It Was a Dark and Stormy Night

I'll admit, I've been slacking in the writing department this week. I could claim that it was because I had a Business Law test on Tuesday and a Microeconomics paper due Thursday, but really, I blame Netflix. And my lack of self-control. I have a lot of catching up to due, word count-wise.

The current part of my story is what I call the Storm Episode. I love storm episodes. And jokes about pants. Anyway, you might ask how a short-ish story can have episodes. Really, that's how it's being written anyway. Every part is its own little plot of "Eli vs. Whatever." Eli vs. The Explorers. Eli vs. The Angry Drunks. Eli vs. The Mad Bomber. And now, Eli vs. The Thunderstorm.

I love it every time a show has a storm episode. I enjoy intense meteorological occurrences for some reason. Also, it took me about five tries to spell "meteorological." It's 2:30 am. Every chance I get, I like to include a storm episode. In this particular case, I have a group of five people, stuck inside (high winds can be treacherous when you live on the edge of the world), with the power out.

I decided they should tell ghost stories by lamplight. At this point I realized that I apparently don’t know any ghost stories. Not any good ones, anyway. I did have one character, who isn't super bright, tell the famous ghost story that I once told at the age of six or something:

It was a dark and stormy night. Everyone was asleep. I don't remember the rest.

I do feel the need to point out that it wasn't that I forget the remainder of the story. It was that I was making it up as I went and that was as far as I got. In the years since, I could have made up the rest, but that would ruin that perfect gem of dopey childhood.

So I decided to look up campfire stories and the like to get more ideas for my storm episode. But it's the middle of the night and I'm a weenie and I don't want to read them. It's pathetic, really. I half remember a story about a spectral black dog that foretells death, and I'm trying to piece it together enough to include it. I wish I could remember where the hell I read it, because that would be super helpful. Apparently most of the stories I know are from the collection Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark. Anyone remember that book? And those creepy-ass illustrations? But the black dog story isn't from there. There was something about hiking in a canyon, I think. It might be "The Black Dog of Hanging Hills," now that I've looked some more. Or some variation of it.

Basically, I have to come up with at least one story for each of my five characters to tell. And the story they choose should reflect on who they are as a person. So it's part filler and part character exploration. Bonus.

I really should quit writing this and get back to writing the story. Until next time.