I meant to blog sooner, but shortly after I created this page I came down with an accute case of uninteresting with symptomatic boredom, an illness I normally only recognize in certain members of my extended family. Troubling, indeed. I can’t promise I’m more interesting today; in fact, I’m pretty sure I couldn’t hit Interesting without the help of 10 professional con artists and a troop of circus freaks, but I’ll do my best.

I’m back on my special “Writer, Thin-ify Thyself!” diet (she lied, quietly munching on a pecan tart)  and being very healthy, what with all the yoga and daily jogs on the treadmill (lies, all lies) and drinking decaf green tea (blerg! I mean, yum!). Also: I’m working super-hard on the novel rewrites (read: playing pointless games on Facebook while eating the aforementioned tarts, which aren’t even pecan but caramel butter tarts–see? I lie about everything! Maybe I’m not even eating tarts.  You’ll never know for sure.)

For those who don’t know me, I’m currently working on brushing-up my first completed book –a horror novel chock full of monstery goodness of a non-cereal and non-“prom date” sort– in preparation for that bloodcurdling next step: finding an agent or a publisher, whichever I’m lucky enough to procure first. I hope the world of publication isn’t scarier than the novel. I’m reasonably sure there will be fewer ghouls; it’s the only thing that helps me sleep at night.

(My first offer from an agent came from this guy.  I’m not saying it’s a trick for sure, but somethin’ smells “off” ….)

Early this morning, sitting in my car in front of a bookstore at 4 am, I wrote longhand on that flat stuff with one of those lead sticks, like a friggin’ caveman. I was checking to see if I still could work my fingers in a non-tapping motion. My hand couldn’t keep up with my brain, and I ended up with smudgy eraser marks and lots of holes in the page where I had a temper tantrum and stabbed the legal pad 100 times (is murdering a legal pad ironic?) snarling: “kaamea ilma! kaamea ilma!”, which is actually Finnish for “what awful weather” and has nothing at all to do with writing, or words, or my stupid slow appendages, but it must have sounded pretty badass at the time: the people in the other cars appeared genuinely worried.

The battle between myself and the ghost of Hemingway continues. Not yet to be bored to tears with my stubborn refusal to admit coincidences? Let me catch you up: it all began last November, when I toured his home in Key West. I was thinking inappropriate thoughts about Papa Hemingway’s drinking and his suicide (mostly, that I could understand both, but couldn’t understand why the tour guide neglected to mention either), when I thought to whisper these thoughts to my husband. A coconut whipped past my head from above, cracked into the cement between us with an ungodly noise, startling the tour group into girlish eeeeps; I’m pretty sure the tour guide nearly shat himself. After a moment of stunned silence, I whispered “Sorry, Papa”. But then, I did mention I’m a liar, right?

So this November, my husband and I went to Cuba. One night after too much sun and seafood I had the audacity to suggest we “seek out Hemingway’s Cuban getaway”, because I was under the impression he had one. Once again, I got the coconut-shied-at-skull treatment, this time not two feet from our room’s front door and barely an inch from my noggin. This has taught me two things: 1) I should never mention the name Hemingway aloud, especially in the vicinity of palm trees, and 2) Papa’s afterlife-aim sucks. My ghost would have totally smoked Hemingway’s big head, just sayin’.

Then, this morning, during my pre-work writing session in the cramped front seat of my Toyota Tercel, a thought popped into my head: “I bet Hemingway had no problem writing longhand on paper, which he may have done, not like you’d know, as you’re an uneducated dolt. Also: you completely suck, AJ. You really and truly do.” Now, obviously these thoughts were placed in my head by Papa’s ghost; I might not be a huge fan of myself, but I know I don’t completely suck.

I only mostly suck, with days of psuedo-cleverness punctuated by weeks of semi-coherent nonsense. For instance, I spent a large portion of the last hour debating which cheese would be best if one were going to use dairy products to build the Eiffel Tower. (I chose Beaufort, obviously. It’s the only correct answer.) Some people would think this a grand waste of time, but you never know when you’re going to need information like this. It could inspire a whole new chapter in the novel, although I don’t see how, and if it does, my Beta Reader in Chief is likely to scowl and kick me in the box. A patient wordsmith, she is not. Some completely unrelated advice? … don’t try on your husband’s groin-protective cup thingy if he’s at all likely to walk in on you in the bedroom, to see you standing there with it dangling below your crotch. It’s damn near impossible to explain.

Getting back to Hemingway, I suppose I sort of envy him. Not because he’s dead, but because I think I’d like to drink after my writing sessions. Heavily. If I were single, I might. If I were irresponsible, I would. Because without some chemical assistance, trying to keep my brain focused on one track while it’s skittering off in 8 directions is causing a)self-flaggelation of the non-sexual sort, b)a pile-up of scraps, of jotted notes for “later”, whenever that might come, c) a back-up of unfinished projects, including house renos, learning Finnish, trying to cook, mysteries, fantasies, housework, talking to living human beings, research, etc etc. It’s enough to make a girl drive a nail in her brain just to keep it still for a second. And it’s not the caffeine’s fault (she lied smoothly, tucking 3 Tim Hortons XLRG cups behind her monitor, on the off-chance you people can see it somehow) .

All in all, my life isn’t quite what I think it should be right now. I could write the perfect AJ, and you’d never know the difference, would you? I’d plop in that perfect version of me to prance around in a stress-free environment, where words flow smoothly whether by keyboard or pencil, where novel rewrites get done on time, and the house is clean and the dog hardly ever barks at wind and leaves and every creak the old house makes, and my hair isn’t going grey above disturbing new forehead wrinkles, and my ass is suddenly, magically, 2 sizes smaller. She, Perfect Version, has discipline and energy for yoga, walks–nay, runs–5 miles a day on the treadmill, uphill there and back, and knows how to cook like a genius. She speaks fluent English, French and Finnish, and knows how to serve this Harvey’s Bristol Cream she bought on a whim at the Duty Free at the Peace Bridge.

She certainly isn’t sitting on her big ass swilling cold, heavily-sugared tea, clumsily trying to repeat: “seuraavissa liikennevaloissa” to a language CD but failing at rolling her “r”s in the middle of words, and fantasizing about that last caramel butter tart while trying to find her roll of cinnamon Certs under a shoulder-high mound of random scribbled notes from a disorganized mind. That’s for damn sure.