The Fizzled-Out Stories Thread

[shereads]

Ode to an Unfinished Earth Day Contest Story

I think that I shall never see
A dumber story of a tree.

 

[Lucifer_Carroll]

Damn trees! Always taking up the space where we could build a perfectly good parking lot. We should so nuke them all for freedom.

 

[dr_mabeuse]

No joke. I was finally sitting down to write my Magnum Opus a couple of weeks ago: a decadent, rococco European hotel on the edge of a mistry lake in the Carpathians, known for its tasteful debauchery and sophisticated hedonism. A beautiful girl with a tragic past in need of sexual healing, a mysterious, passionate man obsessed with reaching her; scenes of surreal sex in the windows at night, black swans upon the blood-red lake at sunset. It would be a series of stories. No, a novel. A series of novels. A film, a series on Fox TV...

And I couldn't get the sob's in bed together. All they do is fucking talk. Walk around the grounds and talk. Talk about the weather, about their jobs, about cheese...

Cheese! A page and a half of him sitting in a tuxedo talking about the sensuality of cheese! Oh, this one's past saving.

I should have stuck to blackmailing lunch-cart waitresses. At least they know when to shut up and get on with it.

 

[neonlyte]

No joke. I was finally sitting down to write my Magnum Opus a couple of weeks ago: a decadent, rococco European hotel on the edge of a mistry lake in the Carpathians, known for its tasteful debauchery and sophisticated hedonism. A beautiful girl with a tragic past in need of sexual healing, a mysterious, passionate man obsessed with reaching her; scenes of surreal sex in the windows at night, black swans upon the blood-red lake at sunset. It would be a series of stories. No, a novel. A series of novels. A film, a series on Fox TV...

And I couldn't get the sob's in bed together. All they do is fucking talk. Walk around the grounds and talk. Talk about the weather, about their jobs, about cheese...

Cheese! A page and a half of him sitting in a tuxedo talking about the sensuality of cheese! Oh, this one's past saving.

I should have stuck to blackmailing lunch-cart waitresses. At least they know when to shut up and get on with it.

It's good to talk.

Pass the Brie.

 

[NoJo]

No joke. I was finally sitting down to write my Magnum Opus a couple of weeks ago: a decadent, rococco European hotel on the edge of a mistry lake in the Carpathians, known for its tasteful debauchery and sophisticated hedonism. A beautiful girl with a tragic past in need of sexual healing, a mysterious, passionate man obsessed with reaching her; scenes of surreal sex in the windows at night, black swans upon the blood-red lake at sunset. It would be a series of stories. No, a novel. A series of novels. A film, a series on Fox TV...

And I couldn't get the sob's in bed together. All they do is fucking talk. Walk around the grounds and talk. Talk about the weather, about their jobs, about cheese...

Cheese! A page and a half of him sitting in a tuxedo talking about the sensuality of cheese! Oh, this one's past saving.

I should have stuck to blackmailing lunch-cart waitresses. At least they know when to shut up and get on with it.

No, not Fox TV, a film. A French one. All they do nowadays is talk and eat cheese. I still love em, so write. There's more to sex than sex.

 

[Guest]

Ode to an Unfinished Earth Day Contest Story

I think that I shall never see
A dumber story of a tree.

Sher, why is that cherub cleaning your ear?[/threadjack]

 

[oggbashan]

My Story

For every work that's posted
Two or three are toasted.

For each episode that's complete
On one I should hit 'delete'.

As for stories that are not quite done
I daren't count each and every one

An hundred tales on my list
Two hundred will be missed

When at last my hard disk's full
Then the crap I'll start to pull.

Starting is easy - just hit those keys
Finishing? Muses have to say 'Please?'

Og

 

[Liar]

My novel turned suddenly bore.
They don't wanna fuck anymore.

 

[carsonshepherd]

My novel's great.
They're finally about to fuck for the second at the end of chapter 5

 

[rgraham666]

Not doing an Earth Day story. But my current one is dragging.

It's been great. Anhedonic lawyer whose given up pleasure for a career meets mysterious stranger. He teaches her slowly and surely about sensuality. I've got her chained to the ceiling, he's playing with her unmercifully…

And I have to drag every word kicking and screaming into the daylight.

Grumph. Mumble.

