Thursday, January 17, 2008

Filling the empty hours

Okay, so I've established that I currently have the most boring temp job on the entire planet. People in third-world countries who work 16 hours a day painting the eyes on cheap plastic toy dinosaurs probably feel sorry for me (or they would until they realized that even though I'm completely broke, somehow I still found the money to buy pizza and a Coke tonight). I've spent every day this week updating invoices on a computer that I think must be running Windows 1923.

Last night I decided I would have to use my brain for something, and since the company I'm working for is content to pay me solely for my ability to manipulate a mouse made in the fourteenth century, I decided to spend the day working out short story plots. I have a lot of trouble coming up with satisfying conclusions to short stories. Why not use my mental down time to do something about that?

I spent the entire morning turning over ideas in my mind like jigsaw pieces, and fitting them together, and by lunchtime I had a complete story put together mentally. After choking down my peanut butter sandwich, I hunched over my laptop and wrote for the rest of the hour. So far the story is actually pretty good, and the best part is I know where it's going.

But...but, but, but I wasn't able to keep writing! I had to go back to updating invoices, when every fiber of my being, even the bits that usually just keep track of what I'm going to have for supper, wanted to keep working on my new story!

So I'm going to write all night, and hopefully get this story bashed out before I go to bed. Because tomorrow I'll have to start from scratch with a new story, because if I don't, my head will explode.

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