Stranger than Fiction

Once again I have allowed my friends to drive me out of my comfort zone. This time I have agreed to write a piece of fiction about work. I have also agreed to enter this piece in a contest. What was I thinking?

I was thinking that it would be good for my friend, who has just completed her first book, to enter the contest.  I was thinking, when she asked if I was going to enter too, that I could say yes now and bow out later. I was thinking that I could support her in her writing if by saying yes, even if I had no intention of finishing.

Then she asked another friend to join in too. Then we met at my house to inspire and encourage each other. Then they started sending emails about their progress and asking about mine. Then I knew I was in trouble. Then I knew I had to go through with it. Damn. Time to think again.

So, I've been struggling with ideas for more than a week. The entry has to be fiction, and lately work has been so in-my-face that I just couldn't think about work in a fictional way. It was suggested that I write a fictionalized account of something that happened at work. I'm not comfortable with that. There is a very, very, very, very, very slim chance that I could be asked to read this piece in public. At a venue about a block away from where I work. In a rather small town.  I don't think I could re-write an event in such a way that it wouldn't be recognizable should the characters show up at the reading.  My rusty powers of fiction aren't up to that challenge.

So yesterday, after another check-in from one of my writerly friends, and after a huge rant about work, I decided to sit down and write. I didn't think I would get anywhere with a story. I was so sure that I wouldn't get anywhere that I started writing in Blogger. I figured that I would write an Elusive Onions post when I gave up on my story.

Only I didn't give up. 

Shit. Sometimes I surprise myself.

Of course, now all the wonderful (to me), interesting (to me) things I've been waiting to blog about are getting set aside again.  I suppose I could be writing about them now, but somehow it seems more appropriate to write about how I'm not writing about them instead. It's because I'm having trouble thinking of anything other than the story I've started. 

Are you beginning to get the impression that I fixate on things?  Once again I'm like a dog with a bone. Or a velociraptor with a finger. 

Now that could have made a good work story.