I sit here, day after day, with the computer on and in front of me, my hands hovering over the keys half the time without typing a single word. I seem to always run into this problem. I’ll have a fantastic idea for a story or a book but then shortly after starting it, I run into a wall. Not just a wall I can simply walk around or find a door to go through, but a huge, fifteen-feet high, three-feet thick cement wall layered in heavy steel that stretches on for miles. It stops me in my tracks and freezes my fingers and brain from working any further. Eventually, I give up. There are dozens of stories and books that I have initiated that are discarded in the trash bin, dragged to the trash on the desktop, or pushed far back into my mind. Simply because of that wall. Recently, I’ve decided, though, that I want to find a way over that wall. I want to build a ladder and climb steadily until I can sit on top of the wall and jump down to go running into the lush green fields that is a completed book. If I can’t build a ladder, then I want to blow a hole just big enough to squeeze my little frame through while I cough and sputter, trying not to inhale too much cement dust on my journey through the road block from hell. If I can’t find any explosive material (or I can only find components and realize I don’t know how to combine and use them to create said explosive material), I want to throw some sort of acid on that sucker and watch it melt away like the blood from an ‘Alien’ was thrown haphazardly on it.
The easy way to do this might seem like writing out an entire plot outline before actually beginning the story. I’ve tried. I’ve had almost everything figured out and planned but I will still inevitably come to a point where my brain just stops functioning properly to put descriptions of a scene into words or a minor event needs to happen but I can’t determine what exactly that is.
Such is the predicament I’ve been in recently. Instead of solely focusing on a single book idea, I’ve been jotting down ideas for short stories and working on writing off of those while also going back to writing on what I hope becomes an interesting and captivating book. I have the beginning, a sort of introduction to the main story line, completed and typed up, sitting nicely in the folder on my desktop where I store my writing. I have a few snippets and bits and pieces figured out in my head, as well, that I’m just waiting to include when the time in the story calls for it. Some days, though, I’ll open the document and just stare at it, scrolling lazily up and down over the text that I’ve already managed to get out of my head and into readable words. I also have days where I look at my list of phrases or words that serve as ideas for other stories and I just don’t feel a spark for any of them. It’s not that I don’t have some of the stories already fully thought out in my mind, it’s that I just don’t WANT to write them out at the time and I won’t force myself to because I feel like the story would end up lacking heart and caring and become bland and read as if I had thrown it in a blender, hit puree, and then thrown the meat-smoothie remains onto the computer screen and said “voila, done.”
So, day after day, I sit here, computer open, fingers resting lightly on keys that aren’t being pressed, staring at a blank section of screen that’s begging me to unhinge my skull and throw brain matter onto it (figuratively, of course, but I’m tempted sometimes to be literal about this). Today started out no differently. I awoke to the sounds of machines digging next to my bedroom window- three apartment complexes like my own are being prepared to be built along the street I live on, one directly next to my building. I did my normal wake-up routine: went to the bathroom, brushed my teeth, greeted the cat and dog in the living room, booted up the laptop, texted my husband who works during the day (I work at night), and sat down to make the daily attempt at writing something spectacular (or anything at all). I was determined to write at least another five pages of the book or one more short story. After half an hour of opening unfinished stories and the book, skimming over the list of ideas I keep, staring blankly at the screen, and running my hands over my face while I look out of the sliding glass window at the sunshine beating angrily on everything outside, I gave up and decided to take a break. I figured I’d walk outside in the unbearable heat to check the mail, then find something to eat and watch a bit of a movie before starting up again. Then, I would make myself write those five pages, I would get past that wall somehow, even if it meant leaving the screen open to the book document for hours.
The mail today consisted simply of a small NRA magazine for my husband, a couple of ads for local places, and the water bill. I carried the thin contents inside and threw away the flyers then dropped the magazine in my husband’s recliner for him to look through later. When I went to set the water bill on the table next to my seat, I realized that something fell out of it. It wasn’t an insert for the magazine; it was a small envelope baring my name and address. I picked it up and looked at the unassuming envelope, guessing it was probably some sort of junk mail. It was small, no more than maybe three inches by four inches, if that. The white paper encasing had only my name, address, and a return address with no name written on it. I turned it over in my hands a couple of times and saw that other than the writing, it seemed almost dirty, as if it had been dropped in the mud then picked up and wiped off. I had walked into the kitchen while examining the flat item and took my eyes off of it to gaze into the refrigerator for a moment, trying to decide what to feed my face. I closed the fridge and opened the cupboard at the other end of the kitchen, grabbing a small bag of chips and opening them while carrying the chips and the letter back to my seat.
