Today I changed the lightbulbs in my kitchen. The other day I was saying how the kitchen was pretty dark. Anne, my roommate, noted that the lights were blown. I put changing the bulbs on my short to do list. Around the corner from my house is a small bodega. Its run by some middle eastern guys. I bought the light bulbs from there.
I wanted to write a short story and thought that a story about changing a light bulb would be fun. I don't read many stories about ordinary every day things.
Along with wanting the story to be about changing the light bulb I decided to have a female protagonist. She's not a very developed character and if I substituted all the shes, and hers, for he, and his I doubt there would be any difference in the story. Lip service is a small step towards writing depthful female characters though right?
The other thing I did was to denote time passing. Halfway through the story I decided the whole events would take about 50 minutes. I counted each action in terms of minutes. I don't know why I did this but it seemed like a neat literary device.
While I was riding my bike I thought of the writer, Piers Anthony. I read a couple of his "Immortal" series before I left for Thailand. In the forward Anthony talks about his writing process. Not only does he have a separate work area but he also finds he rarely has writer's block. He feels he doesn't suffer from writer's block as he writes about the mundane things that happen in his life. It was bizarre to hear him say this as he writes outlandish fantasy tales.
Also that picture of the lightbulb is fucking stupid. My friend Eric commented a while back that I should have more pictures in my writings. Caving into peer pressure has my writing look stupid. Next thing you know I'll end up a hack like El Chavo. Eee Gads!
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