When Will the Storm Break?

This short story’s got a funny/interesting locked-in-a-room-together concept. But I’m a thousand words in and nothing’s happening. Plus, those thousand words have taken two days to write. What’s up with my pacing?


In terms of nothing happening: I think I’m used to novel pacing, where there’s room to go slow. And I think it’s also a problem that I don’t have an AWESOME central image for the story to hurtle towards (yet). Got to think on that, for sure.


In terms of my writing speed: Ok, ok, so I’ve been wondering if fast is really the way to go. Sometimes it is—mostly, I sometimes need to pound something out in one sitting. My TV script was like that, and I think a lot of short stories are like that. If I let them simmer too much I (a) lose the thread/tone/atmosphere (b) skip over the daily warming up because I’m so anxious to get today’s bit of the thing over with. If the whole story’s got to get done in a sitting, I’m forced to, yanno, actually sit for a while and work through the throat-clearing.


But lately I've also been cutting myself yards and yards of slack. It’s my real vacation time, and the last few weeks I’ll have before my friend leaves the country—I want to relish it. Obviously, I’ve got to write some (or I’ll go insane) but it’s important to savor life outside of writing—I can let myself get so consumed and that’s when I get anxious… and write badly (Catch 789 of writing well: past a certain point, the harder you press, the harder it is). All this means, though: I get a few hundred words down and skip on with my day. Not the best thing for pacing/momentum.


So: today I’m going to (1) think of a HAUNTING/BIZARRE/BEAUTIFUL image to center my story around (2) write it until it’s done.