I mentioned in my post earlier how I had the idea that I would have loved to have submitted to that anthology. What I didn’t say was how hard the idea hit me.

I was driving to get a couple of bits and pieces, as you do, and listening to this story about fire and then bang! An idea struck me so hard I had to pull over and write that little part of it I’d had flash across my consciousness. Then I went and did my little bit of shopping but all the time I had this flash of a story idea circulating itself around my skull. I get home a wrote a little more, but a different scene. Then another snippet of a scene announced itself so that little fragment got added to it.

Then, I got an idea for a scene that I stopped what I was doing (okay, I was only watching tv), and knocked out this small scene. This is one of those scenes where it all but wrote itself and feel like one of the most brutal scenes I’ve ever written, but in a very subtle way. It was a scene where I had to compose myself a little once I’d done it while I processed what I’d just written and hoped I pulled it off.

I think the story will have a very bleak tone to it, with a few brutal moments where I’m going to try and ram home the message that I think the story will have, but I don’t want to hit the reader over the head with it. I don’t often write with the intention of making a comment on a topic. Most of what I write is, I think, more to entertain. Which I love and know there’s nothing wrong with that. This story feels a little different and I hope I can pull off getting that message across while also having people finding it entertaining.

If I pull this off, I feel like I’ll be levelling you a little as a writer. If I pull it off.