Blocked

I'm stuck on a story.

It's not my novel. It's a short story, for my writing class. You know, the thing that I do for my major, basically, the entirety of my academic focus. It's not that I didn't have an idea; I did have one. And I kicked it around in my head for a while, thought it had some legs, and finally sat down to try to write it...

Nothing. It's a horrible idea. Because it was just that. It was an idea. I didn't have a character for it. Didn't have a story to tell. Just had this weird thing that happened to me one day, that I thought might have been interesting. But there's nothing to say about it.

I'm kicking myself in the ass for volunteering to go first. Because this is my one shot, you know, my one chance to impress, to show that I've got the chops. I volunteered to go first because I was confident that I had this good idea, that I could nail this piece and everything would be awesome. What's driving me crazy right now, after my idea fell apart, is that I have to have something ready in two days, while my peers are going to have weeks... in some cases, even months to get their stories ready.

Why is it so hard right now? I've been sitting here for almost an hour, thinking, trying, focusing, unfocusing, all to no avail. Is it because I'm up against a deadline? Is it because I know that I have to get this thing right, and I need to have it in two days? Is it because I want it to be perfect so very, very badly, and the reality is that the perfect is the enemy of the good? That the fact that I want this so badly means I'm going to second guess myself and prevent my brain from ever taking the risks to make mistakes, even though those risks are necessary to tell any story?

Part of me wonders if some of my difficulty is because I allowed myself to slide on my writing schedule for the past... what, two weeks? I mean, sure, there was the PTQ two weeks ago, and then there was all the time that next week spent worrying about my grandmother and staying at her bedside, and then there was the move, and then there was that godawful paper I had to do, and now there's this... is that an adequate list to excuse myself from not living up to "Write Every Day?" It seemed to me, then, that it was, but now I'm not so sure. Maybe if I'd just chosen to power through the tough parts and written my goal anyway, I'd have the focus now to get through this tough spot. Maybe I made the wrong choice, after all.

And then I wonder if it's more to do with the fact that starting a new story is always the hardest part, at least for me. It's so much easier to continue writing a work that you've been doing for a few days, a few weeks, a few months... you may get stuck wondering where to go next, but you never have to deal with that first crippling uncertainty: what do I write? What story do I tell? Where do I begin?

Sometimes in the past, doing a blog entry like this when my thoughts are in chaos and my mind is swirling has helped me focus, helped me clear through some of the stuff that's driving me crazy. But I have to admit, right now, I don't feel refreshed, don't feel any more focused. All I feel is that I've got a deadline coming up in two days and I have no idea what I should be writing. All I feel is stress and frustration, both at myself and at my stupid decision to volunteer, to volunteer to go first. Why did I do that? I never do that.

Because if I hadn't have chosen to go first, you know, hadn't basically said that these past two weeks were going to be my specific crunch time, well, then I wouldn't be trying to write through a move, a family crisis, and one of the most frustrating and awful papers I've ever had to do. I could have actually sat and focused and tried to work through this story.

I wish an idea would come to me.