Muggy Again

A karaoke band sounds just awful, Bob. The bar across from the dive shop used to have karaoke on Wed. mornings for the shift workers; it was great to listen to and was especially fun to see the faces of our customers who weren't expecting to hear drunken karaoke at 10 AM. Fun times.

August 22--Write about an overheard remark--"Just say it. They'll believe it coming from you." A young man's voice, low and intense, slid under the hum and clatter of the Saturday afternoon in the cafe and bookstore teetering on the edge of the wrong side of town. Rebecca and Sam had been there since just after noon. Sam had browsed the shelves of used books, then settled down to read and drink endless mugs of coffee. Rebecca had spread her nearly totally rewritten manuscript out across the table determined to work through the last few comments from the freelance editor that weekend. The young man's words caught her ear and she immediately began imagining a scene with him at the center. He leans across the small round table, his intense blue eyes riveted to the soft brown eyes of the girl in the other chair. They're both barely past high school age and are dressed in clean but shabby clothes. The scene in Rebecca's head starts to take shape, acquire depth, so she reached into her bag and drew out a notebook. Sam saw her, his chin lifted, and he shook his head at her. "Uh, uh, uh," he said with a smile, "no more tangents until you're done, remember? You asked me to keep you on task." Lifting the notebook as if it were moving on its own, she said, "But I'll just make a quick note." "Oh, no you won't. You'll slide off the deep end and get lost." He gently pried the notebook out of her hand and placed it in his lap. "I love you. Now, rewrite." He eyes dipped back into his novel. She sighed, shrugged, and got back to work thinking, it probably wouldn't have gone anywhere anyway. But she did scribble the line in the margin of her manuscript.

I propose we ignore our slumps and start writing like we're inspired. Today I'm going to write out the story of the wedding, changing no names, and being just as smart-ass-y as I want to be. I can "fix" it later, but dammit, I am a writer and I'm going to write. BTW, be thinking of something you have that is ready to submit--no excuses accepted. We will be having a challenge in Sept. I'm relying on you, Bob & Jenny, to be like Sam (see above) for me and I'll do the same for you. I'm sick of us whining around and not doing writing. We make me tired. Since it seems no one's going to do it for us, we have to kick our own butts. I love you; shut up and write!
--Barbara