Show and Tell

My new story, "Show and Tell,"  will be the death of me.  I really like it.  I really do.  But it just WON'T END.  I thought, when I started it, that it would be a short story.  Like "December" or "Five".  To give you some perspective of what I'm talking about here, "December" is 5,277 words.  "Five" is quite a bit longer at 11,487 words. 

"Show and Tell" is, at the moment, 21,619 words.  

Much, much, too long to be a short story.  Not long enough to be a novel.  A novella, maybe, but not a novel.  And I thought I was almost done with it a couple days ago.  About 1,000 words ago, that would be.  Ugh.  I know how it's going to end, but getting there is taking forever.  I haven't worked on "Cai" in weeks because of this story.  I haven't made any of the MASSIVE changes to "Shades of Grey" because of this story.  It's taking all of my focus at the moment, and that's kind of irritating.  Even hanging out with friends, a part of my mind is in that school with my characters, figuring the best way to finish or start the next scene.  (The story is about a school that goes on lockdown after a man comes in with a gun.)  A part of my mind is always thinking about it.  It's been a long time since something has had its hooks in me like this.  And for all I know, the story is going to turn out to be complete crap.  I'm trying a lot of things stylistically that I've never done before, so that makes me nervous.  Excited, but nervous.

I don't know.  I don't think anyone actually reads this blog anymore, and I'm completely okay with that.  I've been thinking about deleting it.  I just wanted to write down how frustrated this story is making me since it's 2:20 am and Rachel's out of town and my friends have gone home and no one else will be awake.  

So yeah.