Inside the writer’s workshop
How long does it take to write a short story? A good question. Quite a few years for my part, if I have to be quite specific. Often it starts with just a vague idea that becomes a draft – and it may well remain as just that, for months or years before I “randomly” find it and write on it again, caught by a spontaneous inspiration . That’s how many of my short stories have been written.
Recently I cleaned up in my writing drafts and found a few ones, I really felt like continue writing on. The draft rarely reveals the kind of long story that will later unfold as I write on and something new will let itself be written. As a writer I often get seduced by the story, and towards the end I almost feel it has written itself, just with me as midwife. I can even be quite surprised how it ends, when I look back on the flimsy basis that the draft was as a starting point.
As example and a teaser here is one of the drafts “Bad habits” that I recently came upon. It is already, I think, a small integrated story, a piece of prose, in itself – the kind which has lots of small and bigger holes, which the reader’s own imagination must fill out and expand on. But when I reread it myself, I still got curious about, which longer story that can be hidden between the lines, if I open up for the possibility, and write on….
(To be continued …. maybe!)
The draft is only in English, at this point….!
BAD HABITS
There was just her, licking her lips with her tongue. Licking like she was trying to get something off the lip. But what? Then licking like she would lick some sweets. Or an ice cream. Going for the sugar and sweet taste of it. Craving for the sugar rush to the body. The acceleration towards satisfaction. But she kept licking. And there was nothing there. No sugar. No ice cream. Just my eyes, out of breath as she licked her lips for a hundred times and catched my eye. She didn’t stop her tongue from moving over the furry red of her own flesh. I would have given a million for her thoughts, there, as she licked her lips for the one hundred and one time, starred me fearless in the eyes and then stopped for a few seconds, enough to make me believe, she would open her mouth to let out a sound to give me a clue. She didn´t. Instead she turned to the bartender and yelled. “We got a lady over here, who’s almost dying of thirst. Two beers, please.”
She turned towards her purse and put out a cigarette. In a silent movement she offered me one. I didn’t even dare to move to say no. She got it anyway and put the cigarette pack back into what almost seemed like her house. The purse was huge. I wanted to offer her light but didn´t smoke. I wanted to pay for the beers, the least I could do. Before I got my hand in my pocket she had payed and she let the one bottle slide gracefully down the counter to me, the few meters I sat away from her. “There you go, Honey”, she said. Like I had been asking for it.
It struck me how dark her voice was. Not what one would expect looking at her. All blonde. Tall, good muscles. Still blonde. Icy blue eyes and a good ass for most tastes. “Cheers!”
She didn’t seem to expect anything from me. I had been sitting there staring at her, like a wild dog and she behaved like what happened just before never took place. It wasn’t until much later I would figure her out. How she could set up a fire, and walk through the fire, without ever getting burned. Though it only took me to the next morning, 4:32 a.m. to get precise, to find out, that licking her lips was her worst habit. Just like I had a bad habit with inviting strangers to my home for tea at strange hours. She really didn’t think about it. She just did it. I asked her “What are you thinking about?”
The time was 4:31 a.m. and I desperately stared at the clock thinking about, when she would find an excuse to leave this strangers house to go back to wherever she lived. “Thinking…?” She said, obviously thinking about something else, and not about anything I could guess or imagine.
“Oh!”, she turned her gaze towards me. “I was far away in my mind. I am sorry”.
I know, I felt like saying, you were licking your lips. Just like in the bar. I kept quiet.
“I have so much to do tomorrow”, she said. I noticed through my dusty windows just how cruel the blue was in the morning sky. Maybe it would start to rain any minute. “I better get some good sleep”, she sighed.
“Tomorrow I have nothing to do!”, I whispered inside my head. I had a bad habit with keeping quiet, when I really should speak my heart and mind. She gracefully avoided my next touch.
“Can you set the alarm to 10 a.m.”, she asked. I felt the colors all around me softened. And I hoped for rain all of a sudden. I wished for thunder and lightning to break the sound of silence. Nothing happened. Not even a click, when the time passed from 4.35 a.m. to 4.36 a.m. But my heart was beating, fast and somehow hopeful. After all, there was a whole life for me and her in our separate dreams till dawn. I just wanted to make the most of it, as always. I just wanted to watch her sleep. Wondering, if her habit of licking her lips, would follow her into dreamland.
NadineLensborn©2016
In Danish:
Inde i forfatterens værksted
Hvor lang tid tager det at skrive en novelle? Et godt spørgsmål. Rigtig mange år for mit eget vedkommende, hvis jeg skal være helt konkret. Ofte starter det nemlig med en løs idé, som bliver til en kladde – og den kan godt få lov at ligge i måneder eller år, før jeg “tilfældigt” finder den frem igen og begynder at skrive videre på den, grebet af en spontan inspiration. Sådan er flere af mine noveller blevet til.
Fornylig ryddede jeg op i en masse skrive kladder og fandt et par stykker frem, som jeg godt kunne have lyst til at skrive videre på. Kladden røber sjældent, hvilken slags længere historie der senere vil udfolde sig, som jeg skriver videre og noget nyt lader sig skrive frem. Ofte bliver jeg som forfatter forført af historien, og mod slutningen føler jeg nærmest den har skrevet sig selv, blot med mig som fødselshjælper. Jeg kan selv blive ret overrasket over, hvor det ender, når jeg ser tilbage på det spinkle grundlag kladden var som startpunkt.
Som eksempel og teaser er her en af kladderne “Bad habits”, som jeg fornylig fandt frem. Den er egentlig allerede, synes jeg, som en lille helstøbt historie, et stykke prosa i sig selv – af den slags som har masser af små og store huller, som læserens egen fantasi selv må fylde ud og digte videre på. Men da jeg genlæste den, blev jeg alligevel selv nysgerrig på, hvilken længere historie der kan gemme sig imellem linjerne, hvis jeg åbner op for muligheden, og skriver videre…
(Fortsættelse følger …. måske!)