 

[logophile]

I was writing an earth day story. I had struggled for a concept, really struggled and then finally figured it out. My characters from Valentine's Day were going to run into each other at a river clean-up rally. They'd spend the day working hard, sweating, laughing and then take a canoe up river for a big campout with the other workers. They'd have sex in the canoe, and then realize they were being watched. They'd have sex in their tent and realize they were still love. And then they'd kiss good-bye tenderly so the younger woman could go to Mexico with a clean slate. It was coming along slowly. And then I read this post:

From Og:
First draft started. All I need now are plots for the other entries.

I think Earth Day is the most difficult of the themed contests. It isn't easy to include the Earth Day ideas into an erotic story. Does anyone else have this problem?

From Dr. M:
I used to think the same thing, because I was trying to limit myself to the actual Earth Day celebration, which is pretty contrived and political and about as sexy as Arbor Day.

But once I realized that Earth Day is supposed to be a celebration of the beauty and wonder of the entire natural world, it was easy. I got away from the silly ideas of people fucking at an ecology rallies or while they're collecting trash from the woods and started looking at the sexiness and beauty of the world around us.

If you've got two people enjoying a sunset or walking in the rain or sailing a boat or even just eating lunch in a park, they're celebrating Earth Day. Whenever your characters are moved by natural beauty, they're celebrating Earth Day. SInce we're all children of the planet, even an appeciation of the human body is a celebration of Earth Day.

I am so grateful that I read this. Truly. Cause that's exactly what I was trying to do. My story was forced and trite and really not very interesting. And when it was time to re-do it as something real, I just couldn't come up with anything. I wrote a bunch of poems instead, which I love but the poets around don't seem to. Oh well...

 

[carsonshepherd]

I was writing an earth day story. I had struggled for a concept, really struggled and then finally figured it out. My characters from Valentine's Day were going to run into each other at a river clean-up rally. They'd spend the day working hard, sweating, laughing and then take a canoe up river for a big campout with the other workers. They'd have sex in the canoe, and then realize they were being watched. They'd have sex in their tent and realize they were still love. And then they'd kiss good-bye tenderly so the younger woman could go to Mexico with a clean slate. It was coming along slowly. And then I read this post:

From Og:
First draft started. All I need now are plots for the other entries.

I think Earth Day is the most difficult of the themed contests. It isn't easy to include the Earth Day ideas into an erotic story. Does anyone else have this problem?

From Dr. M:
I used to think the same thing, because I was trying to limit myself to the actual Earth Day celebration, which is pretty contrived and political and about as sexy as Arbor Day.

But once I realized that Earth Day is supposed to be a celebration of the beauty and wonder of the entire natural world, it was easy. I got away from the silly ideas of people fucking at an ecology rallies or while they're collecting trash from the woods and started looking at the sexiness and beauty of the world around us.

If you've got two people enjoying a sunset or walking in the rain or sailing a boat or even just eating lunch in a park, they're celebrating Earth Day. Whenever your characters are moved by natural beauty, they're celebrating Earth Day. SInce we're all children of the planet, even an appeciation of the human body is a celebration of Earth Day.

I am so grateful that I read this. Truly. Cause that's exactly what I was trying to do. My story was forced and trite and really not very interesting. And when it was time to re-do it as something real, I just couldn't come up with anything. I wrote a bunch of poems instead, which I love but the poets around don't seem to. Oh well...

Well, dammit. That sounded interesting to me Thanks, Dr M and Og.

As for poems - they're for you, not the "poets".

 

[logophile]

No, I'm really glad that I read DrM's post. I didn't really like what I was writing, I was just doing it for the contest. Trying to make it "good enough" when I *knew* it wasn't. His comments were a really good dose of reality just when I needed it.

And you're right, my poems are for me. I was glad to write some poetry. It had been 10 years since I had written any.

back for you, Carson.

 

[dr_mabeuse]

No, not Fox TV, a film. A French one. All they do nowadays is talk and eat cheese. I still love em, so write. There's more to sex than sex.

Cheese and sex: a natural go-together?

 

[dr_mabeuse]

No, I'm really glad that I read DrM's post. I didn't really like what I was writing, I was just doing it for the contest. Trying to make it "good enough" when I *knew* it wasn't. His comments were a really good dose of reality just when I needed it.

And you're right, my poems are for me. I was glad to write some poetry. It had been 10 years since I had written any.

back for you, Carson.

I'm really sorry to discourage anyone, but I remember the first Earth Day story I ever read was about a man and a woman fucking in a car in a parking lot. The Earth Day tie-in? They'd just come out of a Ecology Awards Dinner!

