A Story Idea Each Day for a Month — Day 4
This is the 13th year in a row I’ve run this series in April. Why a story idea each day for the month? Several reasons which I’ll work my…
This is the 13th year in a row I’ve run this series in April. Why a story idea each day for the month? Several reasons which I’ll work my through during this series of posts. Here’s another one:
You can evolve into being a writer-producer.
Let’s face it, you can only write so much. But sitting on your side of the table, all those story meetings you’ve had to endure, you’ve probably developed a pretty good sense of what it takes to be a producer at least on a creative level.
Why not don that hat, too?
A quick way to jump start you producing career: Come up with story ideas.
Today’s story idea: I Moved to a Remote Cabin to Write, and I Hate It.
Six months ago I took the biggest leap of my life: I quit my dead-end job, ended things for good with my on-again-off-again boyfriend, and moved to an off-the-grid cabin in the woods of Montana, with a wood stove and an outhouse. I’ve always loved to write, but never had the time and space to try a real writing project, and I figured big sky country would be the answer. Now I have nothing but space, and time: time to hike, to look at wildlife, to be close to the rhythms of nature, and to write my heart out. My best friend even made me a goodbye present to hang above my desk: a painted sign reading WALDEN II.
My plan for my new life was simple, or so I thought. I’d rise each morning, drink herbal tea, walk on the same trail, watch wildlife, and write down my meditations about the natural world. Then I would come home to my little cabin and have the whole afternoon to work on my book: a combination of memoir and reflection on nature. I have with me the crates of books that I hauled down four flights of stairs from my old apartment, thinking they would inspire me — not just to write, but to work through the trauma that I felt I couldn’t process in my old life. I wanted to find myself here, through a combination of nature and art. But now, day after day, I have nothing interesting to say about nature, and I feel terrified that there is no me to find.
I haven’t written anything. I’m bored with the little trail by my house, and the only wildlife I’ve watched are geese. I don’t know anybody here. My plan was to be self-sufficient, a one-person retreat, but I didn’t plan on the kind of loneliness that would make me want to text my ex. My friends back home — in my old home, anyway — are nothing but supportive, and tell me they can’t wait to read my writing. But I have nothing to show them, and I’m afraid to tell them that I’m not even enjoying a world they often tell me they’re jealous I get to experience. I thought this was what I needed to find my true self, but something is wrong, and I’m afraid it’s me.
I’m writing this to you from the parking lot of the grocery store where I come each week to pick up provisions, my only real trips away from the cabin. This question is already too long, because I don’t want to end this email and start my car and drive back to the place that I guess is my home now. I’m on my phone, which I told myself I’d stop using so I could finally focus on what’s important, but now I don’t trust myself to know what I need to be seeking. Every time I sit down to write, nothing comes. I don’t feel healed by the big sky above me — just empty enough that I might float right up into it. How do I find my way forward?
This brings to mind some movie associations:
Secret Window (2004): A successful writer in the midst of a painful divorce is stalked at his remote lake house by a would-be scribe who accuses him of plagiarism.
Misery (1990): After a famous author is rescued from a car crash by a fan of his novels, he comes to realize that the care he is receiving is only the beginning of a nightmare of captivity and abuse.
Into the Wild (2007): After graduating from Emory University, top student and athlete Christopher McCandless abandons his possessions, gives his entire $24,000 savings account to charity and hitchhikes to Alaska to live in the wilderness. Along the way, Christopher encounters a series of characters that shape his life.
And of course…
The Shining (1980): A family heads to an isolated hotel for the winter where a sinister presence influences the father into violence, while his psychic son sees horrific forebodings from both past and future.
The easy path for this story conceit —character alone out in the middle of nowhere — would be the thriller or even horror route. But that’s a path already taken. So let’s see what happens if we brainstorm a comedy?
Meet Jacquie. Late 30s. City girl. Stumbled into writing for a New York-based magazine, something like Vanity Fair. Her beat is the social scene. In effect, she makes a living writing breathless accounts of the glitterati as they go about living their top 1% richer than God lives.
This is far astray from Jacquie’s days as a creative writing major at Vassar. Her great American novel lies collecting dust in a box jammed into the corner of a seldom used closet.
On a whim, she quits her job. Finds a remote cabin in the woods. Takes out a six-month’s lease. And relocates… just like that.
She’s all set. No distractions. Even busted out her mother’s old typewriter (let’s give her some mommy issues seeing as her mother was a famous playwright on Broadway). Time to finish Jacquie’s novel.
But she cannot bring herself to do the one thing you absolutely need to do if you are a writer: Deposit her ass on chair and write.
She could go to town except for one fact: Part of the allure of the rental is the location of the cabin. There is nowhere within four hour’s drive of this Alaskan wilderness location. Besides, after she was choppered in along with six months worth of food and daily necessities, Jacquie had no car to drive anywhere anyhow.
Time to meet Barry. This is the stranger who visits one night scaring the absolute shit out of Jacquie. Not a psycho killer. Rather an actual bear. A black bear. A big fucking black bear.
After the bear breaks into the cabin, Jacquie manages a stand-off, she from her elevated position in the top bunk bed and her walking stick as a weapon. As it turns out, all Barry wanted was to get at the cabin’s victuals. The bear ate until he was full, then lumbered away.
The problem is this: Every night, here comes Barry. And while Jacquie manages to survive this regular visits, the fact is her food deposits are depleting by the day. Something has got to give.
Here’s the twist: I think Barry is lonely. And over time, a weird kind of friendship develops between human and bear. Like when Barry, perhaps feeling guilty after eating Jacquie out of house and home, begins to deliver gifts on Jacquie’s doorstep (e.g., salmon, rabbits, moose, all dead and all needing to be skinned and what not).
I don’t know the whole story, but I just saw a scene where Jacquie and Barry “dance.” Not sure what the song is, probably an LP on an old record player, an ironic rock and roll tune. The thing is, the pair become buddies. Hell, Barry may even start to act like Jacquie’s romantic protector.
Which will come in handy when a hunter starts snooping around…
But that’s another part of the story which will wait to be explored.
There you go, my take on the 4th story of the month.
What would you do with this story?
Each day in April, I invite you to join me in comments to do some brainstorming. Take each day’s story idea and see what it can become when we play around with it. These are valuable skills for a writer to develop.