did they use a real shark on the set of jaws?

[one hundred, sixteen]

I was trying to write, you know, an actual fictional tale about some people at a cottage and this guy who's afraid of the dark. I think I'm still going to write it, but I can only get tacky starts right now, so it's become the project of the week! Write a short story, about ten pages, about these characters. When I want to write fiction, this thing happens in my head. an unusual thing, anyway.

These characters, these people, come into my daydreams. I can tell it's different people that I don't know because, well, they're different people that I don't know, and they basically just make a story in my head. Or, there's just a picture, or a very very short scene, that happens in my head, that I can't shake off, and that I need to write down. The characters need to walk out of my head and into their story.

Right now there's this character Alan, and he's about twenty, and he's I don't know he seems to be at a college or something for architecture because he likes to draw, who's got these best friends. Alan has brown hair and is tall and wears red plaid a lot and jeans with flip flops on the beach. He can't swim, but he goes to this cottage with his friends anyway. The scene in my head that is of question for this story is just him sitting on a blue blanket, with a pack of cig's beside him, and he's watching his two fears overcome him on the beach: the waves, the tide, the water is getting higher and closer, and the sun is setting. He's afraid of the dark.

The one thing (and commonly the problem) with these mystery characters is that I can give them a story, a photograph in my head. I can detail it, I can make them live and everything, but I don't have much of a motivation until I get deep into the writing. So, either, I have to write about Alan for hours and hours trying to find his purpose, or just write for years about the same people and be lost.

Writing is losing, it's driving out to the middle of nowhere and purposely losing your way, and strip yourself down, give yourself up to the forces, close your eyes, and then for the love of pete find your way back. I think sometime this week I'm going to be taking a couple of hours straight, get water and food and music and lock my door and discover Alan, because through writing you find bits of yourself.

I wish you all a lovely evening, I'm spending it with the boys we're playing risk. Tomorrow I have to head back to the uni city and get my house bit set up again all before eleven thirty am, so I'm going to be coming back and watching a movie probably, or working out a bit. That's all until I write this again/.

today was an enjoyable writing post, as I'm excited to be writing again, vclearly.

love,

Jess :]