{"id":2928,"date":"2016-01-10T16:50:42","date_gmt":"2016-01-10T16:50:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.everywritersresource.com\/shortstories\/?p=2928"},"modified":"2016-01-10T18:13:42","modified_gmt":"2016-01-10T18:13:42","slug":"if-youre-having-trouble-getting-started-by-william-olmstead","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.everywritersresource.com\/shortstories\/if-youre-having-trouble-getting-started-by-william-olmstead\/","title":{"rendered":"If You\u2019re Having Trouble Getting Started by William Olmstead"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Tempest<\/a>
Tempest by Tommy Ingberg<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

If You\u2019re Having Trouble Getting Started<\/h1>\n

by William Olmstead<\/p>\n

\nBern Vega walked through the front door of his tiny bungalow on Brook Street with the words of the writing class instructor resonating in his head: \u201cIf you\u2019re having trouble getting started, it might be because you\u2019re overwhelming yourself. Just sit down and write one sentence. No pressure.\u201d It was an epiphany for Bern, who had spent his meager creative life writing in fits and starts.<\/p>\n

He went downstairs to his old Smith-Corona typewriter, twisted in a sheet of paper, and wrote one sentence.<\/p>\n

Juno Vega drove from his Uncle Bern\u2019s funeral straight to the old man\u2019s decrepit, moldy bungalow. He and his mother had started going through Bern\u2019s things the night before, trying to figure out what to do with the old bachelor\u2019s effects. In the basement they found a desk, a typewriter, and several yellowed, typewritten volumes of what appeared to be a novel. Or a memoir. Or something.<\/p>\n

\u201cOh, my god. What\u2019s all this?\u201d his mother said. \u201cI know Bern took some writing classes about thirty years ago, but I had no idea.\u201d<\/p>\n

Juno was fascinated. He brought up one of the dusty tomes and set it on a coffee table in the living room. He started to read.<\/p>\n

Juno\u2019s mother brought him a cup of coffee and they both sat down at her kitchen table.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo, it looks like we have someone who might be interested in buying your Uncle Bern\u2019s house,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

\u201cOh, good. I\u2019ve got almost everything cleaned out of there.\u201d Juno blew on the hot coffee and took a sip. \u201cNot only that, but I finally finished reading his book. Or whatever you want to call it. It\u2019s taken me four months. There must have been a couple of thousand pages.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cReally? How was it?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWell, here\u2019s the weird thing. It was all one sentence.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat do you mean?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cOne sentence. The whole thing was one long, run-on sentence.\u201d<\/p>\n

Juno\u2019s mother shook her head and waved a dismissive hand.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat a waste. What can you really say in one sentence?\u201d<\/p>\n

This story was previously published in Narratives in Pill Form, the author\u2019s collection of short stories.<\/em>
\nBIO:
\nWilliam Olmstead is a Los Angeles-based writer. His stories have appeared in Caf\u00e9 Irreal, Everyday Fiction, and Nomos Review. His first collection of fiction, Narratives in Pill Form, was recently published.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Bern Vega walked through the front door of his tiny bungalow on Brook Street with the words of the writing class instructor resonating in his head: \u201cIf you\u2019re having trouble getting started<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2629,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_bbp_topic_count":0,"_bbp_reply_count":0,"_bbp_total_topic_count":0,"_bbp_total_reply_count":0,"_bbp_voice_count":0,"_bbp_anonymous_reply_count":0,"_bbp_topic_count_hidden":0,"_bbp_reply_count_hidden":0,"_bbp_forum_subforum_count":0,"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[273],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2928","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-short-short"],"aioseo_notices":[],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.everywritersresource.com\/shortstories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2928","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.everywritersresource.com\/shortstories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.everywritersresource.com\/shortstories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.everywritersresource.com\/shortstories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.everywritersresource.com\/shortstories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2928"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.everywritersresource.com\/shortstories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2928\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2930,"href":"https:\/\/www.everywritersresource.com\/shortstories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2928\/revisions\/2930"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.everywritersresource.com\/shortstories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2629"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.everywritersresource.com\/shortstories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2928"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.everywritersresource.com\/shortstories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2928"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.everywritersresource.com\/shortstories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2928"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}