NSE #8

 

The real news behind the upcoming 
short story "Creatures of Habit"

When I looked at the following news stories, I was reminded of hobbies I’ve known older women to have throughout my life; and this reminder has inspired what I think is a fitting piece of fiction, titled “Creatures of Habit”.

I first remembered these things when I read news from Singapore of a woman’s creation of lifelike dolls. An expert sculptor crafts the dolls, then the woman painstakingly paints them and adds other details, the entire process aimed at creating the most lifelike dolls possible. I had known of women who collected less lifelike dolls, had read stories, fictional and news alike, of the same thing; but this Singaporean woman and her business seemed to unite all of these memories into one distilled form.

I then stumbled across news of a woman who had acquired the assistance of a so-called animal psychic to help find her lost duck, along with news of a woman in trouble with the authorities because of her overfeeding her dog. These two stories seemed related, somehow. After some contemplation, I soon realized that, in my life, I’ve known older women who’ve had an interest in psychics and older women who’ve had an unhealthy relationship with their pets; in other words, I was certain of the connection between older women and whatever my imagination wanted to make of this news thus far.

Throughout the week, many news stories passed me by, but two in particular fit in with this theme of older women and their hobbies. One involved an actual older woman (unlike the previous three, which did not actually involve older women), who had been attempting to auction off a collection of one hundred sixty bedpans. This story really solidified my focus on elderly women as the basis for the fiction story, leading me to one last news story that completed my concept: a report on a museum which had offered tickets for sale to cats, so that cat owners could bring their pets to an Egyptian gala. Nothing seemed more fitting to my theme, as it immediately brought to my mind the idea of elderly “cat ladies” attending a cat-centric event at a museum.

I simply hope that, while I may be using some silly stereotypes and limited, personal memories, the fiction story “Creatures of Habit” turns out to be anything but stereotypical and limited.

The real news behind the upcoming 
short story "Dying Proof"

Today I’ve sandwiched some bleak and disturbing news in between two more lighthearted sections. This is for the reader's sake, making it easier on the feint of heart; but it's also a product of how I approached the news in general this week: having arrived at a fun idea for some elderly women and their strange ways, and having started on an idea of some old men striving to recapture their youth (found in the next section), the remaining stories were necessarily of a dark, criminal nature.

I first focused on the story of a man convicted of manslaughter for his role in the death of a woman to whom he gave therapy—slapping therapy, that is. But it wasn’t the slapping that killed her; it was the woman’s replacement of proper medical treatment for her diabetes with whatever slap-therapy happens to be. As strange as the therapy is, I also find it strange how the “therapist” is guilty of the woman’s decision to stop taking her medicine. Regardless of such ethical conundrums, I had a germ of a story.

I then discovered news of a man who had been reported dead, but who was very much alive. Unable to convince the world of this after many efforts, this man proceeded to commit a series of crimes, culminating in violent attacks, in order to make his living presence known. As of now, he has been noticed as living, for better or for worse.

I looked for other criminal activities among the week’s news and discovered a young man of seventeen who had, at first, seemed to have been reporting a random train accident. Unfortunately, the young man allegedly staged the incident for attention. Much like the officially dead man wanting to be noticed as alive, this young man seems to have been creating crime to be noticed as important.

To top everything off, I stumbled upon a horrific story of a woman who had traveled to India, practiced yoga, and married a local man, presumably on her path to a spiritual reawakening—only to have this husband, allegedly, poison her and chain her to a tree, leaving her to die. It seems that she had left notes revealing these circumstances to authorities, but, given her condition, she is as yet unable to explain the situation. 

But I like that about these news stories; the lack of a solid explanation allows my imagination to ponder the limitless possibilities. Leading me to wonder: what would this woman do if no one believed her story? What if, like some of the criminals in the stories preceding hers, she had to resort to drastic measures to expose the truth? 

Those questions and my answers to them are the basis for “Dying Proof”, a story that will be partly available on Monday, August 5th.

The real news behind the upcoming 
short story "Old Cork"

Moving back to more whimsical subject matter, but still in the realm of criminality, I move on to a group of burglars, a group of three elderly men in Japan. Given their age and the lighthearted tone of the story, even according to the Japanese police, I realized I had stumbled upon a complement to my ideas of elderly women and their habits. And these elderly burglars, dubbed the G3S by police, provided a nice jumping board for my fictional, more puckish group of elderly men in my story, “Old Cork”.

I’m not certain of the motives of these elderly burglars in real life, but my characters will be motivated by a desire to recapture their youth. And, while their methods may be criminal, the tone of the story is that of jovial self-expression. These poetic liberties are one of the reasons I love to write fiction; even criminality can have a positive twist.

In my story, these men start off with dull jobs fitting of their age, but not of their hearts—all jobs which have been inspired by strange news of the week. One is involved in pothole management, inspired by authorities who had to punish a man for painting circles around potholes. One is involved in a novelty act, where people gather to see an old man display his unusual strength, an idea inspired by this younger man pulling three planes while walking on his hands. And another, the de facto leader of the trio, is simply trying to fade away into bureaucratic obscurity, handling such contentious issues as this benign battle between regulators and small-time egg farmers. Except, in his fictitious world, the micromanaging of eggs, and the preposterous parades in response, trigger his desire to return to his youthful, yet criminal, ways.

I will also be involving an enormous amount of dragonflies, as were seen in Rhode Island recently, and an enormous amount of champagne, like that recently discovered in this shipwreck—but I’d rather keep how I’m involving them a secret. For the sake of the fiction.

As with everything, always trust that I do it all for the fiction. And come back Monday for the first pages of each of my above ideas.