Aaron M. Fortkamp

Scatterbrained, scattered mind. I can barely string two thoughts together. And I have to try to write like this. I’m not tired, not yet. Just feeling very not on my game. Like thirty second attention span, if that. It’s taken twenty minutes to write this first paragraph.

Music on now maybe that’ll help, maybe I’ll stop letting myself take breaks from typing, maybe I’ll forego periods, maybe I won’t permit my cat to distract me now matter what he tries, maybe I’l close my eyes and type for a while, maybe it’s midnight, maybe I’m too sober, maybe I’ve got low blood sugar and my foot’s asleep and my mind’s asleep and I’m too short and too old and too fat and too ugly and not human enough to feel the emotions I want to convey, maybe I don’t have emotions, maybe I don’t belong on this planet, maybe I should turn off the television but it’s dear god it’s another Transformers movie no I mean but it’s the NBA finals and I hadn’t imagine depicting my NBA player going to the finals but maybe he does, maybe that’s the key for him to live up to the role he’s decided to play, no that’s a no that’s like how Harry Potter wins everything even the tournaments that he’s not allowed to enter and only happen once in all the books for some reason. Plus there will be enough books written about LeBron James in the upcoming century, I don’t need to add an obvious analog to the pile. 

I need speed, not like the drug but also yes the drug, but just the pace, the haste, I need to get moving on this thing. I’ve been getting back into the story, the characters, but the writing itself. I’m way out of practice on the frontline battle, on getting the actual words down from the first, the originals, the raw material, I wonder how much sugar it would take to equal the kick of a good pharmaceutical amphetamine, wasn’t there a very special episode of the Fresh Prince about taking speed? I want to see that episode again, was it Carlton? Was he on speed? How was that not just funny as all hell?

I am watching the Finals, can’t help it, it’s the Ohioan in me, good lord can anyone stop Kevin Durant this first half? It’s like he knows I said he would choke.

There is something left to figure out about my character, I had an inkling his dad had more to do with all this than I’d known when I started but now I don’t know, like I think his dad might be a red herring and there’s something else going on. He’s got a daughter and a sister and of the two it’s more likely the sister because he doesn’t know the daughter, which itself could be a thing, which would be fine with me because the sister is pretty fun to be honest, she’s a scene stealer that one but she’s got to be able to hurt him bad and I don’t know how she would do that or why. So much to discover yet. So much writing to do and here I am all thumbs and they’re all up my butt.

Okay. I’ve got the energy for this, I’ve got the motivation, the get-go, the do-now, the spark, but the content… is… elusive, camouflaged, distant, muddied, lost in a crowd, seriously WHY WON’T ANYONE GUARD HIM no no no it doesn’t matter, even the finals, nothing that happens in the first three quarters matters, there’s always a comeback, there’s always a tie late in the third or early in the fourth. I’ll tell you what, just knowing it’s in there is something, it’s encouraging, but finding it right now feels a bit like trying to navigate by the stars with no knowledge of astronomy.

It’s in there somewhere. Time to get looking.