As usual, the most recent stuff comes first. There's pretty much
a complete outline here.
THE SPOT OF DARKNESS
THE SOUL OF DARKNESS
THE KIDNEY OF DARKNESS
THE SPIDER AND THE FLY
A SPIDER ON THE FLY
COME INTO MY PARLOR
A man was sitting at a kitchen table in front of a cup of coffee. The man was bathed in a yellow light, while most of the rest of the kitchen was in shadows. On the window sill, a cat with large luminous eyes stared intently. So prominent were the eyes, that it was only on a third or fourth glance that an observer would notice that the cat had in its mouth ******. Ominous shadows. The shadows show sinister things that are not otherwise visible.
(Kitchen is okay, but I like the idea of a desk in a study.)
Spider stepped back from the painting and let her mind drift, looking at it with half-closed eyes. Then, after a moment, she stepped forward again and quickly painted a little **** above the cat.
Outside, the sky was beginning to become brighter with the arriving dawn.
(This is basically good. About three or four paragraphs of this to get the story started. Next, jump to something different, the date rape issue.)
Several weeks later, Spider and Eileen talk about their friend Maxine who's been date raped. (Or a guy who's been stalking her, or an ex-husband who continues to be really abusive.) Eileen wants Spider to convince Maxine press charges or whatever. She accuses Spider of being self-centered for not wanting to cooperate in this.
``Spider, you just don't seem to care about anything that happens outside your own world.''
``The trouble with you, Spider, is that you're so nice that you just can't believe that there are people out there in the world who aren't nice at all.''
I want to emphasize the fact that Spider is almost abnormally cheerful. So just throw in a little something here that's happened to her, a boy friend dumped her, somebody cheated her, or whatever. And it just doesn't seem to faze her. The bad things that happen to her and her cheerfulness/indifference about them are a recurring theme in her life. Eileen can't understand this, is bothered by it, worried about it.
Where does this conversation take place? Spider's studio probably. Or a coffee shop. Or on their morning run/walk together. Or while doing some kind of exotic shopping. Or at the gallery where Spider's art is shown. Cinematic. Changing scene, first walking then the art gallery.
Then the talk shifts to Spider's art.
``If I only knew you from your paintings, Spider, I'd think that you were some darkly disturbed, psychotic person.''
Then Spider meets with Maxine's boy friend, or an intermediary, accepts a large cash payment. This will only take a paragraph or two, three max. This should be a dark scene, with Spider seeming suspiciously out of character.
Then the date. Better maybe if this is not exactly a blind date but a pick-up. Spider lets herself be picked up in an interesting way in an interesting place. We don't know what's going on, but it's apparent that we're seeing a strange, darker side of Spider, and also that she's letting herself get into a situation that looks dangerous.
Sympathy for the Devil. Paint It Black.
Batmanesque night scene. Spider's wearing a mini-skirt and leather vest. She looks wicked, but on a closer look/at the same time.... vulnerable. Goes in several bars, doesn't stay long. Is approached by several guys, but something in her eyes scares them off. This can be a theme that recurs: something momentarily shows in Spider's eyes that frightens people. But still we have the feeling that she's in over her head, in danger.
Finally she finds a bar she seems to like. Hangs out, shoots pool. A guy approaches her, smug, arrogant. We feel that this guy is going to be trouble, it doesn't seem like she'll be able to handle him. She seems to ignore the danger signals, especially when she agrees to go up to his apartment.
She lets herself go to this guy's apartment, then says, ``I think we might have a friend in common.... Maxine Webb.'' The guy says, ``Maxine didn't treat me very well.'' The guy makes the customary rapist excuses, ``She really wanted it, etc.'' He complains that he's the real victim.
Then Spider shoots him.
Then she walks home through dark, deserted streets, like my Honolulu Nocturne. Walking past houses, apartments with lights on; people are inside, going about their life, not aware that Spider is walking past.
Then paints she all night until dawn, creating another dark, frightening painting.
And perhaps two or three lines of conversation with Eileen at the end of the story.
``Spider, you just don't seem to care about anything that happens outside your own world.''
Paragraph One describes a dark, frightening painting.
``If I only knew you from your paintings, Spider, I'd think that you were some darkly disturbed, psychotic person.'' Spider's friend Eileen was looking at a painting showing ****. It was about to be shipped off to ****** Press to become the cover of a new paperback horror novel by *****. [ Or an album cover for a CD. Or a poster for a rock group. ]
``I wish I had your imagination, Spider.''
