Put this together for my creative writing class. Please, someone, tell me what the fuck I just wrote
He massaged his temples as he stared at the blank page, and it stared back at him, casting its blue light indifferently upon his expressionless face from the screen. Thus it had been for some hours, he knew not how many as he feared looking at the clock now would surely discourage him. He supposed that, from a certain frame of mind, he ought to be impressed: normally he needed something quite interesting indeed, like a good, clear idea or an impending deadline to get him this focused, but he had to keep his promise. Not just the usual one that, come hell or high water, he would have the writing done when it was supposed to be done, but the special one he’d made this time, that he would not put himself through another sleepless night that would weigh upon him for days. And yet, here he was, at this unreasonable hour on the weekend, long before his life hung in the balance, but once again losing sleep.
This was the sixth time he’d sat down and resolved to do it. The other times had all ended the same way: staring at a blank page late at night. Sleep now, he said to himself. It’s long past ten and you need your rest for tomorrow. It’s not due for weeks. For days. The other times had all started the same way, too: exactly how they had ended. Eager for something, anything to go on, he moved the cursor down, down to where the browser sat waiting at the bottom. He would go to the chat room, the forum. He would check up on them. Talk with them. They were creative types, weren’t they? Some of them? They were his friends, too. They would have ideas. He would ask them, and they would give him suggestions, advice, support.
His mouse stopped as it approached the browser for the sixth time. No. He knew how that would end. Once he opened that, it was over. He would go to sleep with a blank page, perhaps a few words typed but they were always deleted before the end. He would go to sleep, knowing it would not be needed done for days yet. It was okay. One day, it would not be needed done for hours yet.
What he needed was something, anything to get him started. It was always easier once it was started. Perhaps he could get up and go for a walk to clear his head. It would not be over then. There would be no one to talk to, no one to distract him. And yet it would be killing time, and the page would still be blank when he returned. You may sit still, he replied to himself. Your legs may ache and you will feel the urge to be anywhere, anywhere else but this chair, and you may leave as soon as something, anything is on that page.
He sighed. That was part of the problem. He could put anything on that page. Anything. Not quite, not literally anything, but still anything. Anything. What if he put the wrong thing? What if the thing he put there could not go on for as long as it needed to? What if, then, he had to spend hours agonizing, pouring, finding every little world he could insert, every minute way he could stretch the tormented thing far beyond its natural life? What if, then, he had to throw the whole thing away, and start over with a different thing that would last longer? What if the thing was a bad thing to begin with, and he embarked upon an entire length of uselessness that would abhor whoever else might read it?
There were a million other questions, literally. He would spend that many hours stretching the thing further than it ought to be stretched. He would spend that many hours coming up with a new thing, as laboriously and tediously as it took him to come up with the first. He would spend that many hours thinking of all the ways the thing might be abhorred. And he would spend a million hours thinking of answers, in hours, to all these questions. And still, not one word appeared on the page.
He leaned back in his chair, casting his eyes around the room. Perhaps that was the end. There was no television, no one else in the room to speak to, but he had looked away from the staring contest, he had blinked and could now feel how heavy his eyes were, the soft burning under the lids as he hadn’t noticed before. That was the feeling of defeat, where part of him realized he’d lost, that he was getting off task, while simultaneously another part of him didn’t realize it at all hadn’t noticed the transition from focus to distraction. His gaze passed unalarmedly over the spider in the corner overhead. It was always there. Spiders were never alarming when they were always there, only when they moved. And not even this one, if it moved: it was just one of those spindly, insubstantial house spiders that haunted corners everywhere, inconsequentially, that some called Daddy Long-Legs (though he knew this to be incorrect.)
He might have flipped open the browser, pulled up their article to remind himself of their proper name, but he was too busy thinking about whether or not the spider could see him from all the way up there. It was really only about five feet away, but to the spider that had to be like standing on the face of El Capitan, and he would be like one of the giant Sequoias below. Would a spider even need to see that far? Their webs could just tell them where the food was, by touch, right? On the other hand, maybe they needed to see birds or something coming. That would make sense, though then again he’d never heard of a spider trying to dodge a bird before: birds were probably too fast anyway. He might have gone to look it up, but there was still the bigger question to think about: what would that spider think of him, sitting up there watching him all day?
