Today has been a long, tiring day. I woke up this morning painfully tired and beat down. Last night, going to the gym for the first time in two weeks caused my physical exhaustion. I’m still not sure of the cause of my mental exhaustion, but after waking up, the last thing I wanted to think about was writing. That was my actual thought: I don’t want to write today or ever again. Just the thought of transcribing a word made me ill. And it’s been, what, five days of writing these long musings? How am I supposed to survive twenty-five days of this; especially once I begin trying to write fiction as opposed to this much easier writing of consternations and story outlines? Ugh. I don’t want to even think about it. I’ll just keep typing and see what falls out. I can at least say that even though I’m just as tired as this morning, I am sitting here trying to write something. It’s not terribly good or interesting, but it does count as words, which is all the preparation for the Marathon is supposed to do: force me to write words every day. What happens with those words or their value never mattered. Remember, I never stipulated that these words have to be creative or useful. “Quantity over quality” is the mantra of the Marathon. This is something that I need to remember and remind me over and over again.

My thoughts are rather clouded today, and my creativity is at a very low point. I blame the gym: it stole my creative energies and they have not refilled as I expected. But enough: I don’t want to waste more valuable writing time consternating. The wonder drug known as caffeine should kick in at any time now. It will give me enough energy to at least put a few ideas down and reach my word goal.

Last evening a less than brilliant thought occurred to me about the Pink Sweater. As I hinted at over the last few days, the sweater may not be pink. I at first didn’t like that idea because I thought the title was clever (cleverness, for me, is more important than almost everything in my life—I’m just very, very simple in that way. I’d rather be seen as clever than intelligent. I’m not sure what that says about me, even if, as now occurs to me, cleverness is a type of intelligence, a humorous type). My brilliant idea before falling asleep (recording the idea prevented me from falling asleep by another hour—or maybe it was the terrible Burger King I ate after the gym because I was too lazy to cook) was that the magic sweater changed colors as Lenny wore it. The sweater uses the colors as a way to communicate, or emphasize how it felt about certain of Lenny’s actions. The changes should be gradual, so people will not really think of the sweater as having a color (or being magical). While the colors will gradually change, perhaps going from a muted brown to a dull pink, they will recognize it as the same sweater Lenny always wears; particularly when it starts smelling bad, looking ragged, etc. I’m not sure what pink represents as an emotion, but it should be an important one (otherwise, why name the story that, besides the cleverness aspect). The other colors should be rather evident: red for anger, green for envy, etc.

There’s nothing coming out. I’m squeezing and squeezing, but the only juices left in me want to consternate. They want to complain about how difficult this is, how it’s impossible to come up with anything interesting because I’m drained. I’m empty. There are no topics floating through my head. There’s nothing but dullness, and dullness does not translate well to the page. What dullness has done for me, now that I think about it, is give me a chance to think things through. Here’s my time to stare at the ceiling and think. The ceilings here aren’t as interesting as in the Castle, but there are many more people to watch. Seeing as I’m a born voyeur, this should inspire me to continue. Let’s see where this brings me. (Yes, I’m reaching for anything to get me over this hump.)

The grandma makes the sweater because she is a Pagan. She belongs to a cult, the members of which are trying to keep magic alive in the world. This is her way of introducing Lenny to this part of his heritage. (This is the young boy realizing his magical potential storyline.) How does this correlate with the “evil” aspects of the sweater? Not sure, but this will make the grandma/aunt a more important character. The magic is more of a fire-and-forget magic—once created, it lives and follows its own set of rules. The sweater, like all spells under this system, was created for a purpose: to further the teachings of the magic. Is the magic based on a gods worship, or is it a manipulation of nature (if there is a difference between those two)? What did his grandma hope to accomplish? (These are just brainstorming thoughts, remember. I’m not sure if they’ll work—bah, enough useless explaining.)

So, the grandma understands what she created and gives it to Lenny knowing what it will do to him. She might have misjudged how the sweater will accomplish its goals, however. The sweater is not sentient in the same way that humans are sentient. It doesn’t hope to propagate itself. Its only purpose is the goal that’s woven into its threads. Its sentience relates only to how it goes about achieving its goals. Think of the Oracle in the first “Matrix” movie (the only Matrix movie worth discussing): like the ancient Greek oracles, its prophecies were designed to force a certain outcome. They weren’t necessarily correct (in the case of the Greeks they were, in the Matrix, they weren’t), but her discussions were designed to (man, my writing is terrible today—but I guess it’s not important in these contexts) facilitate a certain outcome. The sweater works similarly. It uses its powers to further its goal, which does not necessarily correlate with Lenny’s goals, or at least the goals that Lenny thinks are important. Perhaps this will remove some of the aspects I discussed yesterday. While there’s still the “correct” discussion, some of the manipulation aspects, or evil aspects, if you will, might have to be changed. The sweater’s goals, while not out to save the world or help Lenny achieve his more materialistic needs, might be admirable in the context of his grandma’s wishes.

