Official word count: 8,002. On the second day I had a harder time of it because I was beginning the part of the story that I was rebooting from the original idea. And I had that ‘Oh God. A blank page.’ moment. I managed about 12oo-ish words but I stopped when I realized it just wasn’t flowing right.
Today though.. a whole ‘nuther story. I made a playlist of songs I knew wouldn’t make me want to sing along or otherwise distract me, put my iPod on, and wrote until I met my goal in just a couple of hours. I discovered that this tune (YouTube vid) on repeat was amazing for me. It’s subtle and quiet but strangely, it let me focus. If anyone out there has suggestions for similar tunes like this I could listen to, that would be awesome.
I’m feeling really confident about this still and I really think I might actually make it to the finish line this time.
An excerpt:
Jackie looked away, toward Buttons again. In the same raspy moan, he said, “G-g-garden. B-back gaaaarden. Buried it. T-t-treeeeee.” Jackie stopped, the exertion of speaking coherently was agitating him and he could feel a gnawing hunger growing in his belly. He began to salivate as he stared at Buttons. A low growl filled the room and Desmond could feel his control slipping. If he didn’t lay him back to rest soon he wouldn’t be able to sustain him and both he and Buttons would probably end up as Jackie’s dinner.
“Good enough Buttons?” Desmond asked, his voice tight and hurried.
Buttons did not like the look of pure hunger on Jackie’s face, especially since it seemed directed at him. He told Desmond he had enough info to go on and to please make Jackie stop looking at him like that.
With a final effort, Desmond whispered, “Rest, Jackie.” And with the power inside of him that he’d felt and known since birth, he shaped it so that it would now sever the link between the corpse and himself. He did it hard and fast and with an audible pop, Jackie’s body collapsed on the cot and resumed rotting.
