And now: Sounds

I’m writing this on December 18 but per usual, I’m back-dating to match the day I wrote the story I’m documenting in this post. First a word on this ongoing story-a-day challenge: This last week has been the hardest full week so far. I absolutely could not do anything more on this project than just get each day’s story written, and many days that was a close-run thing. But I did it. And I’m building a little energy again for documenting the process. The shorty for December 11 was inspired by the sound of a cricket chirping, which my husband selected from the site findsounds.com. The sound reminded me of an unpleasant childhood memory that I spent something like two hours avoiding, because I knew it wouldn’t inspire a good story. So I took notes and tried various brainstormed sentences. I associated from cricket to something else to something else to something else. Nothing would take hold, so I gave in and wrote the memory-story as best I could. I was right, it’s no good.

Working Title: Cricket
1st Sentence: “Don’t kill it,” I said, “he’s not hurting anything. I’m going to take him outside.”
Favorite Sentence: He didn’t know that this mystery, this cool slick surface under his feet, will never be solved.
Word Length: 396

If I knew anything at all about the game cricket, I might have let my mind wander to a story about it. Damn. Photo of cricket ball by Marie-Lan Nguyen, 2005.