I don't know. A little bit of a lot of things but I still seem to be under the curse of zero decent content. For the sake of posterity and hopefully a helpful hint or two on where to go from here, I'll post a bit of what I've started for Experiment #6 The world is exactly like ours except...
In my story, everyone has an imaginary friend and they are assigned to fulfill some sort of purpose in each person's life. They will stay with a person until they have fulfilled that purpose (help develop self-esteem, be a friend to the lonely, provide comfort through a period of grief, etc.) My protagonist, Peter, has an imaginary friend, Evangelo, but they do not actually have anything in common. Peter finds him annoying. That's about as far as I've gotten. I'm thinking short story so feel free to make some suggestions. I'm praying that something will break me out of this terrible writer's block!
Word Count: 408
I don’t remember the exact moment when Evangelo came into my life. I guess I just kinda figured he’d always been there. At least as far back as I could remember. It wasn’t as if Evangelo was particularly annoying or anything. He was just kind of like the kid you’re forced to hang out with because your parents are friends, though given the opportunity to choose, you would probably pick just about anyone else to play with over him. We seemed to have nothing in common. Of all the imaginary friends I could’ve been paired up with, why did I have Evangelo?
My brother Reggie really loved his imaginary buddy, Gander. Those two never seemed to run out of things to say. Well, Reggie didn’t. I’ve never actually heard Gander speak. They spent hours talking about the latest video games or how to get to the next level on Death Star 5. They never fought or seemed to get sick of each other. In fact, when Gander had to go visit his mother over Christmas, Reggie missed him so much he cried. They were inseparable for two weeks after he returned.
Sometimes I wished Evangelo would take a vacation, but I don’t even know if he has a mother.
“You two will figure it out,” my mother told me as I complained, yet again, about how uncomfortable I felt with Evangelo hanging around. “Just give it time.”
“Mom, I could give it all the time in the world but it won’t change the fact that he’s a mouth-breather. Can you imagine how creepy it is to be trying to fall asleep and hearing ‘heh-heh-heh’ coming from the dark corner of the room? Besides that, he’s weird. He never says anything, even when I ask him a question. It’s like living with a stalker following me around. Except that he’s not even a good one.”
“Peter, keep your voice down! Evangelo could hear you and how do you think that would make him feel?”
“How would I know, Mom?” The sarcasm dripping from my words, “He won’t tell me.”
“Well, you may not like it but there’s nothing we can do except wait it out. Every imaginary friend has a purpose. He wouldn’t be here if you didn’t need him for something. It’s not always clear why they come until after they have done their job. Just keep trying new things. You’re a smart kid. The answers will come.”
How do I feel about the process?
In a word? FRUSTRATED. I feel like I'm having good ideas and no skill to follow through. Maybe I'm too much in my head about it. I get a little bit done and then all creativity and motivation dries up. I guess I just have to continue to push forward.
What am I currently reading?
I just finished Stephen King's On Writing and am thankful that it was required reading for this course. I gleaned a lot of really valuable bits of information from its pages. I also started the 20 Master Plots book. I was assigned the experiment on Decension. I had an idea about writing about what happens we we choose to do the thing we know that we shouldn't. I really relate to that struggle to 'make the right choice' in light of the more tempting option and I think there is a lot to explore creatively for someone who goes against their own better judgement and inevitably have to pay the piper for their decision. Maybe when I am no longer mentally paralyzed, I'll actually post something.
I like your experiment so far!
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