Interference versus Inspiration

I have conquered the writer’s block created by my indecision surrounding some of the names in my novel. In fact, I decided this week to change 3 of my characters names and after I made that decision, I was able to finish a whole chapter.

I didn’t reach my weekly goal of 5,000 words, but I feel like I’m making enough progress for now. I would say it was a lack of time that kept me from reaching my goal, but that would be a lie. In reality, it was choices that I made. I chose to spend my time doing other things, and so, the novel that will be has suffered. (But on a happier note, I managed to sell my car this week, so I checked that off my to do list).

These last few days as I’ve been writing, I have been thinking about how what I’m reading also seems to affect my writing.

When I read something that I both enjoy and find thought provoking, I tend to write more and feel like the ideas are more easily attainable.

The converse is also true though. If I’m reading something that doesn’t hold my interest and I feel like I’m struggling / forcing myself to read, I don’t feel as creative.

This week I have been reading a book that I didn’t really enjoy. (I am going to post a review of it after I give myself 24 hours to digest it completely, seeing as I just finished it about an hour ago).

I have also been reading some short stories that I wrote during my undergraduate years, and I can actually remember certain books or short stories that sparked my creativity and lead to the pieces I have been re-reading.

One short story in particular that I wrote “Bill’s Sporting Goods Bonanza” is the spawn of too many hours spent reading comic books one weekend.

This was written a long time ago, (2007 I think) and to this day it makes me laugh because it is rather cheesy, but here it is anyway…

Bill’s Sporting Goods Bonanza

            Tito Speed, a high school dropout who had just found this great job, mopped the floor of Bill’s Sporting Goods Bonanza very carefully, trying not to miss a spot. He used to be a star football player. He could have had any girl he wanted and he did. He was even thinking of going into modeling after high school, all the girls said he had the muscles for it. Then something happened, he’d gotten into a fight. He’d beaten the boy. He couldn’t even remember what for. They’d just starting arguing, and then he hit the boy. He didn’t realize he could hit that hard. Anyhow, it had gotten him a lot of enemies. He was kicked off the football team, and then he started to fight with his parents, and eventually he’d gotten kicked out. Now he was here, working as a janitor.

Shortly after midnight, Tito finished and was about to lock the store when he remembered he hadn’t locked the storage space. As he went down the stairs, he noticed movement amongst the boxes. He walked to the boxes but saw nothing, he looked around a bit longer, but only found more boxes, and he assumed it was just his imagination. Unbeknownst to him, Arthur Wart had gone up the stairs behind Tito’s back. Arthur was preparing to rob the store blind. He didn’t see Tito in the basement; he thought he’d heard the janitor lock up and so he prepared to make his move.

“Drop the shoes and put your hands up,” Tito said to the back of Arthur’s head.

“I don’t think you want to do that amigo,” said Arthur feeling what felt like a broomstick being shoved into his back. He quickly turned looking Tito in the eyes. Arthur tornado kicked the broom out of Tito’s hands and took off running.

“Oh, a tough guy,” said Tito as he chased after Arthur, who was heading for the indoor sports section.

By the time Tito caught Arthur, Arthur had picked his weapon of choice, a pool stick. Tito skidded to a halt just in time to see it swing by his face. He quickly made for a rack of sticks and chose one for himself.

“It’s like that, huh?” said Arthur as Tito turned around to face him.

“Yeah. Hope you’ve brushed up on your light-saber techniques,” said Tito as he and Arthur took turns swinging at each other. This came to an abrupt halt when Tito’s stick struck Arthur upside the head and broke in half.

Arthur shook his head a little and smiled. “How unfortunate for you,” said Arthur who, aimed his stick like a harpoon at Tito than then took off running to the left, headed for the snow sports section.

Tito followed Arthur. Soon Tito caught up with Arthur, Tito shoved Arthur as hard as possible, sending Arthur into a display of ice skates. “They didn’t make me night janitor for nothing, fool.”

“Perhaps, it was because of your wonderful people skills, loser.” Arthur, thinking quickly, removed the protective covering on one of the ice skates and sent one soaring towards Tito. The skate ripped deep into Tito’s leg causing the floor to become slippery with his blood. This stunned Tito long enough for Arthur to run once again, this time heading for the extreme sports section.

Tito gained some strength back momentarily and grabbed some darts as he headed for Arthur. Arthur had stumbled through the rock climbing gear and found some boots with spikes sticking out the front and quickly put these onto his feet and he high tailed it over to the ski equipment and grabbed some ski poles just as a dart stuck in the back of his thigh.

“Bull’s eye.” Tito threw dart after dart right for Arthur’s head and missed ten times in a row. As Arthur dodged this onslaught, he made for the direction of Tito and started to furiously swing his ski poles. One of them caught Tito in the leg and he fell to the ground and cracked his head on the tile. Arthur took advantage of the situation and kicked Tito in the side, sinking one of the spikes of his boots in between Tito’s ribs.

“You won’t get away with this, you were just a thief before,” Tito said as blood bubbled out of his mouth. “How does that make you feel?”

“Muy bien, how does that make you feel chump?”

“Well, not too good, seeing as I’m your first victim.”

“Not really, I’m just leaving you here to die, I’m not going to kill you, technically, you’ll die from blood lose.” Arthur turned and left grabbing a pair of tennis shoes on his way out.

Tito using all the strength he had to get up and make his way towards Arthur. “Not so fast, I got a croquet mallet here with your name on it,” said Tito as he smashed the mallet against the back of Arthur’s skull splattering blood on the freshly Windexed windows. “Damn it I’m going to have to scrub for an hour to get that off.”

A person walking their dog on the streets had heard the crashing inside the store and used their cell phone to call the police. The police arrived on the scene just in time to catch this last piece of violence.

“Drop the weapon and put your hands in the air! You, call an ambulance. You, handcuff the psycho and get him in the squad car. I’ll radio the chief, he’s gonna want to see this.” The cops quickly got to work and Tito was cuffed and when they realized he too needed medical attention, they rushed him and Arthur to the local emergency room.

Both of the men died from the wounds they sustained that evening. Bill, in a moment of entrepreneurial genius, sold DVD copies of the security footage from that night. He even hired a wanna-be filmmaker to add a soundtrack and subtle sound effects. And luckily for Bill, people love a good fight.