The plan was to type on the PC until the lunar eclipse in one big burst of creativity and inspiration. But after the usual two hours the monitor started going blink. Blink. Blink-blink-blink. Shutting itself off and turning itself back on at a rapidly accelerating rate. I had to turn it off, the monitor, and let it cool for 15 minutes in order for it to remain ‘on’ long enough for me to shut off the computer. The sky was crystal clear, the moon large and full and yellow, just waiting for that shadow to crawl across its face. I was tired, I went to bed. No way was I going to wait up until 1.30 or 3 or whatever for some eclipse.
This morning she was all, “two novels huh?”
“Yes.”
“About what?”
“Um…”
“Yes?”
“A guy who gets a job torturing people because he doesn’t feel sorry for them, and a guy who gets eaten by a tiger.”
“I see.”
“Warm up your coffee?”
“No, thanks. Why can’t you write about something nice?”
“A pain suit’s not nice? Tigers are nice.”
“How much did you write this weekend?”
“One thousand words. Then the monitor started the blink-blink thing. My goal is 4,000 a day.”
“So when you going to write that?”
“Good question.”
That’s ok; I’ve spent the last 10 days revising my first 3 chapters of last year’s 50K=> 111K behemouth. I only meant to re-outline the thing, to make sure everyone shows up punctually and does what they need to do in the thing, but then there were subplots, and backstories to almost hint at, and talking seagulls and morticians and broken laws of physics and frickin’ tiny helicopters. Hm. Must be something in the air.
or, you know, in the thing.
Mmm. Talking seagulls.