You know that moment when…
That moment when you just want to hit something. This moment comes a lot for me. Some of the time it just comes out of no-where, hits me like a brick and looks for any and all reasons to get throughly pissed and aggressive. Some asshole cut in front of me and thirty odd people behind me at the Co-misery (that is a military version of a grocery store, for you civilians) and the asshole in question isn’t wearing a uniform? Well, most days I will politely point out that 1) he is indeed an asshole and 2) direct him to the back of the line of people. We all are in a hurry to get away from the screaming, shopping cart wielding children. That is no excuse. If his wife is in the hospital deathly ill, that is an excuse, but, then, why isn’t he at the hospital with her? Point proven; he REALLY IS an asshole. Still, I am nominally polite. At least I didn’t hit the guy with that jar of spaghetti. Other times, the rare occasions, I will actually contemplate murder by banana.
There are also the times when I am on the road – here in England that can mean anything from a major motorway to a goat path – and someone cuts me off. Or tailgaits me. Or cannot, for the life of them, figure out how to work a round about. A whole lot of the time, I am not a raging bitch. I will just grab my cigarettes, which I have still not managed to quit, and light one up. It doesn’t make anything better, but it gives me something to do with my hands that does not include rude hand gestures. Other times, I want nothing more than to drive them off the nearest goat path and stab them… repeatedly.
The most usual occurences, however, are not the difficult to figure out. Let me give you an example. This morning, while staring at my unusually full bulletin board, which is supposed to keep me focused on the book I am writing, I realized that I hate this story, my characters, and possibly daisies. Not sure where the daisies came from, but it was clear to me at that moment that all I wanted to do was rip down every index card, pull the board off the wall, possibly eat the evidence that I am an epic failure, then go outside and stomp on every daisy I could find. Hard. This happens about twice a week, maybe more if I’m having a hedgehog moment. My point is, if it makes me this crazy, why do I continue on? I think it is because the level of crazy I have now is nothing compared to the level I would have if I quit.
Finally, I have some advice for new writers. If you are in it for the money and think it looks like a great way to sit on your ass doing nothing for the rest of your life, get out now. Run away. Go be a game tester or one of those guys that sit in a toll booth all day long. It may still be work, but you can sit while you are doing it. For those of you who write because you hear voices or because you find yourself lost and confused when you don’t, just keep at it. You may never get published – if you are like me, you may swallow your plot points before you have the chance to finish – but you will be some level of kinda-sorta sane while you are trying. And go buy a new bulletin board if you happen to eat your current one.
