"Well?" Light was sitting backwards in his chair, waiting for Ryuzaki to start telling him exactly was was wrong with the piece that he had written.
"It's short."
"We didn't have a required length," Light told him.
"So you chose to write the bare minimum," he didn't phrase this as a question.
"No," Light reminded himself not to snap. "I chose to write until my story was complete."
"This is not complete," Ryuzaki stated. Before Light could argue he was saying: "A complete story has a beginning, middle, and an end. This does have beginning, and I'll accept the second paragraph as a middle, but there is no end. Once more your character has no depth or motivation, this doesn't even skim the surface of what the assignment was asking for."
"Suggestions?" Light asked, although he really didn't care what Ryuzaki was going to tell him.
"Make it longer," Ryuzaki replied flatly.
"Fair enough," Light accepted the aggravating response.
"Yours still needs more dialogue, especially since the two characters were in the same room this time," he told him tightly, enjoying to look of vexation that Ryuzaki's face contorted into. He decided at that moment that the best way to get back at the comments Ryuzaki was hurling at him was to do exactly as he had just done: take them with the straight face and give back a completely trivial one.
When light walked out of the classroom he collided with another person. His first thought was to keep his balance and not drop his book bag, his second thought was: if this is karma then Ryuzaki better get run over by a truck today, and his third thought was to see if the person he had ran into had fallen or not.
"Hey, Light!" Touta Matsuda greeted him from the ground. "Sorry about that."
"No problem," Light extended his arm to help Matsuda up. Why he had dreamed his nice but air-headed classmate/sort-of-friend as a cop who worked with his father Light would never know. Mastuda was in the same grade as Light, but hadn't been in Light's circle of people he chose to spend his time with since junior high. Light didn't have anything against Matsuda, but he tended to prefer smart over good-hearted.
Mello's Very Mainly Not Diary
Thursday
I am avoiding my room.
As I write this I am sitting on the floor of Matt and L's room, the only place in the house where I am not surrounded by toys. I guess I can't complain about the seven-year-old playing with their robots and dolls, but Near is thirteen! He needs to grow up or at least learn not the leave his hard, plastic items on his side of the room where I will not step on them!
The next on that pierces my foot will be burned. To a wooden stake. In front of him.
L is writing stories about me and Matt for his writing class, or at least he was yesterday. I didn't read it, but I was in the room when Matt did. Apparently he wrote about that time that Matt let the cigarette set his bed on fire last year. I guess he left out part of my genus, because after he read it Matt said:
"Why'd you end it before we flipped the mattress over? That helped me avoid getting in trouble for it for a whole month!"
I don't think that Matt smoked anymore after that, but I never told him how angry I was that he tried it in the first place. He'd tell me if he tried it again. I can be angry at him if that time comes.
That's all I'm gonna write today, but I'll make an update if I murder Near within the next few hours!
Matt's Journal
Mello keeps complaining about Near. I promised to be his accomplice for the murder.
I beat the Pokemon game, but I didn't have the time to get a new one. Now I am gameless and bored.
That's all.
While he was putting off starting his Creative Writing Homework, Light found himself pondering what he had dreamt that night. The dreams were beginning to move a little faster, and the last thing that he remembered was refusing to make the deal for Shinigami eyes. He was pleased that his dream-self had sense enough to deny this deal, for it might actually drive him insane if his subconscious version of himself had been and idiot.
If he had figured out how to lucid dream, then he wouldn't need Shinigami eyes to get rid of the detective hunting him. Well, if he was able to lucid dream maybe he'd be able to stop the story that he was being trust into from continuing. Unfortunately, none of the attempts that he had made to do this had worked. He had tried multiple times before giving up and turning to the dream log as a solution instead.
Pulling himself back to earth, Light glanced at tonight's prompt, and picked up his pencil. He wished that he had chosen a different elective, any different elective, to fill the credit that he shouldn't even need. He also wished that Ryuzaki actually would get hit by a truck, that way he wouldn't have to deal with the weirdo the next day.
Light Yagami
Creative Writing Homework
May 8th
Prompt: What does writer's block feel like?
My mind is blank. I try to swim around or though it blankness, but it keeps pushing back against me. Having the block is being inside of it. Trapped in a cube of blank.
I clear my mind. I try to do a different activity. Nothing works, I can't escape the cube. I tell myself how bad this is, and how dead I am if I don't write at least something right now.
I get angry at the cube, beating my fits against the walls and ceiling. I get angry at myself, but it don't achieve anything.
I have writer's block.
Ryuzaki L Lawliet
Creative Writing Prompt Three
May 8th
What does writer's block feel like?
Writer's block is not a block at all, it's a wall. Usually you don't know how you wound up on the wrong side of it, but once you're there you're stuck. You find yourself imagining that there's a door in the middle of it, and if you put enough effort into reaching the door then you will. Normally it's right when your hand finally makes contact with it's handle that you realize the door is nothing more than a mirage. Occasionally the door might even been real, but it's locked and you can't find were you placed the key.
Sometimes the wall has windows or is entirely made of glass. You can see your inspiration on the other side, but you can't figure out how to reach it. You know that the glass is breakable, but you don't have the means to shatter it's surface.
The wall consumes your inspiration, and just when you think that all hope is gone, you find yourself back one the other side. You're safe and connected once more, but you know that it won't last. You are fully aware that there will be a time when you are back on the other side of the wall, still with no knowledge of how to escape. You just hope that it won't be anytime soon.
Author's Note: Thank you too Death By Heart DBH and Corliss Kat for reviewing!