GOODNIGHT, FUCKERS #570: A NEW WAY IN

 So I'm working on this story, but I'm taking a much different approach. It's rare when I sit and think about what I'm going to write. Story comes naturally to me. Execution? Not so much. I know right away if something is going to be a short story, novel, etc. I know the POV right away. The tense. What it's about. The stuff that is going to happen. More often than not, I know how it ends. Most importantly, I know how it begins. Can't start without something that grabs the reader by the proverbial (sometimes) nuts.

CHAAAAAARGE!

I usually just sit down and charge, full speed ahead. Don't stop. If I fuck up, I fix it as I go. Sometimes I write myself into a corner, but then I can unfuck it pretty quickly. I do my best to have my first draft resemble the final draft fairly closely so that editing is mostly fine tuning, not reinventing the wheel.

This story is making different demands of me. I'm open to it. The story needs whatever it needs. That's my philosophy. So I had to actually sit and think about this one. I had the idea first. What kind of character should this be happening to? And what other characters do I need? Wait, the guy I thought was the protagonist isn't. It's this other guy over here. It makes more sense that way. But how do I let this guy know what's happening to the other guy? Because this story depends a lot on that other guy being alone for a lot of the story.

There is an object at the center of this story. Who did it belong to before this guy? What happened to that owner and why? Is it something to do with the previous owner? Of course it is. So how do I get my new protagonist to find out about that stuff? Especially since I'm basing it in the 'Nineties when the internet was in its infancy and Google didn't exist yet?

These are usually the kinds of things I think about when I go out for night walks, but I can't do those anymore because of my bad foot. Not unless I want it to be amputated sometime soon. Thankfully I have meditation, and that usually helps me find a new way in. 

I haven't gone so far as to have an outline. I'm not that crazy yet. But this is an interesting experience. Maybe someday you'll all read this story. Hopefully in a venue that will pay me a lot. We shall see.