I am very proud of myself for posting to this blog yesterday. I know uploading a single blog post is not the most exciting thing but if you haven't done it in a while it can be downright thrilling to hit publish and know that what you're sharing is done. One of my long standing issues as a writer is simply not finishing my work. This goes mostly for my short stories but the truth is I was trying to muster up a blog post for a week and nothing felt right. Everything was contrived, it all lacked flow or I just wasn't feeling it. What I ended up posting was just the sixth or seventh attempt and somehow I pulled through.
In honor of finishing this one little task, today's blog post will be an attempt to take you on a journey to finish another. I'm going to rummage through the unfinished vignettes I've already posted, chose one and wrap it up. I am definitely a little nervous about this. I'm on a major time crunch as I have to leave for work in two and a half hours and I wanted to see if I could squeeze in a work out, but I might have to settle for some quick push-ups. I'm also nervous because I just get antsy when I'm trying to hunker down and end a story. I will chose anything to distract me and right now it looks like I'm using this post to do just that.
So let's get to it. The vignette I will be finishing for you today is called "The little demon girl" and I actually wrote this two summers ago during a writing up-swing and just kind of never came back to it. The piece is about a baby from hell that gets adopted by parents on Earth, in a world where this is actually normal after a treaty is signed by Lucifer and, well the people of Earth I guess. I think this emerged from a pomodoro quickie and even though the concept did intrigue me, I just never really had any where to go with it. I have no idea who the main characters are, what they want and what their obstacles are.
Here is a little excerpt from the piece. As far as I know this may not even make it to the finished product:
"She was a demon. Only three months old. Cutest little thing. You would never know she was spawn from the furthest reaches of hell when you looked at her. She was fully vaccinated, both medically and spiritually of course. Dark magic suppressants are getting stronger and stronger these days. And ever since the treaty was signed with the Dominion of St. Lucifer, well it's pretty hard not to want to snatch one of those poor, little, demon babies up."
I'm already seeing how I essentially painted myself into a corner here. The parents in the story are the narrators but they are parents who have already benefited from this apparent treaty allowing mortals on Earth to adopt these hell-spawn babies. What these parents need is a challenge if they want us to care. Originally I thought the challenge might be raising the girl but I think a more global issue would be if they wanted to adopt her and couldn't.
Now this is supposed to be a vignette so I am posed with the challenge of keeping this to a few pages and still setting the stage for a childless couple fighting for their rights to love, care for and guide a child of Satan. This is so ridiculous. You know what, this is actually quite ridiculous so I am just going to have to play to that strength, which I think might have been my original goal judging from the tone in the excerpt.
I googled "adoption checklist" to do some quick research. Obviously there are countless, well intended lists out there and I'm sure they are infinitely helpful for soon-to-be-parents. But you know I didn't happen to see a list for soon-to-be-parents of demon children from hell. I now know what I have to do.
If this blog post were a movie this would be the montage in which I furiously type to meet my self imposed deadline.
...One hour later.
Well I've run out of time but not without having something to show for it. I've essentially transformed this piece into something of a brochure for people interested in adopting a demon child from hell. I'll drop this little except here:
"Choose the Right Agency for You
Finding just the right adoption agency is important. Do your research. Ask questions. How many couples has the agency matched with hell-spawn already?"
That's just to give you a little idea of where I'm at with it. Still so ridiculous but that's what I want it to be. For now "The little demon girl" will remain as is and unfinished in my "Stories for Weirdos" collection. Because finishing is such an issue for me I am determined to get right back to this piece tomorrow and I will most likely post a blog about the process as I go. I have to go do those push ups now and get to work.
