I've been sitting here staring at a blank screen for awhile now. What do I wrote about? Surely my brain can come up with something, right?
Nope.
Hmmm...
So on a little nudge, I decided to google "story ideas" to give me something to pursue. The ideas offered gave me a moment or two of laughter, a moment of "borrrrrrrrrrrrring" and a moment of "uh no I think I'll pass" and other moments of "ok that's just WEIRD who would write about THAT?"
Here are some of the suggestions. Let's see where this takes me. I will pick the first idea.
Write about a scar. Yeah, a scar. Not a scarE. A scar.
Well I could tell you about the scar I have on my right arm. That's from a minor surgical procedure I had done when I was about 5. I had a benign cyst. I don't remember what it looked like nor do I remember it ever being there. But apparently it was big enough to warrant an out-patient surgery. Well, more like a scraping if my memory is still correct.
I remember feeling very small lying on the table. Big bright lights above. But I also remember feeling very calm. Curious, in a way, as to what was going to happen. The doctor and some nurses milled around, getting tools and doing other "doctoree" things. I remember getting some sort of pain numbing agent. Was it with a needle? I doubt that - I would have pitched a fit. Probably a numbing agent applied topically is my best guess. Next, I remember the doctor taking a shiny object with a sharp looking blade on it, telling me he was going to remove the cyst. I watched him do it with great precision, at least that's what my mom told me. The only memory I have is watching him take that piece of me and putting it into a mason jar. I remember thinking it looked like those jars my grandma used for canning pears and other things. I found it fascinating and wondered if I was going to get to take it home with me. Where would I put it? On top of my dresser?
As I said the only memory I have of the actual surgery is seeing my cyst placed in that jar. Were there stitches? I don't know. I don't think so. However, what I do know, what remains the most vivid (aside from that jar) is seeing the nurse come at me with a band-aid.
No.
N O.
NO NO NO and NO!
Not the band-aid!
I freaked.
I cried.
Everyone in that place heard me.
Including my mom who at the time knew what was happening: they were most likely trying to get a band-aid on me.
You see, I could take a lot of things as a little girl but one thing I could not tolerate was having a band-aid ripped off. So, it wasn't the process of putting it on me, it was my little brain reminding me it would have to come off and when that happened it meant sudden. pain.
My last memory is someone walking me down the hall to my mom, saying what a great patient I was until they needed to put a band-aid on me.
Oh well.
We can't all be the perfect patient.
So..........returning to the google search for story ideas.
This one stood out: a young person comes across the path of a psychopath.
Hmmm, I think. Well, I did meet the local mayor once. Politicians are pretty much all psychopaths, right? Pretend to care about you, smile that big obnoxious smile with the capped white teeth while taking their invisible hand, reach into your purse and take what little money you have without remorse.
Nah, that's too much like real life I think, moving on down the list.
Well, here's an interesting one. A family uses all of their savings to start an inter-galactic newspaper. That reminds me of one of my very first stories I wrote when I was about 5. It too involved a young family (this one also had a dog) that decided to build a rocket and fly it to the moon. They got halfway there but had to turn around because certain members (the youngest brother) got rocket-sick. I think in truth, at the time, while the idea was fascinating to my young mind, taking off and exploring the cosmos quite intriguing, I knew I really wouldn't want to do something like that. I would leave behind my bike (rocket was too small) plus all of my friends, my bed, you know - my life. So, I had to devise a quick way to end the story before I got too into it. What better way than to place the blame on the little brother and his physiological aversion to space travel?
Returning to google, I see another one. A family takes their child's invention idea and turns it into a fortune, leaving the child out of the process. First of all ~ TERRIBLE idea. However, it did remind me of an invention idea I had when I first went skiing. I was 16. When I first saw the length of those ski's I said "you've GOT to be kidding? These ski's are as tall as I am!" I strapped them on anyway and proceeded to spend the rest of the afternoon sitting on my behind in wet snow. Not that I wanted to sit in the snow. I simply kept falling. Why? Not due to balance, but due to the fact that my ski's kept getting entangled which landed me - forced me - onto the ground. The whole time, as the frustration grew, I began to think there had to be a better way to ski. Suddenly it hit me - a flash - a vision: short ski's. Maybe 18" in length. Later that evening I shared the idea with my aunt and uncle. They dismissed it as silly child idea. I hit up my parents with the idea - they too didn't seem interested. But me? I knew it would sell. Unfortunately, when you're 16 and have no money and your closest connection to anyone famous are the people on the posters taped to your wall, there's not much you can do but to move on.
And that I did.
Until one evening in 1997, while at a sporting good's store in Seattle, I saw them on the wall. Skis maybe 18-24".
MY IDEA!
I pointed out them and announced loudly: "SOMEONE STOLE MY INVENTION! That was MY idea I had when I was 16 only no one believed it was marketable! It is! Lookit that wall - it's COVERED in short skis!" I wanted to cry.
The person I was with at the time, embarrassed, asked me to keep it down and wasn't really interested in the idea that I honestly sincerely had when I was 16. And unlike the story google suggested as an idea, I would have shared my profits. Well, maybe not with the one family member who told me my ideas were simply ridiculous.
Well, I see the clock is telling me it's time for bed. Turns out - I did have something to write about. This empty screen got filled up pretty nicely if I do say so myself. In my search for coming up with a story idea I in turn found inspiration and turned that into this little piece.
The creative process never ceases to amaze me.
Love,
Victoria