Long Story Short...

The other night I netflixed the movie "Me and Orson Welles". It was fine, nothing too sub- or above-par about it really. However, there was this sweet supporting character at the beginning and the end that I particularly was fond of (and personally wished had shown up in the film more often than she did). Her name was Greta and she happens to meet the main character and informs him that she is a writer. She has this whimsy and eagerness about her as she tells him that she has written a short story she is going to submit to the New Yorker. She says she just wrote it for fun, it doesn't have any deep or hidden meanings, she just wrote it to write it and that it was a swell story she thought up and that was that.

That is..."Swell!" I thought. :)

It reminded me of when I was in elementary school (or, grade school, as we called it in Kansas). I would have an idea...write it...and that was that. Just for fun. Not to get noticed or to "force myself to practice the skill of writing" but for the sheer enjoyment of creating a funny character and seeing where in the world these words could take him or her. The possibilities were endless! I could write about ANYTHING!

It didn't matter if I didn't know enough about a certain era or industry. I had no qualms about researching the intricacies of a character's psychology. I felt no need to study motive or consequences. I just wrote! I just took an idea and let it flow, be it silly or obscure or downright terrible.

Beautiful!

To make a long story short - I want to do that again. I want to write a little short story just for the heck of it. I have no idea what it will be about or if there will be any "moral to the story" at the end of it all. I just want to see if I can tap into that childish exploration of words and create a little novelty (pun intended) by simply sitting down and hammering out the first words that come to me.

But I want your help:

Friends, Romans, Countrymen...Facebookers....lend me your...ideas.

Give me a topic, a character, a name, a setting - ANYTHING. Give me as many helpful and/or challenging objects and objectives as you wish. Let me see if I can take the random and weave them into something sensical...or at least entertaining. I will try to include as many suggestions as my creative allows.

Then I will see what comes of it and post the story on here for all to see/critique/enjoy.

Sound like fun?

Let's do it.