The first draft is anyway, and it’s a good long draft, 3,732 words on twelve digital pages. Personally, I had a lot of fun writing this story, about a fictional urban legend at Ohio State University that becomes the center of a huge criminal investigation at Ohio State. The story is narrated in the first person al a The Virgin Suicides, which sounds something like this: “We thought about it a long time, ruminating over the possible meanings. Terry thought it was a psychological issue, while Jeanie Brooks and Jeanie Cunningham were in favor of a spiritual issue.” You see where I’m going with this?
I wrote this story as the second of two short stories I had to write for my creative writing class this semester. Truthfully though I’ve had this story on a sticky note on a tackboard since late August. I just wanted to save it for the right oppurtunity, and if you ask me this was the right oppurtunity. Not only does this story sound somewhat literary, which is the focus of my class, but the fact that we never really know who or what Old Sid is–or why he’s called “Old Sid”–makes the story weird and genre enough that I can write it.
I’ll probably edit it in a few weeks or so, before I’m supposed to turn it in. Hopefully my class will like it and be able to give me some good advice on what to do with it.
Oh, and spekaing of my class, tonight we did an exercise that gave me an idea for a short story. We were supposed to write down three childhood shoes we wore when we were young (or if we couldn’t remember that, something else from childhood) and write about something that happened while we wore those shoes. Since I couldn’t remember any shoes I wore as a child in vivid detail, I went with Halloween costumes…and remembered a low point in my life when I was really depressed. It gave me the idea for a short story, so when I can I’ll work on it and see what comes about.
Have to say, I love my school; it’s doing so much for my writing and the people here don’t even realize it!
Rami Ungar The Writer 