Word count: 3,184. Last sentence written: "That's why the titian-haired chit has so many friends." Offspring: asleep, thank the teething gods.
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Finally found that outline, now writing the story backwards, like a good mystery. Am also back to writing on a good ol'-fashioned laptop now that the milk train has stopped running. I don't think I could have continued writing this story on an iPhone anyway, because, as I said, I am writing the scenes in backward order and need to visually keep track of context. Funny how writing is linear, yet not linear, simultaneously.
That's as deep as I'm going to get. As I alluded to earlier, the offspring is teething again and it's been a rough week. I suppose it makes sense for teeth to appear slowly instead of all at once, so as to not be so taxing to a developing body--and a baby doesn't need its teeth to survive the first year--but still. They're already there, little buds beneath the gums that grew during gestation. Why can't they just pop out all at once? Humans really need more predators to encourage fast maturation. But I guess if we had more predators I would have had a full litter so that it wouldn't be so bad if I lost one. And I would be able to eat the ones that annoyed me.
As flippant as I get about the offspring, he really has enlarged my mind. They say if you want to be a writer, don't have kids--but I say do it. Do it! (Well, if you want to.) The insight is astounding. Mind-boggling. I understand so much more now about love and loss and fear that my imagination only scratched the surface of before. We were sleeping over at my parents' house and he had woken up crying in the wee hours in the morning. I put him in bed with me (he's ginormous now, no worry of SIDS) and watched him fall asleep as I sang "Yellow Submarine" and I realized this is the most important thing that I will ever do in my life. Not in a rabid-eyed slack-jawed being-a-mom-is-the-best-job-in-the-world kind of way, but in a perspective-changing kind of way. I mean, we as writers aspire to do good (I hope) and are gratified when we inspire and influence others, but when it comes to my child, I am mainlining influence. That kind of power and responsibility is heady.
It's still not the best job in the world, though, no matter what anyone says. Just a head's up.
And so writing and publishing a novel is no longer as important. But I'll still do it, damn it. I just have nothing to lose now. Writing something to be saleable? Pffffbt. Time to throw all caution to the wind.
