Pop the Clutch: The challenges of starting a new story.

I've started a new story. It's not going well. I have this great idea, but I'm having a hard time fleshing it out. Why? Well, for a long time, I wrote stories that were based on situations I had been in. And when you write from experience, it's very easy to capture (or re-capture) that sense of being there, because you can draw on your memories to pull in details. But when you're writing a story that has no basis on your own personal experience, it can be very difficult to create those details in your mind. I find that I have to trick my mind into believing I lived the story in order to write it. It can be easy sometimes, but this time I'm having trouble. Here's the premise of the story:

Girl has her first real corporate job after college. She has a lot of student loans, and an entry level position doesn't pay quite enough to pay the loan payment. She answers an ad for modeling - she did a little runway modeling for a mall when she was in high school, never still photography, but she figures it can't be that hard. She follows the directions to the location - it's a seedy part of town, a loft in an old warehouse or factory of some sort. The photographer lives there, and the other model has already arrived. They are being shot for a series of erotic book covers, and the male model is incredibly good looking, so she thinks this will be a piece of cake, although she's a little reluctant at first - her religious upbringing creates guilt that gnaws at the corners of her mind. Several shoots later, the male model seduces her while they are filming, she forgets about the photographer and camera...you get the picture. (Pun intended.)

I've never modeled. Never really wanted to. I like photography, but I know nothing about it beyond point and shoot and a little shot composition. So I'll have to do a little photography research, I think, and I need to get myself into a model's frame of mind. I understand the desperation of needing money to make ends meet - when I was out of college, I worked at Pizza Hut to supplement the income from my first two "real" jobs (which weren't all that real, given they were telemarketing and phone sales). Yes, I was a Pizza Slut. But it was a decent job and meant that I had to buy very little in the way of groceries, because I'd eat dinner there and bring mistakes home for lunch the few next days. I also worked with some really great people - we were like a dysfunctional family, but we knew how to have fun.

So back to the story. That's where I'm at. I have a plot outlined, and I've started writing the first draft. I've gotten her to the photo shoot. She has that fake bravado that recent college grads adopt, that sense of "I can do anything! I have a diploma!" is still fresh, and the looming student loan payment is enough impetus to push her through the heavy sliding door at the end of the hall.

Are you intrigued? I am. While I have no interest in modeling, it's still a story that has the potential to get me going. I was young and innocent once, full of imagined experience. I want to know what happens next.