Writing a short story requires almost as much legwork as writing a novel. The author has to bring the story’s characters to life, give them backgrounds, put them in a context, develop a voice and so on and on. It is a lot of investment for 3,000 to 4,000 words.
Last week, we sat down to write a short story, thinking to get it done, accomplish the task and move on to the next thing. Ha. It was not a good week. With only a very general sense of what we wanted to do, we spent almost the entire week looking at a blank computer screen with all too frequent forays into the land of the living on the Internet. By Thursday, we were in a state of such complete anxiety that the muse would have had to use a billy club to get our attention.
It wasn’t until Friday morning that we woke up with a phrase in mind that has become the seed of a possible story. This week, we are in the building block phase, deciding on specifics like the color of characters’ eyes and the décor of their apartments – and doing required research.
Maybe next week, we will begin writing.