If the spider was blind enough, he supposed it would never even know he existed, unless he went out of his way to bother it (and why would he?) It would live its entire life up there, eating whatever it was that wispy, insubstantial spiders ate (somewhere he heard it was other spiders, but wouldn’t they have to move around more to do that?), until it died and another, indistinguishable dusty spider came by to take its place on that prime, desirable corner real estate. How long did they even live? If there was a new spider in the corner there every week, or even every day, he doubted he’d even notice. That raised the question of why he never noticed any dead spiders, which would surely pile up if they cycled through that fast, and there surely would have been some in the time he lived here. Then again, looking at them, it wouldn’t be hard to believe that they simply turned to dust when they were done, settling on all the furniture and surfaces below to be swept up later (or left to accumulate in a thin grey layer, as was more likely).
That was probably getting slightly off-topic, though. He’d best be considering the alternative, which was likely more interesting: that the spider could see him after all. All things considered, now that he’d gotten this far, it probably couldn’t. Those spiders never reacted to anything he did, not even if he moved right up close to them, they would not stir: not unless physically disturbed, as by his hand, or his breath. But, again, he was getting away from the main question. Supposing that it could see him, what must it think? It would have to be a very smart, calculating spider, after all. It would know enough to see this giant moving about below it, and not run in fear like any small animal. It would be confident sitting in its corner, secure in its knowledge that no giant had a good reason to do anything other than leave it alone. Perhaps, then, it really was watching him, and the spectacle of his daily motions was entertaining or awe-inspiring enough that the spider could sit in that corner for ever and ever and remain content.
But then again, that view was probably self-indulgent, and he should not waste time flattering himself. Ridiculous, really. Perhaps, more likely, the motion of giants was only incidental to the affairs of spiders, something that happened in the background of more pressing matters. Their realpolitik and grand strategies would have to occupy their time, where the creatures below were distractions to be ignored except in the unlikely and unexpected event they decided to intervene. No, the spiders would have to be watching their neighbors, coveting each others’ precious corner spots, waiting, hoping for one of them to succumb to time and melt into dust, so they may rush forth and claim it before the others. Perhaps they even murdered or devoured each other over this, and he never noticed because he was looking somewhere else, or asleep. And since they all looked so similar, he’d never noticed the outcome of these battles and land grabs, aside from when one corner was suddenly empty, and no matter where he looked the missing spider could not be accounted for.
But, even if the spiders worked on such a petty mentality, each desiring the place of the other, then they still had to be smart enough at least to account for that. If each spider wanted any place but their own, and they realized that their rivals wanted to take any other place but their current holdings in turn (as surely they did, if they feared and suspected each other), then surely the spiders must know how to turn this to their advantage. They would surely have alliances: one spider would seek out whoever desired his place (or her place, you never could tell with spiders) the most, and agree to relinquish it in return for assistance in seizing, in turn, their own most desired corner.
Yet, if that were the case, then, by logical extension, where would the conflict even come from? Surely at least two of them would mutually desire each others places and simply trade, and even if not, they would all eventually realize they could simply exchange places until everyone was where they wanted to be. But, he realized, he had overlooked one possibility. If two spiders desired the same corner, then naturally they would come into conflict over its control. And, besides, he was probably giving the spiders far, far too much credit. Even if every one of them had only a single, exclusive desired corner, and they made a peaceful exchange, they probably wouldn’t realize until they got there and settled in that they were no happier there than where they were before. Then, of course, they would feel bitter and betrayed at having made the trade, and would seek revenge, and the conquest of untested corners. Soon enough, their short generations would come to an end, and their successors in the corners will never remember the lessons hard-learned by their forebears.
Also, I'm a little stuck on how to end it.
Author
Topic: ___/The Writer's Apprenticeship\___ (Read 301174 times)