Why #11 of 31 One-Shots Won't Be Coming (Yet)...

To the few of you who are actually reading these, I apologize for not keeping up with them as well as I had planned. I confess that when I original conceived the idea, I skipped ahead to see the songs that would be coming up on shuffle and brainstormed on a few of them just in case I fell behind (like I did) and would be able to write and publish them faster. One such idea was inspired by the eleventh song that came up on the prompt, "A Message From the Man in the Moon" by Allan Jones (and Josephine Baker; it's an old song, but listen to both versions to see if there's one you prefer). It was supposed to explore a scene from "An American Werewolf in London" from the point of view of one of the main characters, the late Jack Goodman.

I know what you're thinking, "Can't she let this whole Werewolf thing go already?" Well, I can't. There's very few movies that have fascinated me like that one has. It's that strange mashup of scary, funny, clever, stupid, silly and depressing that's maddening and frustrating and hard for me to watch, yet I can't stop returning to. I won't delve into it any further, but I will say that Jack pretty much steals whatever scene he's in. He's the one element where the horror and comedy mesh together perfectly. He was going to be a really fun character to write for. So you might be wondering, what's the big deal, then? Why don't you just go ahead and do it? Well, for anyone who's seen the movie and read my ravings about it before, you'll know that Jack's motivation is to get David to kill himself so they can both finally be free from their curse. And recently the world has suffered a great loss that police have deemed a suicide...

Yeah, it's hard to go anywhere on the internet this past week and not see a dedication or something dedicated to Robin Williams. I did not take the news of his passing very well, and I can take some consolation in A) He's no longer suffering, and B) I've found I'm not the only one who broke down on hearing the news. I really didn't want to believe he took his own life though, because how does someone so full of life and energy could do something like that? I heard that he was suffering from depression and the early stages of Parkinson's Disease a short time ago, and I can sort of understand what he might have been going through. I've been through some deep lows and depressions in my life, and even contemplated suicide once, but I never gave up. I found what was important to me and kept it close, found something to look forward to and worked for it, if not for me, then for my family. That doesn't stop the fact that someone we know and love is gone, and in a way that he didn't deserve to go. From the looks of it, people aren't going to stop talking about this for a long time. There is a silver lining to this, however, as people are starting to talk more about depression and ways to understand and deal with it.

As for writing about a character who's catching up with an old friend while also trying to get him to commit suicide? Well, let's just say now's not the time. So I'm putting a hold on this one-shot for a while, at least until it feels appropriate enough. Even if I don't get around to it, it's still an idea I'd like to explore, maybe in a more fleshed-out story as opposed to a brief stand-alone.

And as for why I don't just come up with something else to write instead? It's summer, which means that the time I'm not doing these one-shots, job hunting, or my freelance artwork (which you can look at in the description), I'm just being lazy. And after everything that's happened recently, we could all use a break, maybe take the time to remember a great comedian, and a major part of our childhoods. I know it's been said a thousand times already but Rest in Peace Robin Williams. "Genie, you're free."