The Eyes Have It: a freewrite to get it moving

A long time ago I read somewhere that the only only thing harder than beginning to write, is stopping.

Every day I sit down at this keyboard it's like I have to bribe (or threaten) myself to do it.

In order to get into the writing, I find that simply freewriting a scene from the piece I'm working on seems to loosen things up. To be honest, the scene seldom ends up in the final story, but it's a good way to get to know the characters. Sometimes, the scene turns into a completely different story later. When that happens, it's really quite cool.

Here's what I wrote this morning before the 'real' work began:

It's a jar with eyes in it. Original by CoyPowers

“Jay?” Asif said, nudging him. The line had begun to move. “We’re up.” They zipped their tickets to the scanner by the door and went in to the Convention Centre. Asif had already downloaded a guide and a schedule and was checking that their reservation for Danile Mathey’s Q&A was good. They’d booked early. ‘Devil in Blue’ was the hottest vid going, with more downloads and views than any other programme since the beginning of the internet and with talk of a VR option launching next year, that session was going to be packed.

Asif was dressed as Mr. Spock, the Nimoy Spock (Quinto, Savinoch and Gerrard didn’t count, Asif insisted) and couldn’t remember if he’d told Jay the convention was fancy dress or not. It didn’t matter. With his violet eyes and flashy clothes, Jay looked a little bit like Danile Mathey’s character from ‘Devil in Blue’, and his swagger — a change which Asif was taking some time getting used to — had men and women alike zipping him their short codes. Jay sent a polite ‘Ignore’ to each one, and the men and the women, who’d seen him come in with Asif-dressed-as-Spock, thought Asif was a really lucky guy.

Jay thought he was feeling more like himself than he had in weeks. Jay also thought it might be time to start looking for a nicer apartment. The thought surprised him. It also made him feel a little old. And no wonder.

There were kids here who’d not even been born when he and Asif went to their first convention; kids whose ‘ware had been installed before they’d turned one, kids who’d never gone a day without having full access to the entirety of the internet. He saw preteens with emitters implanted, and one kid whose left eye had been dedicated for full VR immersion. They were a silent lot. He and Asif followed a group of about eight of them whose gestures indicated a hectic conversation about where to go first, but it was done completely through zips to one another and subvocalized commands to their systems. Truth be told, Jay was a little jealous. These kids were full participants in something Jay had lived on the margins of all his life. It was a world he enjoyed, especially now that he had his own ‘ware, but it moved on so quickly he felt he was only ever going to skim the surface. Just as he got the hang of one kind of app, it turned out that someone had uploaded a new one and it was old before he even found out about it.