pretending that everything in her life was just the same as it had been.
But then, finally, he’d asked her out. And now he wouldn’t kiss her. Tonight was the third date, and she didn’t know if she should kiss him or not. She didn’t want to, though. After years of being the initiator, she thought that it was someone else’s turn this time. She threw her phone back on her narrow bed and strode over to the closet. The door creaked as she opened it. She pulled down one of the blankets from the top shelf, a blue and purple afghan, and flung it over the mirror. Then she picked up her toiletry bag and went to the shared bathroom in order to get ready for her date.
But all night, the two words that kept going around and around her mind, looping like a broken record, were ‘kiss me.’
1. I’m still alive.
2. I’ve been horribly neglectful.
3. The reason for the above is that I’ve been either writing furiously and feverishly on one of my two projects (yes, there are two now, but one needs a composer… Does anyone know a composer?) or tearing my hair out, quite literally, with frustration at not managing to write.
4. After years of reluctance, I’ve finally started watching the Harry Potter films. I’m a huge fan of the books – they changed my life. I might not have become such a reader if not for them. But now, after so long of refusing to watch the films, I’ve agreed to. The first part of the seventh film is coming out in September, I believe, and damn if I don’t want to have something Harry Potter-ish to look forward to. I’ve just finished watching the third film, and I must say that more than anything else, I’m finding great hilarity in them.
5. I do hope that starting today I’ll stop being quite so neglectful.
6. I went to a perfectly marvelous cabaret on Saturday. It was perfectly marvelous. You see, we do have some creative people in Israel!
7. I’m currently reading The Picture of Dorian Gray.
8. And Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix.
9. I’m hoping to start taking voice lessons. Hopefully this will lead me back to guitar as well, and eventually to drama too. I know it’s ridiculous, but I can’t help it – I feel the need to try and be creative in every way possible. I want to take drawing lessons, too. *sigh*
10. It’s 1:27 AM in Israel, I’m tired, and I’m going to bed. Goodnight, lovelies.
What to do when my muse has fled?
Why, I could sit here on my bed
And I could then begin to dread
That she has forever left my head.
My muse is a fickle thing,
She doesn’t call, she doesn’t ring.
On a whim she’ll come and bring
Me an idea of car or king.
But then she leaves and I’m bereft,
My hands- with keyboard deft,
Almost willing to commit literary theft,
For without my muse, what have I left?
But then again, there is no muse,
It’s all a sham, it’s all a ruse,
‘O Mind, you’re cruel!’ I accuse,
‘To give me an idea, you refuse!’
And so it goes once in a while,
And thus these poems, so infantile,
Are born of frustration and denial
With a brain, just now infertile!
Inspiration can come from anywhere. It can come from the way a cloud moves across the sky, reminding you of a puppy chasing it’s mother through the sky, trying to catch up with her. It can come from the way your morning cup of coffee smells, the rich and heady aroma of it rising into your nose and awakening your senses. It can come from the old man you saw on the street who was struggling with his shopping bags and grumbling under his breath about the youth of today.
Inspiration can come from your favorite books, movies, radio-shows and music. You can copy and steal from every written word ever published without anyone being the wiser, because on the way to your finished work you changed everything you meant to steal. Your inspiration can carry you past plain copy-and-paste into the land of borrowing from lyrics, ideas, symbols, and generalized characters. You can decide to copy the tale of Aladdin’s Lamp and end up writing about fog in San-Francisco – and even then you might be positive you stole the whole thing.
Inspiration can be slippery. It can hit you when you’re in the middle of a conversation, when you’re driving, when you’re about to fall asleep – as a result, you’ll lose the ideas, and kick yourself for it. It can also strike you just when the pen is in your hand or your hands are hovering over the keyboard.
Inspiration can be a bitch, and desert you for days at a time.
Slightly Ignorant 