Confessions Of A Scribbler

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Mysteria

Member Laureate

since 2001-03-07

Posts 18328
British Columbia, Canada

0 posted 2002-10-15 02:21 PM

~* Confessions Of A Scribbler *~

1,291 Words

I hurried into the house as if I really possessed a guilty conscience.  I’ll admit that tonight I was much later than usual, but brother did they ever have a fantastic bargain at the corner book store, the one I pass very night after stepping of the bus from downtown Vancouver.

This book is called “How To Write The Great Centennial Novel”, and underneath in small letters “especially written to guarantee success to beginners.”  It seemed like I couldn’t do better than this even if I had of waited until my next pay cheque, Carol wouldn’t mind using margarine instead of the butter for the rest of the week, and what the heck my writing career was definitely worth the expense.  It was a bit of a sacrifice but Carol knew I preferred margarine myself even if there was butter around.

Of course, I understand quite a few of the techniques of writing, that is, of course when I don’t get my wires crossed.  In case this all sounds somewhat confusing, I should tell you that I am studying not merely one, but two courses on writing, and as each gives different instructions, I follow one method right through and try not to mix it with any of the directions emphasized in the second course, or at any rate I don’t mix them up too obviously, so I should come out alright in the long run.  All I have to do now is to get something finished off and actually on the path to a publisher, then the rest is bound to follow in due course, the success I mean.  It only remains for the publisher to recognize my unique approach to the various problems that spring forth through the written world, and recognize me as an extremely publishable writer.  After all, I have now almost finished these two courses.

“Hello, hon,” I said, as I sort of brushed past my wife with my face.  “What’s for dinner?”

“Mixed metaphors and synonyms,” she replied.

“Swell,” I agreed, and realized immediately that she must be kidding.

“John, do you even know what day it is?” she asked in a most serious tone of voice, not bothering to vouchsafe a reply to my gastronomical question.

“Tuesday, isn’t it?  Or maybe Wednesday,” I suggested, being careful to get them in their correct order.

“In the Fantastic Fable Writers Course I am taking, it is often pointed out that one must be chronologically perfect with regard to time elements.”

“Zat so,” she I muttered.  “Your dinner’s cold,” Carol said in tones little warmer than the fish and potatoes on my plate now set before me.

During the meal I tried to interest her in a most wonderful plot I had been thinking up for my book.
Firstly, there was this girl.  She is a lady wrestler really; and she finds out that her boyfriend, who is a psychiatric specialist or something along those lines, has selfishly jilted her.  He is a  Ben Casey of the brain, if you see what I mean.  Well, after my lady wrestler discovers that he really was only attracted by the big earnings she was swindling out of the public, she being one of his richest patients, well, it seemed he had only wanted the money so that he could make a big splash in impressing this lady with class, called Grace, his real true love, and so my lady wrestler feels she ought to quit the wrestling game and open a fancy tea room or salon or something, in order to take herself this rightful place in society, then … but Carol could not appreciate the tremendous clash of social forces evident in my work, and was just idly looking out at the scenery through our kitchen window.  She was also drumming her fingers on the windowsill, a very bad habit which she had latey and which penetrated like a sledgehammer to my brain.

I generally keep a foolscap pad of paper on the table between my plate and my glass in order not to miss any flash of inspirations that comes to my mind, and Carol is always saying, “Use your knife for goodness sake, and don’t stab those potatoes like that with your ballpoint pen!”

I’ve also a pet idea of my own, which is to sit on the piano stool while enjoying my meals, and have the computer at my back so that I can swing round real quickly when an idea hits me, though as yet I haven’t got around to actually working at my creative writing in that fashion because it would mean moving the table and I have to discuss this one with Carol.

By the time I had finished my dinner, not actually enjoying it at all tonight, I had half a page of priceless sayings and a nice sounding description, which I could use in my great forthcoming novel.  I had not noticed that Carol had completely cleaned off the table, as I was so engrossed in my latest idea.

Now, the “Colossal Compositors Course” always says, “Keep a note of anything that comes into your mind, it will come in very useful at sometime in the future.  I have found that this pad is far better than writing directly onto the tablecloth.  Once, a long time back, when I had that habit, Carol had started placing last week’s newspaper on the table instead of a cloth.  Now had it not been full of old news I might have put up with that, but after all a coming writer must keep up with current events.

Carol broke the silence, at least I didn’t’ notice that there was a silence until she even spoke in a rather loud voice.  “You promised that you would take me out tonight, have you forgotten?  Do you ever think of me anymore at all, or only your scribbling?”

“Well honey,” I ventured, “You wouldn’t want me to miss out on that terrific contest in Lush Literature Digest, and remember that there is $10,000 first prize, and I am on chapter four of a story sure to win that contest.”

I started to get up from the table, my head full of sonorous phrases and brilliant repartee, when I noticed a rather determined look in Carol’s eyes.  Suddenly she grabbed me by the arm all too forcibly.

“Look here, Mr. Hemingway, Mr. Leacock, or Mr. Wesker, either one of you take me out for an evening of fun, dance and late dinner, or you take that rake from the shed and get busy on raking the leaves in the back yard.  Out you go, or pretty soon we’ll have the neighbours calling the Director of Sanitation about getting that mess in our yard cleaned up.  Take your choice, my ambitious masterpiece wonder of all time.”

As the prospect of facing a yard full of garbage, dank leaves and what-nots, rather appalled my literary tendencies, I decided that perhaps it would be as well, or even much better in fact, to take Carol out somewhere.  I decided that perhaps a drive back over Lions Gate Bridge to one of those marvelous theatre production houses or one of the current films of the Film Festival would be okay.   After all, I could always take a pad of paper along, a smaller one of course, so that I could take some notes that may come in handy when I got busy portraying Vancouver society life in my soon to be released, “Great Centennial Novel”.

After all, the back yard could always wait until tomorrow and who knows what famous lines were out there to write down this evening, or what great writing book I would see for sale on Robson Street?