``But you're the sort of person who wouldn't hurt a fly.''
``Oh, I've hurt a few flies in my day,'' Spider said. ``You might be surprised.''
``I don't know how such a quiet, cheerful person can paint the sort of paintings you do.''
``It's just a matter of getting into the right mindset,'' Spider said cryptically.
``I'm not interested in painting nice cheerful pictures that people can hang in their living rooms to go with the decor. I want my paintings to disturb people. When someone has seen one of my paintings, I want them to wake up in the middle of the night in terror, remembering that image. I don't want people to buy my paintings because they're nice. I want people to keep coming back and looking at them again and again, because they are so haunted by the image, until they overpowered in spite of themselves by the desire to own the painting. I want to touch that dark spot in a person's soul that they've spent most of their life trying to hide from.''
``I guess your paintings are your only outlet for expressing some part of yourself that really needs a way to come out sometimes.''
``It's almost my only outlet,'' Spider said cryptically.
Spider, Spider, burning bright. In the night. Would you fight? What would you fight for?
Painting pictures, throughout the night. Painting, painting, painting.
Painting/Panting for a love you've never known. Crying, sobbing, heart breaking.
In your heart, there's a spot of darkness. Your dark side, the side almost never seen by all those who find you so bright.
So bright, so bright. Little do they suspect, how you burn through the night.
Slashing layer after layer of paint on, darkest paint, waiting for the image to emerge. Mordor. Dark forest with witchy trees. Skulls grinning boldly. Evil creatures, creatures of the night, dark, flying creatures. At three in the morning, in the dark night of the soul, a saxophone wailing, a trumpet playing long, slow notes. A warm yellow light, a lonely Edward Hopper café, two customers sitting at opposite ends of the counter, the cook staring off into the distance with lonely eyes. A café where you can sit all night with a cup of coffee, strange people come in.
Draw a pentagram, cast a hexagram. Free associate, free your dark side.
A dark road in a dark forest led to a dark tower, with tall black towers. Night creatures hanging from the trees. Something like bats. Grinning skulls. Dead babies.
Hm.... But the Edward Hopper loneliness is also a good idea.
Spider, Spider, burning bright. What is it you want so much your heart is about to break?
Whenever Spider found that the world was getting too much for her, she used to lock herself up in her studio and listen to Harry James(???) and paint *****.
Spider, Spider, on the wall, who's the finest of us all?
Words, words, words. Where are the words?
``Words confuse me,'' Spider said. ``They go by me in a flood, I can't see the patterns. I like pictures, because you can look at them all at once.''
``Doesn't anything ever bother you?'' Eileeen asked.
``I worry about you, Spider. I think that everyone has dark stuff inside them, and they need a safe way of expressing it.... I suppose your paintings are your only outlet. If it weren't for them, I'd be afraid you might be like one of those nice guys who suddenly turn into a maniac and start shooting people at random.''
Spider's boy friends: a young kid, a married man.
A woman I once dated: ``I don't know how to have a non-sexual relationship with a man.''
Friends were always amazed at Spider's ability to ****.
Spider was in trouble.
When Spider got dumped by her most recent boy friend, she was ******
``How do you think up things like that?''
``I don't. You know, it's not a matter of inventing the right words. There are millions of words out there, just waiting to be used. It's just a matter of waiting until one knocks at your door and says that it has a message for you.''
``You're always so cheerful.''
``That's because when I'm feeling bad, I shut myself up and lock my door and don't let anyone see me.''
You just stand there in front of the canvas, and stop trying to find an image, just let your mind get lost in the blankness in front of you, and after a while you see that there's a line that wants to be drawn. And when that line asks you to draw it, you mustn't hesitate, go ahead and draw it, even though you have no idea what it's a part of and even though that line may not fit your ideas of what you intended to go there.
Mother. Father. Ex-husband. Boy friends. One thing's for sure, I think in terms of romance. And maybe money problems. The phone got cut off, for lack of payment of the phone bill.
A letter arrives from Spider's ex-husband. Bad news.
Come on, come on, words now, going to the zoo. Animals in the zoo. Spider likes animals. Spider's animals are important to her. What could be a problem about the animals?
Write, write, write. Hundreds of words every day. Who cares if they make any sense? Or not.