The Writers' Mind As A Sewer (standard:humor, 3776 words)
Author: K. Derby	Added: Apr 20 2004	Views/Reads: 3325/2322	Story vote: 0.00 (0 votes)
A writer suffers a break in his writing routine.

The Writers' Mind As A Sewer 

© Peter Brand 2004 

My current project, such as it is, is a novel about a goofy
directionless fellow who slowly finds his way.  I have been working on 
it obsessively for some months now and finally it was beginning to take 
on a definite shape. 

It was thus involved that I cranked out a stellar 649 words in one
sitting.  A new personal best: I was hot.  As I typed, I was thrilled 
to see my words, splattering lava-like onto the screen of my PDA.  Each 
word fiery in its connotation and irrevocably connected to the 
previous.  Each word surpassingly followed by an even more brilliant 
word.  Even the punctuation, something that haunts me even after years 
of schooling in the apostrophe, seemed perfect in its placement: every 
comma, semi-colon and colon perfectly conveying the nuance of my heated 
thoughts.  Heck, I even threw in the odd em-dash and they seemed to be 
okay too. 

Overjoyed, I returned home (I do most of my writing while chain-smoking
in the break room at work) and uncapped a bottle of rye.  Six Hundred 
and forty nine words!  In one sitting yet!  I was ecstatic. 

At this rate, I would finish my planned epic sometime in early 2006,
five months ahead of schedule. 

Then I would be able to read fiction again. 

In order to place this ecstatic response to 649 pitiful words into its
proper context, you need to understand the obsessive routine within 
which I write.  I write slowly, even on first drafts, waiting until the 
story is clear in my mind before I commit a much distorted version onto 
the page.  Usually about five hundred words or so is all that I can 
grind out during the course of a day.  The following day, my habit is 
to anally review my work, hyper-critically editing it, discarding 
phrases that don't fit, etc.  With this routine, I usually end up 
keeping a paltry few-hundred words and the odd bit of poignant 
punctuation.  My wife tells me that I am overly hard on myself; I think 
I am not hard enough. 

I do not consider myself a true writer. I am not one of those gifted
souls who, on the flimsiest of pretexts, can dash off two-thousand 
masterful words in one sitting.  No I am a hack, a wannabe.  A 
talent-less drone who strains and groans, laboriously torturing each 
word, every phrase from a rock-like skull.  I envy those with true 
talent, for they make it look so easy. 

For better or worse I also choose to limit my reading while I am
involved in a project. My reading is distilled down to the newspaper, 
both print and electronic, plus the odd memo or report that gets flung 
my way at work.  I have found that, by reducing my fiction intake, 
literary isolation forces me to create pieces that - hopelessly 
derivative that they are – are otherwise untainted by the talent of 
others.  Any failings in my fiction are mine, and mine alone. 

It's also important to know that my darling wife of eight years has been
ill, a combination of a sore throat and cold, for the past week and a 
half.  Not life threatening, yet uncomfortable to be sure. 

Now I am a man of normal, ahem, desires and needs.  I do not require any
special consideration nor do I have any sick fantasies involving shoes 
or feather dusters.  No, just the straight, plain vanilla for me.  
Boring for some, but simple and unadorned bliss for me.  Needless to 
say the radical curtailment of this activity, self-imposed out of 
consideration of my wife's discomfort, was causing my thoughts to take 
on a decidedly lecherous turn. 

It was Thursday evening, the day before Good Friday, and my dear wife
determined that she was out of cold medication.  Like a dutiful 
husband, I gathered the children and made my way to Wal-Mart to 
purchase more decongestant and throat lozenges.  The celebratory rye 
could wait for when I was alone with my wife.  Perhaps we could get a 
little kinky – it being a long weekend, maybe even leave the lights on. 
If she was feeling up to it, of course. 


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