I slid a finger under the flap of the envelope and tugged the seal open, only ripping part of it as I forced it to let go of itself. Inside was a small folded piece of yellow legal-pad paper. This definitely wasn’t a piece of junk mail. I slid a chip in my mouth as I unfolded the piece of paper to read the message that appeared to have been scrawled quickly in messy handwriting not dislike my own. There were dark spots on the edges of the page from what looked like a dark substance being on the sender’s fingers as they folded it and shoved it into the envelope. I had opened it upside-down so I flipped it around to read the words, seeing that there were also spots of what I assumed was the same stuff as along the edges, splattered on the page, obscuring some of the words. I read the frantic message the best that I could. Some of the words are only partially blotted out by whatever liquid dried on it, so I can make out what they are meant to be or what I think it is. Other words are completely covered, though. Here’s what I can best read and understand:
‘The book you’re writing. Don’t write —- coming. —- yellow eyes, look for the yellow eyes. I finished —- so I know you will finish the book. Please stop writing it. I don’t want to die. You think you —- the idea out of nowhere —- don’t remember yet. —- don’t remember the truth of the monster you write about. You —- stop. I wish I had stopped. If I had stopped, I wouldn’t —- Boe, I am you. I beg you to listen and believe me. It comes —- night and the day —– handprints on the window and didn’t know. I asked it to come in. It will make itself look like people —- and love —- Matt. It killed him. It ripped him apart slowly —- tried to shoot it. He tried to protect —- Oh god, he’s gone. Bullets didn’t —- screams were horrible. Don’t let Matt —- leave the story in your head and find something else —- That thing will come —- only protected by not remembering the truth. I remembered —- and it got them killed —- Matt killed. It’s invisible —- day. I don’t know why or —- at night it comes. It bangs on the windows. It chases —- truck. It killed —- poor person —- walking home that night. Please, I’m begging you. Don’t write that book. It won’t wait —- won’t make a deal. Don’t let Matt get torn apart. Don’t —- where I am. I hope you get this. I hope there’s —- blood. I hope I die before it finds me again.
stop writing it stop writing it stop writing it stop writing it stop writing stop writing stop writing stop writing stop writing stop stop stop stop stop stop stop stop stop’
The rest of the page is filled with ‘stops’. After reading over the letter three times and working to make out what words I couldn’t see, the thought occurred to me that the spots might be blood or supposed to seem like blood. I thought this had to be some sort of bad joke and I’d still believe that if not for the fact that Matt swears he didn’t write it, that it looks like my handwriting, and a few minutes after texting and asking him about it, there was a knock at the front door, the one that opens to the hallway of the apartment building. The initial knock made me jump but I took a deep breath and opened the door, careful to not let either one of the animals run out. There was no one there. I stepped into the hallway, looking to both sides and saw no one in the small stretch between the front door of the 6-plex and the back door. I looked at the floor to see if there was a package or a flyer but again, nothing.
With my head stuck out into the hall, I heard a bang against the sliding glass door to my right. I jerked back into the apartment and looked over to see our dog sitting up, startled from her nap, our cat with her head up, also surprised by the noise that suddenly roused her from her own slumber, but no one and nothing outside the door. I shut and locked the front door then walked apprehensively to the glass door, looking around and still seeing no sign of anyone nearby. I looked down and patted the dog’s head to comfort her. I inhaled and exhaled a deep breath once again and went to sit back down. Something on the glass caught the corner of my eye as I began to walk away, though. I looked at it and realized it was a handprint, the kind that would be left on dirty glass or fogged glass. The print was definitely larger than my own, with fingers that stretched to at least twice the length of mine. I touched the glass softly and used a finger to wipe at it but nothing happened.
The handprint was on the outside of the glass.
We have a screen door on the outside of the sliding glass door that we have to fight with to open every time.
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