I mean, come on! You change things so that they're outside a department store and you've got your Christmas story; outside a nudist camp, and there's your Nude Day story; outside a pumpkin patch... You get the idea.

Now if they were in a tent eating cheese...

 

[dr_mabeuse]

My novel's great.
They're finally about to fuck for the second at the end of chapter 5

Is it a circus story?

 

[shereads]

No joke. I was finally sitting down to write my Magnum Opus a couple of weeks ago: a decadent, rococco European hotel on the edge of a mistry lake in the Carpathians, known for its tasteful debauchery and sophisticated hedonism. A beautiful girl with a tragic past in need of sexual healing, a mysterious, passionate man obsessed with reaching her; scenes of surreal sex in the windows at night, black swans upon the blood-red lake at sunset. It would be a series of stories. No, a novel. A series of novels. A film, a series on Fox TV...

That's my story! I swear, mine was going to be just like that, but instead of a hotel there was a tree. A decadent, European tree of a threatened species called the rococco elm.

You make it sound a lot more interesting, though, by adding the girl, the man and the sex.

My idea had the swans and the cheese, but I couldn't figure out how to work sex into it. I might write it anyway, without sex, as a Loving Wives story.




Edited to add: Magnum Opus is a great character name. He's from Prague, I imagine, and is the impoverished descendant of a great so-and-so.

 

[shereads]

I'm really sorry to discourage anyone, but I remember the first Earth Day story I ever read was about a man and a woman fucking in a car in a parking lot. The Earth Day tie-in? They'd just come out of a Ecology Awards Dinner!

I mean, come on! You change things so that they're outside a department store and you've got your Christmas story; outside a nudist camp, and there's your Nude Day story; outside a pumpkin patch... You get the idea.

Now if they were in a tent eating cheese...

Wouldn't it be a hoot to write the same story for every contest? Just change the names of the couple: Kelly and Mike in the parking lot after the St. Patrick's Day parade; Mike and Mike in the parking lot after Gay Day at Disney World...

 

[shereads]

My story was going to be called "Tree Hugger" and was about this girl who's chained to a tree for reasons that have nothing to do with halting construction of a road. Her date is interrupted when the bulldozers show up, followed by the angry developer, a camera crew from the local TV station, a guy from Greenpeace who's there to provide moral support, and the girl's daddy who accuses her of being a socialist...That part was fun to write. It was the sex that killed it. Her lover, Woody, is the actual tree, you see, and I couldn't get past how uncomfortable the bark would feel. She'd be all chafed! Plus, I worried that she'd been there all day without a chance to pee.

I liked the character of the girl, though. I might write something for her without a tree getting in the way. She's a dental assistant in a small Southern town, whose only previous experience with grass-roots activism was an irate letter to The Gap when they closed their store at the mall. Her name is Eva Gabor Cobb.

 

[neonlyte]

I've got a Lit story in suspension at the moment because I can't get the couple to stop screwing. They've been on the bed, on the floor, in the lift, in the stairwell at Covent Garden tube station with a crowd of football supporters. It's kind of embarrassing - I don't usually get so much sex, not even in my stories.

I tried throwing a bucket of cold water over them and now my keyboard squelches.

 

[R. Richard]

I didn't have any trouble writing my Earth Day story. Hell, I just went into my background and picked out an incident that would fit [Steel Drum Carnival]. Now, if I had been required to write fiction, that might have been harder.

 

[carsonshepherd]

Is it a circus story?

No, but it should be, probably.

 

[shereads]

I've got a Lit story in suspension at the moment because I can't get the couple to stop screwing. They've been on the bed, on the floor, in the lift, in the stairwell at Covent Garden tube station with a crowd of football supporters. It's kind of embarrassing - I don't usually get so much sex, not even in my stories.

I tried throwing a bucket of cold water over them and now my keyboard squelches.

Sounds like all you need is a beginning and an end. Here are some I'm not using:

Beginning:

"It was a dark and stormy night."

Ending:

"Holding her as she slept, Dudley realized that the night was no longer dark or stormy...In fact, it wasn't night anymore.

"He murmurred, 'Wake up, sleepyhead.'

"So she shot him."

 

[cantdog]

Cheese and sex: a natural go-together?

No, no: waitresses and blackmail sex, that's the natural pairing. Who has not had designs on the waitstaff?

 

[NoJo]

I'd love to learn how to blackmail a waitress. I'd be able to go back to all those restaurants I can no longer afford to frequent.