That’s all very abstract. The grandma becomes more interesting if I follow this train of thought, however. She’s a character that we’ll have to revisit multiple times during the story (I originally planned on introducing her at the beginning and not bringing her back until the end). She has the answers, and perhaps, at the end, she accompanies Lenny, the Gandalf of the Pink Sweater? Who ever thought of an old and stodgy grandma as a travel companion? Or maybe she dies before giving those answers? Will she refuse to help Lenny? Perhaps she’ll feign (or fall into) senility. She should be interesting and I want the readers to return to her. What is she regretting? In my description of her yesterday, she was regretting something. Is it that she didn’t find an heir to her powers? Is Lenny her last hope? (“Luke, there is another.”) Or does she see the death of magic as her biggest regret—her failure to trust anyone, including Lenny, with her secrets. Maybe she fears that the world will become a better or worse place with these secrets revealed or with the loss of these secrets. Perhaps it’s her choice, at the end, that makes the difference. In that case, she’ll have to be an even more prominent character. All food for thought (what’s up with that saying? Who ever thought of carnivorous thoughts!).

The girlfriend is another character that’s been flitting through my brain. She should be a force in Lenny’s life and a potential stumbling block for the sweater. Why is the sweater scared of her? Who is she? I imagine that she’s the creative type. I had at first thought that she might be the little girl from the original Pink Sweater story, the happily failed artist—the dreamer whose parents force her to be a doctor or lawyer instead of an artist. She finds contentment and happiness in her parents’ chosen career path (as much as anyone can find it in their career). She’s an obstacle because she wants Lenny to fulfill his dreams. She wants him to… What? Is he having the little girl conflict? I thought he wants to save the world (Spidey again)? Is she a stumbling block or something that will help Lenny accept his calling (the magic) or understand it?

How old is Lenny? I pictured him in his 20s, trying to achieve something early in his life.

Can you smell the fumes that I’m running on? This writing is pulling nothing from nothing. I thought I’d take this break to complain a bit before I moved on. Not even my complaints have sharp edges. I might need to put off finishing this until later. I do want to write. I just wish I had something to write about or with (brain-wise, my computer and fingers are working fine).

If the sweater is not evil, who is the bad guy in the story? This is an important question because all stories need conflict. There’s internal conflict, which Lenny will certainly have plenty of, from understanding and accepting the sweater, to his relationship with his girlfriend and grandma, to his eventually decision about magic or the sweater or both. Will there be forces at work that are attempting to thwart the sweater? Will those forces try to keep magic out of the world? An important question (all these questions are important, now if I only had answers to some of them) is what would the world look like without the magic—or, just as interesting, what would it look like if the magic still existed. One of the things I enjoy about magic is the understanding that when it comes right down to it, there are few things that people would use magic for. For all the fun it would be to hurl a lightning bolt or set a fire with just a thought, all of those things can be accomplished just as easily with technology. That’s the crux: does our society even need magic, and if so, what for?

For this new, benevolent sweater to succeed there needs to be a person or force that is trying to kill off the magic. This force will be working against Lenny once it discovers him. It could be a group of hooded monks hunting him down, or technologists, who believe that technology, not magic, should control the word—although, I’m reluctant to have the story focus on the difference or challenge between magic and technology. This should not be about the evils of technology, but instead, about what it’s like to have magic, or what the magic would be good for.

These new turns in my story are confusing the hell out of me. I don’t understand the main themes, but I’ll let them continue to develop. The critical aspect of the story is developing characters. Everything else will fall into place (hopefully) once those characters are set loose. If there is an evil character (or actor or magical item or technological device—ugh, there will be no evil artificial intelligence; let me repeat that: my story will not have computer gone mad trying to take over the world), then I need to plan him out as meticulously as I have Lenny (which, I know, isn’t saying much).

I’ve thankfully come to the end of my word count. Perhaps staring at the ceiling tonight will help me move this along.

Word count before editing: 2,020; time: 2 hours; caffeination: tall mocha + vanilla coke; editing: lots during the writing; consternation level: high.