Writing creative writing, story writing and other writings by Rob Hopcott

Short story writing ideas can emerge from your creative unconscious to distract you at any time and sometimes it's best to go with the flow!

Story writing is an amazingly addictive, compulsive activity. If it harmed people, it would  probably be banned. Once a short story pops into my head, it yells to be let out. It makes more noise than my kids used to when they were sitting in the back of the old Hopcott banger in years gone by.

So it was with a stiff writing schedule ahead of me, last Friday, that a new short story emerged from my unconscious and started to pester.

This short story idea first appeared while I was taking a shower and continued running through my mind like a lumbering dinosaur as I walked downstairs and sat in the kitchen to eat my morning muesli.

It wouldn’t go away and, by the time I’d switched my computer on, I knew there was no chance of me writing articles as I’d planned that morning.

The story had to be written and nothing else would give me relief - well, certainly not anything on offer on a Friday a.m. in Winter at the Hopcott household.

Three and a half hours later it was lunchtime. The first draft of the short story had been completed and typed into my short stories blog in preparation for publication.

At this point, I still had no idea about a title for the short story. Furthermore, the short story was definitely not really the sort of thing I would normally write. It seemed a bit like sci-fi short story but it also had characteristics of stream of consciousness writing with accents of the sort of thought processes that might occur during aging.

Furthermore, I’d been writing the short story so furiously that I’d even missed my morning cup of tea so was thirsty and starving.

I saved the draft short story and stopped for lunch.

After eating, since it was Friday, I popped into my local town and visited a friendly bookshop where the owner puts up with me boring her occasionally with my conversation and unwitty repartee. It’s a once a week event and gives me the opportunity of catching up on any gossip in the local town. (I call it writer’s research but it’s really just gossip!) Her small discount bookshop is very central. If it’s going on locally, my shop-keeping friend will know all the gruesome details - and be prepared to tell them!

So back home to re-write the stream of conciousness science fiction story and finalise any editing needed. I’d made a good start until my brother rang to tell me his doctor had found a lump where lumps shouldn’t be and recommended I go to my doctor to check my similar parts just in case I also had a lump where a lump shouldn’t be.

The call lasted over two hours, after which it was too late for me to do any potential lump finding, so I made an appointment for the doctor to call me on the Monday morning and went off to play some tennis down at my local club.

So it was Saturday before my latest new short story was published online for all to read. It is called Time but not as we know it and can be found on my short stories blog. I hope you enjoy it.

All of which I write here to mention how compulsive and addictive short story writing can be and how disruptive to a writer’s planned working day.

However, in mitigation, I have to confess that by that Friday, I was really tired and not looking forward to my writing plan. Perhaps it was for the best.

As it turned out, writing that short story was fun. It cheered me up, made me feel better at the end of a long weeks work writing and was very therapeutic.

On reflection, it made me feel fortunate that I am a writer again, which can’t be bad, and, if I too have lumps where lumps shouldn’t be and the worst happens, perhaps it will be something more for others to remember me by 

Bye for now

Rob

Rob Hopcott - online author