unfinished

i. writer's block

writer's block - an idea i initially had about a writer in writer's block, asking the character what they want to do with their plot. the story goes dark eventually with the character being given too much freedom to do what they want and the writer finds himself in a predicament where he has more or less decided to kill off the character... 

---

"It's so hard to think of what's going to happen to your life. There are so many directions I could take you in." 

My writer paused, and swilled his coffee cup. It was a small cappuccino, and he always drank it in the mornings. One of my co-starring characters had the same trait, as my writer was intimately familiar with the struggles of morning fatigue. So he imbued it into Cody, my co-worker and family friend, who had a lot of trouble waking up because he worked late hours into the night. As I wasn't blessed with such traits, I was written with a routine early morning jog into my personal timetable, and I secretly liked that I was so disciplined. 

I took in a breath, debating the possibilities he'd laid out for me so far. Some were intriguing, deep intricate murder mysteries with a chilling thriller background. But I was no intrepid explorer, nor did I have the guts to stalk my friends just to unravel the plot of a dark story. I was written timid, and quite mellow, and wallflower-style-introverted. 

"Look, Dahlia, you don't have to decide now. I don't really expect you to choose your own path, after all. We're here in this Starbucks only because I'm slowly getting too attached to your character, and I feel like you should have your own voice." 

"You've always been the one to choose for me," More than a bit flattered, I countered him with the usual text-book good character response. Leave it to the author. But he wasn't impressed. 

"I need you to help me with this one. Please. I've been on writer's block ever since the Christmas party scene when you and Liam got drunk. It could go comedy, go mystery, go suspense, go romance, go any way you want. Hell, the only thing I wouldn't want to write for you is explicit scenes - the rest is up to you, ultimately." 

"Well, if you want my honest opinion..." I lingered. Deliberately. 

It was my tendency, after all, and my writer's mouth quirked up in a quite-dashing smirk. Not unlike the one that Liam, my set love interest, had. If I thought about it (which I didn't, except for this occasion, because it wasn't written into my lines) carefully, Liam's personality was honestly really similar to my writer's. 

"Pray tell, Dahlia." 

"I didn't quite like the drunk party scene. I know you were trying to show the other, hidden, side of my character, but it just had a fake quality to it. The way you were going with all the booze, the lap-dancing, the spiking of my drink - too abrupt." 

My writer's face darkened slightly, and I winced. He truly did look like Liam when he was all pissed off, his eyebrows knitting into bushy knots. To be honest, if I didn't know better, I would have said I could be attracted to him. But the only person I was allowed to love was Liam, because there's nothing worse that a character can do than break script. Break tradition. Break the lines. God knows what the heck happens when you change your attitude in the middle of the book. I wondered if the writers just flung the manuscripts away in the trashcan, or if they punished the characters for stepping out of line. 

A moment later it was completely alright again. Sunny smile restored, my writer returned his gaze to mine and licked his lips thoughtfully, nodding. 

"Alright. I have to take into consideration the comfort of my characters in the roles they play, of course. Even though the only one I've been able to have an actual conversation with is you. The others don't jump off the page like you do, they're so... languid. Empty." 

He seemed to sense that he had said a bit too much, and blinked. I shrugged in reassurance. 

"I understand." 

That simple phrase had an enormous effect on him, and he turned a hundred-watt smile on me. Something was different about my writer today. He was usually moody and preoccupied and he wrote

---

a.n. and there it ends. i guess you could say the irony in this is, i got writer's block myself...quite a charming bout of irony that was, indeed.