As I've mentioned before, I love to write. It's probably one of my favourite things to do, though I don't do nearly as much of it as I would like, and though I'm not nearly as good at it as I wish I were. Nonetheless, once in a while, my need to write becomes so intense that it affects me very tangibly...my whole system is affected. During these times, like now, it's hard to sleep, hard to focus on life's more mundane tasks, hard even to engage in conversation. My body tenses up and I feel 'on edge.' I catch myself at moments throughout these days feeling really wired, as if my blood pressure's just gone up, or as if there's something that I'm supposed to be worried about but I've fogotten what it is - only to realize a heartbeat later that it's really just this burning need that I have to write.
When I'm like this, I confess that I can be easily irritated and short-tempered with those around me...not because I'm actually ill-tempered or irritated but because it feels (irrationally) like everything around me is conspiring to keep me out of my head - to pull my focus away from my internal world where things are purcolating. Have you ever tried really, really hard, to stick to an agenda, and found yourself irritated when someone or something distracts you from accomplishing your task? Well, that's me during these times. It's not so pleasant...correction...I'm not so pleasant!
I'm itching to write a short story...or a longer story. But I have no idea what to write it about...the topic is always the hard part for me. I'm in need of a plot. Any suggestions?
I started one longer story in spring that I haven't looked at in at least six months...but it's starting to pull at me again. The problem was/is that I need help with one aspect of the plot. The story is about an adult female character (early 40s?) going back to a place where she hasn't been since her childhood, and she is remembering and reminiscing about her first teenage love; she was about seventeen years old and he was a year older and was about to head off to university after the summer I've written about. I'm about thirty pages into the story and have written a lot of the memory/historical part and I have some ideas about the ending...but I'm needing some inspiration as to what would might have separated the characters after a fairly innocent summer experience of first love; what would pull two deeply-in-love teenagers apart after having found something fairly special with each other. Ideas, anyone?
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