Hard to Concentrate
Hustle, bustle, and so much muscle
Cells about to separate
and I find it hard to concentrate...
This whole struggle I keep having with focusing and concentrating is really starting to get disconcerting. I'm not sure what I have to do to stick to the task and to actually be able to finish what I start.
OK, let's review some of the ideas and stories I've started on and where I think they should go.
A medical student is working on a cadaver that keeps trying to come back to life as a zombie. She's become used to post-mortem movement in corpses, so she finds it a minor nuisance by this point. When one becomes especially active, she becomes increasingly annoyed with it. But then when it becomes aggressive as a zombie, she has to figure out how to deal with the problem while staying alive and out of danger.
What are the complications in a story like this? Well, she has to slowly but surely become increasingly aware there's a danger here and then figure out what to do. She'll have to struggle with the zombie on the gurney and have to think on her feet to prevent being strangled or bitten. So we have an aggressive cadaver trying to escape and/or kill while she's trying to keep out of danger. At some point in the struggle, she's tough enough to free herself and strap the corpse to the gurney so it can't chase her.
Then comes the internal struggle. The attempts to figure out what logically makes sense to do now that she's safe. She'll have to weigh the possibilities of who to call (staff, administration, the police, etc), then she'll have to struggle with what to do next. Run? Take samples? Sedate the zombie and examine it to find out whether it was really dead or alive? Was this a disease with death-like symptoms? Let's make her a very logical, bookish, intellectually driven person who just can't resist the itch. Let's say she works it out so that she approaches it carefully and has a way of cutting, running, and getting help at the first sign of trouble.
Then she has to figure out how to sedate the undead creature. If it's technically still dead, it has functioning heartbeat, bloodstream, or organs (besides the brain) which makes knocking it out very difficult. Either she knocks it out by a sedation means that directly numbs the brain (inhalation? Blunt instrument?) or she just does it while the creature is still "conscious". How does it react to that? It might be funny if she has a "back and forth" with it while she's making incisions and taking samples. It could be a parody of sorts of a doctor's visit or physical. That would be fun to write.
But the real challenge is going to be figuring out how to wrap it up. What does she find out about it? Probably something related to the condition of its brain. Since it's operating everything. Something's taken it over, maybe it's mutated into a misshapen monstrosity? Maybe something living in it is feeding it life and impulses? Not a deadly creature, just something previously undiscovered. Then she's torn between wanting to keep the parasite intact and keep the zombie "alive" so she can learn more, or to remove it and remove the danger of the living dead. If she does though, the cadaver will certainly die and the creature will too. Which will make the death of an undead tragic and give the heroine sort of a sense of loss. Not perfect, but it's a relatively different direction.
OK, that takes care of the zombie and the medical student. What about the knight? I really hit the wall when Sir Ryden spiraled into misery at not being let through the gate, got drunk, and looked at wench debauchery. This story's supposed to be an allegory, so I should pursue it to the next logical point. If you retreat into drink, escapism, and fantasy, what happens? Well, for one thing you lose all sense of what direction you might have had. Maybe Sir Ryden can experience that? His priorities change and he wonders whether he wouldn't rather conquer another kingdom, or even if he was made to be a conqueror after all. Maybe he wants to travel further, be a novice all over again. Before that, he'll have to suffer humiliation for his bad decisions. Maybe easily be taken out in battle with the guard or with another creature? Maybe be exposed or blackmailed in some way or ridiculed as a drunk, wench-porn-loving loser? That's usually the stigma we attach to slacker jerks out of school. So after wench-peeping comes shame, disillusionment, losing, and personal crossroads. Fine. Now the challenge is bring it around to a climax and closure. And there I'm a bit stumped. Dark ending where he kills the guard only to be rebuffed by everyone else in the city? Happy ending where he makes his way into the community as a lower ranking person who actually gets to experience life? Ambiguous ending where he decides to get away from the struggle and seek new worlds? It's a bit of a challenge because Ryden has to come to a closure point that I still haven't reached. This is sort of an allegory of a personal crisis. I'm still in the middle of mine! I suppose if I really get stuck on this, I could just kill them off gruesomely. Actually I really like the idea of him stooping to a lot of lower, menial careers and tasks in the kingdom going nowhere. There may be more potential for allegorical jokes there in what happens to him. We'll see.
Now for the even more challenging "Swimming in the Lemonade" story. It's a completely fictional slice of life, but the characters and themes are based on art and people I know. I've got as far as the concept of "Swimming in the Lemonade". The idea that if life gives you lemons, make lemonade. The mother and the narrator of the story use this idea to take their pain and struggles and express them creatively. Sometimes diving completely into their creative minds, thus "swimming" through the "lemonade" they're making. Much like the times they spend swimming in the river drifting with lemons. Okay, I've got the concept. I need to flesh it out. Maybe another scene where the character is drifting in the water with lemons floating around him, trying to make sense of the issues in life and coming up with ideas, all during the idle summer float through the water, intoxicated by the lemon scent around him. Ok, that's a scene and a further development of the theme. Maybe a story about becoming obsessed with your creative work? Maybe dealing with other life challenges and having to actually confront them head on rather than escape into yourself? Where else do I take them? Maybe more scenes about the mother and the narrator together and how they nurture each other? I benefit from having very clear inspirations for the characters, art motifs, and philosophies, so maybe I should draw on more from those people. Think more about committing them to paper. If I focus more on making this a character piece, then the number of different scenes either won't matter or will expand itself. But if I take the time to think of what I'm drawing from, something will form.
