Demons of the Writing Mind came in MY mind when I was competing in short story contests. This was exactly how I felt while writing a short story. A magazine in the early 2000's published it. I thought I'd share. Maybe someone else feels the same way.
Demons of the Writing Mind
By Patricia A. Guthrie
Lucille stood on the Dunes looking over the
peacefulness and tranquility of Lake Michigan.
It was hot and Lucille did not feel either peaceful or tranquil. She was on the run.
A couple of lovers
walked hand in hand. They noticed her
and walked away looking for a more secluded spot. She smiled. This was one place the police wouldn’t think
to look, and, if they did? So what! She’d throw herself over before they were
within one hundred yards. She knew that
was what would happen anyway.
“Crap!”
I said, not at all ladylike. “What the
devil would a woman really feel like, if she had just killed her husband and
was about to pitch herself over a cliff?”
I stamped my foot and walked into the kitchen, deciding to do the dishes
from last night. “Demons, my foot!” I slammed the Corelle dish, a little too hard
on the counter, and it broke. “Damn!”
“Okay,
here goes. Brain! Get in gear!”
She knew she couldn’t have taken any more
abuse. Every afternoon, he’d stop for a “quick one.” The “quick one” usually turned into a “long
one” and George couldn’t handle his liquor.
Usually, glassy eyed, he came home and picked a fight. The fight turned into a slamming match. She had the black eyes and bruised arms as
proof.
“I
wonder how that feels?” I punched my arm and winced. Do writers really need to live the
experiences of their characters?
God! I hope not! I got up and went into the bedroom to make my
bed. My mind keep floating back and
forth-back and forth: clean the house,
mow the lawn, write, study my grammar, train the dogs, write, do my lesson
plans for school, write, read a GOOD book, write. I continued my thousand word
short story.
The previous evening, George had been blind
drunk. His demons didn’t even bother
picking a fight. They went directly for
the baseball bat. Lucille tripped him and as he cursed, she hit him over the
head at least ten times.
“Good
for her, the lousy. . . . Well, maybe
not ten times, and, would he still be cursing after the first blow? Shoot, time to feed the dogs.” I got up and poured Nutri-Max (not intended
as a commercial) into their bowls.
It had been strange sleeping in her bed
alone with George lying dead downstairs.
An experience, she wouldn’t want to repeat. She wouldn’t need to repeat. Her mind corrected the error. By nightfall she, too, would be dead. Would she have to spend eternity with George?
“God! I hope not. How is she going to get out of
this?” So far, I had some four hundred
words in my story. I had demons in my
soul, too. They consisted of a thousand
word short story once a week. I had two
more hours to complete my assignment and desperately needed a Diet Cream Soda.
It was now approaching noon. Lucille wished she had brought out her
Sunblock 24 as the sun beat down. She. .
. .
I
realized that it was I that needed the Sunblock 24. Though it was fast approaching sunset, the
sun was setting directly into the kitchen window and causing little flashing
demons of light on my monitor. I had
trouble reading the screen through the glare.
“Grocery
shopping! I have to go grocery
shopping!” Those mind demons again.
Lucille opened the picnic basket and spread
her lunch out on the elegant lace table cloth that she and George received for
their last anniversary.
Would she really
have the presence of mind to make a picnic lunch? Good God!
My lawn needs mowing! Oh jeez,
only six hundred words! How am I going
to get her out of this?
The lunch having been properly consumed
Sounds like a bad
Nineteen-Century Victorian Romance novel.
Speaking of romance, how about a love interest?
The evening sun went down in a final blaze
of glory as Lucille realized her final evening on earth. It was a wonderful send-off. The colors of peaches, oranges, yellows all
mingled with violets and blues and clouds flickered their steely, grey tones
adding to the collage. She thought it
might rain.
Speaking of rain,
did I shut my bedroom windows? The glare
in the monitor suddenly disappeared and I heard a crack of thunder. How appropriate! Only a half hour left until
six o’clock and the change of topics!
She looked down onto the beach. It had to be hundreds of feet below and the
rocks would make sure of her quick death.
What was that sound? She turned and looked down the path which led
back into the forest preserves. It was
the sound of a motor. She trembled. They found her. They would charge her with
murder and put her on trial. She would be executed. Death wouldn’t be so bad, but to spend the
next ten years waiting for it, she couldn’t take that.
“Alex, I wonder
what it would feel like to spend the next ten years on Death Row?” Alex is my blue-merle collie. He yawned and I looked at the clock. Five
minutes to go.
“Wait, Lucille.”
That voice. It was (What
would his name be? Alex. That’s it!) It was Alex. The man she should have married!
“Don’t! Lucille, we know what happened! Your neighbor
saw him through the open door. She knows it was self-defense!”
She stood, mesmerized,
by the sound of his voice. Then, without a word, they ran to each other and
stood, locked in an embrace for a very long time.
“Whew! Got her out of that one! How many words? No!
It’s over eleven hundred. Two
minutes left. Jeez, what am I going to
remove?” For the next minute, I deleted
words.
“Finally! Exactly nine hundred ninety-nine! Now, press ‘select all’, ‘copy’ and (Hm! Hurry UP America On-Line) Okay! Got it!
‘Paste!’ Now hit
‘submit’----okay! Got it!”
That
was before I discovered the typos!
The End
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