My Problem With Short Stories

I cannot fucking write short stories to save my life. Somewhere between a paragraph and ten pages in I get bored. I start complaining. I hate my characters. I hate their names. I hate the way they look. I hate the shit they say and the way I say it. I always start off with ideas that I'm really excited about then it falls flat after four pages. I think my problem is that I like adding details so much that I become obsessive and forget about doing anything with the story part. I also obsess about being cliche.

I also usually write from a guy's perspective which is kind of strange.

I have a 10 page story about an at-home sales representative who entertains himself by listening to his neighbors through the walls. I have a 3 page story about a guy who calls and collects numbers written in bathroom stalls. I have countless stories that are a page or a paragraph that I just couldn't look at anymore. The only story I ever really finished was called "Hollow." It's 19 pages long and I hate it.

With all of the shit I've had to do this semester I haven't been able to write on my own too much and it's really pissing me off. I'm much better with poems than stories because they fit my obsessive nature. It's okay, even encouraged, to obsess over every word.

Gahhh. On to the dozen papers I have yet to finish.

I Wouldn't Mind Talking to You Forever

I have this odd fascination with mouths, the shape and curve... I've noticed it in my writing. I spend a weird amount of time on mouths...and voices. I instantly like people that can talk well, even if they're talking about nothing. There's one kid in my 203 class...I just like to hear him talk. It's usually pretty intelligent stuff, but his voice and the way he talks are just amazing. Even if he's answering someone else's question, it feels like he's talking to you. When he is talking to you, you feel like the only person in the room. But anyway, I talked to some boy, not the 203 one, a little bit ago that made even the one-cent words sound exquisite. Cute too, but taken...like all the good ones are. Here's a shitty haiku I just threw together, just about this kid's voice;

A voice, vibration,

like soft lips kissing soft legs,

between white silk sheets.


Shit. That was way more sexual than I intended. I think it's because I thought about watching Unfaithful today which is the hottest movie ever made. Lets try again...

A voice, vibration,
like soft lips skimming soft legs
it melts into skin.


Again, sexual. Not as much as the last one though. I don't know what my preoccupation with legs is. Maybe that last scene from Pirates of the Caribbean 3 where Will kisses Elizabeth's leg? Let's try one last time..

His melt-in-your mouth
voice. Skimming the skin, idly
with finger tip.

Eh. Not satisfied. But, I'm going to sleep anyway.

Poema Uno

Wrote this for Creative Writing last semester...it's not perfect yet, but I'm getting there. It was my "I don't know what to write" poem, but I think it's turned into much more than that. It's called "Pigeons" :

Words peck the eyes of words

who turn to face the words

who are fighting

to get closer to the fries left on the ground.

Words waddle on orange

stick legs, to avoid

drivers cussing at

them over leather steering wheels.

Words scatter like dirty birds,

the kind with the wings that echo the

color of rainbow

scum, spread

over spilled gasoline.

Words, try to scatter

but, I trap them in a net and gently pull it back

to the surface.

I let most go,

messages

written on scraps of paper and tied to their left foot.

I ones trapped I keep,

squeeze

till black ink spills to my fingers--

a sentence

between faint blue lines.