Almost Done

Year Six - Week 27 - December 1, 2003


The novel is almost done!

I overloaded on turkey again, which wasn't surprising for those that know me, but this Thanksgiving was exceptional because I had a different event to attend each day of this long weekend.

I'm grateful for the friendship and had a lot of fun, but the writer inside of me was growing impatient, and at times it got down-right ornery. "What about me?" he hollered when I stumbled home after midnight on Sunday. "You've stuffed your face for four days and I'm starving. I can't survive unless you write. Four fucking days. Can you go four days without eating? Breathing? Try a few hours and see how long you last. I need you to get back to the writing -- NOW."

I did feel guilty and there were times when I considered ducking out early, or making an excuse to bail out altogether, but I'm glad I didn't.

My writer doesn't understand that without real human interaction there is nothing to write about. Yes, you can read the paper or watch TV for ideas, but there's no substitute for immersing yourself in all that life has to offer. You have to feel it, taste it, smell it,touch it,see it. You've got to get your hands dirty, in fact, sometimes you've got to roll around in the muck to understand the world and that's got to be a good thing for my writer. But more important, it is essential for my soul.

I can't live from the third person point of view even if my writer prefers staying on the sidelines as the observer. I've told him, "Life is meant to be lived in the first person." He knows this, but he's selfish and insufferable.

Okay, so I ignored my writer over the four-day holiday, but it's not like I totally forgot him. I was collecting scraps for him, and each night before I went to bed, I scraped from my pockets crumbled pieces of paper with ideas scribbled on them. One was on a gravy-stained napkin, another was written across the margins of "The New York Times." So it wasn't like my writer starved this holiday. He got new ideas for characters, plot, and setting. And this week there will be plenty of time to mess around with them to see if anything develops.

And so as the haze from that last glass of Zinfandel clears from head, my writer breathes more easily. He's got renewed energy and fresh experience to draw upon, and ample time to work through an infinite amount of possibility.