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Making It Up My teacher asked me if I wrote this story. I said that I wrote the first half but I just made the rest up. hairylarry posted on 2018-04-09 at 22:51 Central Time. - link to this story -

My teacher replied, "Go back and write what you just made up because I think it will read better." vivian 2018-04-09 at 23:17 Central Time.

So I tried to write it like my teacher said but as soon as I put pen to paper I couldn't remember what I made up. I guess I should have written it down in the first place. hairylarry 2018-04-09 at 23:37 Central Time.

After spending several minutes trying to figure out a direction to take I decided to just try just letting the words write themselves.I started my first sentence with "It was a dark and stormy night." I hope my teacher thinks it's a great beginning. vivian 2018-04-10 at 19:23 Central Time.

It's probably better than once upon a time, whatever that means. I mean once a mouse was upon a clock is ok. You can visualize that. How can you be up on a time. It sounds like you're studying history. Now you could be up on a time machine. That would be fun. Or maybe the runner competing in the 440 stumbled and ended up on a timekeeper. hairylarry 2018-05-01 at 13:24 Central Time.

I think a time machine adventure sounds more interesting than taking out a timekeeper during a marathon. Though I expect it might provide a creative opportunity when explaining why nobody's sure who won the race. However, that is neither here nor there. The story has to be rewritten and probably the dark and stormy night needs to be scrapped. What I really need is a nap. Maybe I'll have a dream that will provide some inspiration. My dreams are full of great story ideas all the time. vivian 2018-05-01 at 20:01 Central Time.

I dreamed that I was dreaming about a story and then I dreamed that I was in a story and then I dreamed that I woke up in a story and then I woke up in a story and then I really woke up so I tried to write all that down but it was too confusing. I wish either I would dream that I wrote a story or I could just have a nice nap without worrying about a story. Maybe I better start with a gun on a mantel. Or a gun in a mantle. Or a man telling me about a gun. Or a woman telling me about her mantle. hairylarry 2018-05-01 at 23:52 Central Time.

You could say the gun on the mantle was merely a prop. But all writers need ways to prop up their stories, particularly desperate scribes like myself. Once a hack, always a hack. Someone told me that once. And I was getting desperate. So desperate, I reached for the gun. Etched into the stock of the gun were initials: D.K. I noticed engraving on the barrel, too. "Mistakes were made." Now, I realized, I had my story, shooting right down the barrel of the gun. Dogtrax 2018-05-02 at 10:49 Central Time.

I picked up my pencil and started to write. One sentence followed another just like shooting fish in a barrel. But somewhere in the back of my mind something was trying to click. D.K, D.K. Donna Kay? Diana Krall? Dong Kim? Don Knotts? I couldn't quite put my finger on it. Mistakes were made! Of course mistakes were made. That's why we have rewrites. hairylarry 2018-05-02 at 12:12 Central Time.

I went back into the story in reverse. I unfolded the crunched-up papers -- the deletion bin that was the floor where so many drafts of this story you are reading once began -- and looked for where mistakes had been made. You can see me now -- I have nearly a dozen pieces of paper spread out on the table. I am writing notes on each, drawing circles, tagging elements of the story with sticky notes. It's a mess. That's how stories are. Something was there, in what I had written, in the dream I had had of writing a story about the dream of the story, but I couldn't yet grasp what I was seeing. And, I noticed, I was missing a paper. I had a vague memory of what I had written, and it wasn't here. Dogtrax 2018-05-05 at 10:12 Central Time.

It wasn't just vague. It's kind of like I barely remembered that I had almost remembered something. I picked up yet another blank sheet and began to doodle. More circles, more connecting lines, a few words began to appear. Danny Kaye, the Dark Knight, diatomaceous knockwurst. More lines, more circles, and then suddenly I remembered! I was supposed to pick up milk when I was at the grocery store. (My mistake being logged in as admin. HL) admin 2018-05-05 at 23:23 Central Time.

Did you ever get writer's block? You just sit there looking at a blank page and you can't think of what to write. I was getting close. I was going cross-eyed looking at all the lines and circles. I knew I wasn't getting cereal for breakfast in the morning. I still hadn't figured out The Mystery Of The Missing Page. So I picked up all the pages and stacked them together upside down. I knew everything on them anyway. Then I took seven blank pages and set them out in front of me. I looked at each one, then I shuffled them around, then I looked at them again. Decisions decisions. I was definitely having a problem deciding. After about two hours I grabbed one of the pages at random, set it in front of me at my desk, grabbed my pencil, and began to write. hairylarry 2018-05-06 at 13:02 Central Time.

A story someone once told me rose in my mind. This is where my memory took me elsewhere, as instead of focusing on the story, I focused on the memory. Who had told me this? And when? And where? The nagging almost-remembering vexed me, and my page remained blank. Dogtrax 2018-05-07 at 05:22 Central Time.

I finally remembered. It was Danny Kay. In that movie. In the theater. Ok he wasn't really my friend. But he was very friendly. I started again. It was a dark and stormy night. Danny and his wife Kay were sitting in the parlour reminiscing. Kay said "Do you remember when we first moved in here and the mantel was bare?" Danny said "I remember when we bought that mantel clock because we thought it would look good up there. And I remember when once up on a timepiece we saw a mouse. In fact it was right there up on that clock." Kay looked up at the mantel and said, "I remember that too." Then she paused before she continued, "Danny, why is your gun up there next to the clock. I wish you would put it up. It gives me the shivers." Danny picked up Kay's mantle and put it over her shoulders. "Are you cold? I could start a fire." hairylarry 2018-05-12 at 07:08 Central Time.

I was on a roll. I had the gun on the mantel. I had the mantle on Kay's shoulders. I knew what D.K. stood for. And I was pretty sure I was about to make a few mistakes. I continued. There was a knock at the door. Danny and Kay looked at the clock on the mantel. It was nearly Midnight. "Who could that be at this time of night.", said Kay. "I'll see.", replied Danny and he opened the door. It was so dark Danny could hardly see. The wind was blowing rain through the door. Suddenly thunder cracked and lightning blazed across the sky. "Oh my", Danny shouted over the thunder. "You gave me a start. Come in, come in. What are you doing out on a night like this?" Danny's brother Lenny walked through the door. "I had to come and warn you.", he said. hairylarry 2018-05-20 at 00:43 Central Time.

"Making It Up" started by hairylarry. All stories are licensed Creative Commons-Attribution. You can attribute the writers like this. These writers contributed to "Making It Up" on Collab - Dogtrax, admin, hairylarry, vivian