But again...this requires concentration. A lot of it...
Cells about to separate
and I find it hard to concentrate...
This whole struggle I keep having with focusing and concentrating is really starting to get disconcerting. I'm not sure what I have to do to stick to the task and to actually be able to finish what I start.
OK, let's review some of the ideas and stories I've started on and where I think they should go.
A medical student is working on a cadaver that keeps trying to come back to life as a zombie. She's become used to post-mortem movement in corpses, so she finds it a minor nuisance by this point. When one becomes especially active, she becomes increasingly annoyed with it. But then when it becomes aggressive as a zombie, she has to figure out how to deal with the problem while staying alive and out of danger.
What are the complications in a story like this? Well, she has to slowly but surely become increasingly aware there's a danger here and then figure out what to do. She'll have to struggle with the zombie on the gurney and have to think on her feet to prevent being strangled or bitten. So we have an aggressive cadaver trying to escape and/or kill while she's trying to keep out of danger. At some point in the struggle, she's tough enough to free herself and strap the corpse to the gurney so it can't chase her.
Then comes the internal struggle. The attempts to figure out what logically makes sense to do now that she's safe. She'll have to weigh the possibilities of who to call (staff, administration, the police, etc), then she'll have to struggle with what to do next. Run? Take samples? Sedate the zombie and examine it to find out whether it was really dead or alive? Was this a disease with death-like symptoms? Let's make her a very logical, bookish, intellectually driven person who just can't resist the itch. Let's say she works it out so that she approaches it carefully and has a way of cutting, running, and getting help at the first sign of trouble.
Then she has to figure out how to sedate the undead creature. If it's technically still dead, it has functioning heartbeat, bloodstream, or organs (besides the brain) which makes knocking it out very difficult. Either she knocks it out by a sedation means that directly numbs the brain (inhalation? Blunt instrument?) or she just does it while the creature is still "conscious". How does it react to that? It might be funny if she has a "back and forth" with it while she's making incisions and taking samples. It could be a parody of sorts of a doctor's visit or physical. That would be fun to write.
But the real challenge is going to be figuring out how to wrap it up. What does she find out about it? Probably something related to the condition of its brain. Since it's operating everything. Something's taken it over, maybe it's mutated into a misshapen monstrosity? Maybe something living in it is feeding it life and impulses? Not a deadly creature, just something previously undiscovered. Then she's torn between wanting to keep the parasite intact and keep the zombie "alive" so she can learn more, or to remove it and remove the danger of the living dead. If she does though, the cadaver will certainly die and the creature will too. Which will make the death of an undead tragic and give the heroine sort of a sense of loss. Not perfect, but it's a relatively different direction.
OK, that takes care of the zombie and the medical student. What about the knight? I really hit the wall when Sir Ryden spiraled into misery at not being let through the gate, got drunk, and looked at wench debauchery. This story's supposed to be an allegory, so I should pursue it to the next logical point. If you retreat into drink, escapism, and fantasy, what happens? Well, for one thing you lose all sense of what direction you might have had. Maybe Sir Ryden can experience that? His priorities change and he wonders whether he wouldn't rather conquer another kingdom, or even if he was made to be a conqueror after all. Maybe he wants to travel further, be a novice all over again. Before that, he'll have to suffer humiliation for his bad decisions. Maybe easily be taken out in battle with the guard or with another creature? Maybe be exposed or blackmailed in some way or ridiculed as a drunk, wench-porn-loving loser? That's usually the stigma we attach to slacker jerks out of school. So after wench-peeping comes shame, disillusionment, losing, and personal crossroads. Fine. Now the challenge is bring it around to a climax and closure. And there I'm a bit stumped. Dark ending where he kills the guard only to be rebuffed by everyone else in the city? Happy ending where he makes his way into the community as a lower ranking person who actually gets to experience life? Ambiguous ending where he decides to get away from the struggle and seek new worlds? It's a bit of a challenge because Ryden has to come to a closure point that I still haven't reached. This is sort of an allegory of a personal crisis. I'm still in the middle of mine! I suppose if I really get stuck on this, I could just kill them off gruesomely. Actually I really like the idea of him stooping to a lot of lower, menial careers and tasks in the kingdom going nowhere. There may be more potential for allegorical jokes there in what happens to him. We'll see.
Now for the even more challenging "Swimming in the Lemonade" story. It's a completely fictional slice of life, but the characters and themes are based on art and people I know. I've got as far as the concept of "Swimming in the Lemonade". The idea that if life gives you lemons, make lemonade. The mother and the narrator of the story use this idea to take their pain and struggles and express them creatively. Sometimes diving completely into their creative minds, thus "swimming" through the "lemonade" they're making. Much like the times they spend swimming in the river drifting with lemons. Okay, I've got the concept. I need to flesh it out. Maybe another scene where the character is drifting in the water with lemons floating around him, trying to make sense of the issues in life and coming up with ideas, all during the idle summer float through the water, intoxicated by the lemon scent around him. Ok, that's a scene and a further development of the theme. Maybe a story about becoming obsessed with your creative work? Maybe dealing with other life challenges and having to actually confront them head on rather than escape into yourself? Where else do I take them? Maybe more scenes about the mother and the narrator together and how they nurture each other? I benefit from having very clear inspirations for the characters, art motifs, and philosophies, so maybe I should draw on more from those people. Think more about committing them to paper. If I focus more on making this a character piece, then the number of different scenes either won't matter or will expand itself. But if I take the time to think of what I'm drawing from, something will form.
But again...this requires concentration. A lot of it...