I wrote a story …

So, a while ago I read and talked about “The Taming of the Shrew”.  As part of that, I also watched and talked about “10 Things I Hate About You”.  As part of that, I commented that while I didn’t think the base story of “The Taming of the Shrew” was actually sexist, the problem with the play was that while Kate commented that women shouldn’t complain about what their husbands do because it’s done out of concern for them, Petruchio never seemed like he actually cared for Kate as opposed to being after her money, and in that very scene he asks her to do things more to prove his command over her than to, say, win the bet to give them a bigger chunk of her father’s estate, as he demands that she, for example, step on her hat after he’s won the bet.  At the same time, I noted that in the more modern remakes of the play they tend to try to avoid the sexism by eliminating the taming.  So I noted that you could probably make a modern adaptation work by keeping in the taming but making it clear that the Petruchio character was in love with her and really was doing all of these things for her benefit.

Now, as I’ve commented before, I often go for long walks in the morning.  When I go for long walks in the morning. I think about things.  And so I ended up thinking a lot about this and about how a story like this could go.  Which made me want to write the story.  This, however, isn’t special in and of itself because that happens to me a fair bit, but I still never get around to actually writing anything.  This time, however, I had been looking to get into more projects and decided that I was just going to try to do it and get it done.  So I ended up writing the story for a few weekends while washing the dishes from what I cooked for the week (which, given that they need to soak, takes me about an hour and a half to two hours).  And then … I got busy and didn’t have time on the weekends to finish it.  And then I went on vacation and didn’t have time to finish it either.  Finally, I finished it off yesterday and edited and posted it today.

While reading it to edit it, I admit that I do like how it turned out, but the main point was just to get something written as an accomplishment and to prove that I can do it.  Obviously, mileage will vary on how much people like it.  But proving that I could do it means that I hope to do more of it as things go on, with a couple of ideas percolating in my head that I hope I can approach with the same attitude:  I’m doing it to do some writing, not necessarily to complete anything or anything outstanding (which is a good thing because for one idea I don’t actually know where I want to go with it but it works well as something that I can pick up and write a scene of as it occurs to me).  So hopefully this can help kick start me actually working on projects more.

Anyway, as noted above the story is up, so take a peak if you’re interested.