Journal Entry #8: Free Write

Journal Entry #8: "Alright, Then How About This . . ."

Write about a topic of your choice.

There's an idea I've had in my head since I began taking this course. I imagine I could use it as some sort of assignment for class. It’s fairly patchy at this point, that is to say, I know a lot of what I’m going to write, but I’m just not sure how it all connects together. I have rough outlines for most of it though. As for a title, I’m not so sure at this point.

The story is basically two stories wound together. It’s hard to explain, but the first story is the story within the story. It is written by an unknown source and is contained on a variety of things, sometimes a piece of paper, sometimes an envelope, sometimes a photograph, sometimes a postage stamp. Some are labelled numerically, but others are not. It tells the story of a family who has decided to . . . do something to their house, somehow alter it. Maybe redo a room, or knock down a wall. But their actions trigger some sort of event within the house, and weird occurrences begin to plague the family. Doors appear that lead nowhere, they hear voices, and see shadows out of the corner of their eye. One night the husband wakes up to see a shadow on the wall, which slowly drifts into the basement, where there is a door that wasn’t there before. The shadow disappears under the door, and the husband opens it. He finds that it leads to another hallway, unlike the rest of the doorways. This hallway leads to a series of rooms, and it becomes similar to a maze. The husband goes in, and explores for a few minutes. When he turns back to leave, he finds that there is no exit, but that another hallway has appeared. He keeps travelling and eventually gets lost, while the maze continues to change. His family wakes up the next day to find that he is gone, and try to make sense of what has happened. That’s kind of a blank outline which seems fairly generic right now, and that’s because I’m not entirely sure where I want to go with that story. I’ve put a lot more focus on the other story, as that's what I feel will be the better written of the two.

The other story is told mostly through journal entries. I think I may have it as the character is now in a mental institution, and this story is shown more for psychological examination. The character is the one who found the story, and tries to put it back together. While he is doing this, he talks about his life, and what’s going on in it. This includes his relationships, his family life, and possibly drug use. As he puts the story together, he begins to lose touch with the world around him, and hallucinate. This is a combination of his life outside of the story, the effects of the story itself . He begins to stay inside, eventually losing track of time as he works on putting the story back together, choosing to try to ignore his life as it gets more and more hectic. I’m not sure if I’ll have him finish the story, or have something intervene which keeps him from doing so.

The extra aspect of the story I want to put focus on is the unconventional style I want to write it in. The stories are told together, with one stopping at a certain part for the other one to pick up again. There will also be commentary told through notes on different pages. In other words, there will be a line like this [1]
[1] and a person’s corresponding commentary on the line in a different section. I’m not sure if I’m going to have the notes told by the character, or by someone working at the mental institution. I think I will have both, so that some of it will be from a first person perspective, and other parts of it will be examined from a psychological standpoint. I'll usually have the two stories connecting through these points, as one aspect of one story has a similarity to an aspect of the other. I also want to have a few parts that are written instead of typed, to make it seem like some parts were written quickly, or in a certain state. I’m going to add in a few drawings, as well as quotes and poetry which relates to what is going on in the story at the time. I may just have this all bunched up at the end, as it doesn’t directly apply to the story. I want to put a lot of focus on how the stories are written and what side notes go along with them. The only problem is that I don’t know how long this story would be. I imagine it would be around 40 pages, if not more.

That’s about it from me right now. I just figured I’d tell you about that, and see what you think. If you have any suggestions or ideas, feel free to share! I'd love to be able to write this as some sort of assignment for this class.