This morning while crossing the busy street with my son on the way to his school, I yelled as a car for like the thousandth time. The street is a busy one, and the cars simply do not stop. There are big yellow lights flashing, huge “School Crosswalk” signs, the whole works. Still every time we cross, at least one idiot isn’t paying attention. Short of a stop light, I don’t think there will ever be close to 100% compliance.
But it did make me think of an idea. The FBI enters a trained ninja into their witness protection program. To give the man a job (although I guess it could be a woman protagonist too) they start the ninja as a crossing guard. Because the ninja is low man on the totem poll, he/she get the crummy corner, the one where no one stops.
That is, until the ninja starts the job. The first car that fails to stop gets a shuriken ripping it’s tire, and a crash. The second driver gets the shit kicked out of them. Very soon every driver passing that way is VERY CAUTIOUS.
On another note. I got in a second day of work on a longer short story. The first day, last Friday, felt like pulling teeth. I knew something was wrong, but could not see it, so I kept plugging away. Man it was brutal slogging work. I even got to the point of thinking I couldn’t write a short story. Silly, I know, but there it is.
Today, in contrast, I cranked it out. I had to rip apart half of what I wrote, and about 1000 words will probably have to be jettisoned, but I managed to beat the story into some kind of shape. I’m a little over 4k words in, with most of that from today. Not bad. On a hunch, I’d guess the story will hit around 10k words. I’ll know more in a few days.
I’d still like to have a slightly more exciting beginning on the story. Right now it smells a little pedestrian. I’ll have to read it again when I’m done with the whole things and see.
The novel is still in editing right now. As soon as my mother-in-law is done with her corrections, I’ll put it up as a complete file. I’ve been reading it myself, and found a few stray spots, but for the most part it’s holding up well.