A Time to Kill – Pt. 1

Here's part one of a fun little story I've been writing to help me try and overcome this writer's block I've been having. I hope you like it though it is not a polished piece...just for fun...

 

 

There comes a time in a man's life when enough is enough! When the poison of despair sets in and festers in his heart until it becomes like a boil on one's soul. The only answer is extreme, extreme to Death. It's not vengeance but the hatred is just as powerful and the desire just as strong. That time has come in my life now.

Five years ago I started on a quest of creation. Through some candid conversation friends who saw something in me that I didn't: A spark. If this spark could be set to the right material, a flame would grow and maybe spread into an inferno.

The story goes something like this: I had explained that I had been blessed with fantastic dreams and a love of stories. They told me I should write. Put the visions in my head onto paper.

As I mused on this idea, a chill of excitement rippled across my soul. This could be fun.

So, soon after I started the quest of the golden pen. I began researching what it took to write a book. No one said it would be easy and all said it was brutally difficult. I scoffed a bit at this because I was sure I had something that the likes of Grisham, Sanderson, and Jordan didn't have that would make me an international best-seller with much less effort than these other, inferior authors. I just knew it would be much easier for me. I'm sure that knowing smiles flitted across the faces of the great ones as these arrogant thoughts danced in my head.

It was about this time that I began to notice an obscure reference that I had long ignored, ignored almost too long, and it has been the bane of my writing existence ever since, the source of my growing hatred. A few of my on-line "teachers" talked in cryptic hints about a strange, almost mystic individual they referred as the "inner editor", a vile and stifling entity bent on disrupting creativity.

They warned that this creature was necessary but never during the initial writing phase. His mere presence, looking over your shoulder, critiquing every word, every point of punctuation, was enough to drive any sane person saner, disrupting the creative process sometimes to all out writer's block. When it seems like words begin to flow this..."inner editor" (I am calling him Ed, though it's a much better name than he deserves!)...steps in to tell you how proud he is of the garbage you are scribbling, a sour look twists his pinched face; contempt for my prose oozing from every pore of his disgusting body.

At first I was grateful for his "help" but the more I tried to write the more this villain spoke: "That is garbage! No one will accept that work!" "What Crap! There are first graders who could do better than what you've written!" "I know Grisham, and you sir," pointing an accusing finger at my prose, "Are NOT Grisham!" Exasperated, I close down my computer and walk away, head throbbing and frustration bubbling within.

Then one day it happened. I had just finished reading two wonderful books on the craft of writing and I started writing—

I wrote a few words and paused, squeezing my eyes shut in anticipation, waiting for the inevitable harangue declaring my ineptitude...but nothing happened. With care, I opened one eye just a crack. Nothing. He wasn't there, but still skeptical, I waited longer. Still nothing. So both eyes I began to write again, stopping on occasion just to be sure he was not around, but he truly seemed to be gone. Where he was I didn't know and I didn't care. I hoped he was pestering and belittling some other author or would-be author, just as long as he wasn't bothering me. (I know this is a mean spirited sentiment and I do feel for the author who has to battle his or her own Ed, but with the amount of frustration filling my mind, it's easy to understand.)

When I finally realized that he was not going to harass me, my fingers began to fly over the keyboard. Three weeks later and I had over forty thousand words written! I was amazed! I knew there would have to be some rewriting but still...FORTY THOUSAND words! And no brain-bashing by my nemesis! Hurray!

Birds were singing sweetly in the trees outside my open window. It was hard to be irritated with them hearing the beautiful praises for the morning. My alarm clock sounded. Though I didn't want to get up, the clock's persistence finally persuaded me that I needed to open my eyes and get moving. Though I was tired I couldn't help but smile as I thought about the fact that not only was it a beautiful day but that sneak, Ed, was gone!

I opened my eyes and the smile faded from my face, sliding downward toward a frown. There at the end of my bed, with a nasty little smirk on his face, sat Ed.