Many a writer has fallen into the "if I only had more time" trap. It's interesting, because I'm about to face that. The darlings head off to school all day in 19 days and 2 hours and 9 minutes and 6 seconds and I will be left here, alone, with only my dog and Rise Against to keep me company.
The question is: will I write?
History has proven that I will. Given 5 or so hours per day to work on projects, I hopefully will be a better mommy and wife in my off-hours. I get a little, er, tetchy, if I don't get to write almost every day. And I've been here before. When I started painting in earnest (and for pay), I went part-time at my job and got very serious and dedicated to those three hours I had left over each day. I produced a lot of art.
However, it's going to take some discipline on my part. I've done very little this summer and I'm already finding my work ethic has declined. Fortunately, though, I don't have any creepezoids IMing me (long story), well, unless you count my husband.
I'm also losing interest (somewhat) in blogs. I've gotten pretty selective about where I spend my time online, so that's all good. And, I'm at the point where studying my industry is over--at least from a newbie's standpoint. Having mastered some of the mechanics of my craft, I'm able to focus on the deeper aspects of my art--two very different things. Ditto for the publishing industry--I'm at the point where I rarely learn anything in general terms--it's specific industry/market news I'm after. So, all in all, it's shaping up to be a great fall.
I'm currently plotting, as I said. It's slow-going, but I hopefully will get some work done this weekend while the husband is at the shoot. Today is taken up with lunch with family and tonight will be all writing for said shoot, so tomorrow I'll get back to it.
Now to shower. I've been on two runs and had sex at least once since my last bath. On that attractive note, I'll leave you with some pages from my latest short story which will be a sci-fi film. Not sure of a title yet, and sorry in advance for the formatting. I don't have time to fix it this morning.
Jack looked balefully back at his motorcycle and sighed. Knee-deep in forty-year-old trash and still no gearshift in sight. The beginning of the millennium had been the Era of Disposal, hadn’t it? Computers, cell phones, Starbucks cups...surely if someone had a broken motorcycle, they’d have just thrown it away and bought a new one.
His bike gleamed like a taunt in the setting sun--the only shiny thing Jack had owned since he’d cleaned his gun back when he thought a clean gun might matter to the war. It didn’t look like it was on its last leg, but if that gearshift broke off without a replacement, the bike was no more use to him than a thousand tab whore was to a openspace beggar.
He scowled and straightened his aching back. The scaffolding on the pollution-stained Flatirons had fallen into shadow, but he was close enough to the Boulder border to make out the fence and crossing guards. Boulder had only ever gone the minimum distance into openspace to deposit its trash, just barely past the old landfill in which he stood, and they didn’t even bother to dig a hole like they used to. Their trashpile made its own foothill by now, even with the reprocessing plant just to the south going full throttle 24/7. It racketed through what was a beautiful evening in southern Boulder county, and a typical, dusty evening for Jack in the openspace.
He bent back over and kicked at white-bagged mound. The plastic split and caught around the latch on his boot. He yanked his foot back, suddenly furious at the trash that spilled out.
Something metallic caught his eye--could it be a lever? He yanked it from the pile. It was a small silver box with a glass screen, and as he rubbed his thumb across the screen, it purred in his hand.
Jack dropped it. It fell onto a stack of yellowed envelopes and lay there.
It was an old cell phone; he knew that much. He’d seen them in past forays at the dump. Weak as it was, he had to stop the noise. Any sound would draw a sentry his way. Even openspace trash heap sentries had digitized eyes, pacekeepers, and enhanced voices.
He knelt and picked it up, turned it over in his hand. Plastic, he thought. I’ll be damned. He prodded the edge and it split open easily, revealing a glass screen and buttons—actual buttons. And because buttons want to be pushed, he pushed the green one, thinking “green means go.”
It trilled a short tune, something Jack recognized but couldn’t name. He pressed it against his chest to muffle the sound and he scanned his surroundings again. All silent trash and pink skies.
1 MISSED CALL, the screen told him. An envelope flashed at the top. One of the buttons had an envelope on it. Jack pushed it without hesitation.
After a short while, a tinny voice emitted from it. The speaker is weak, he thought. He lifted it to his ear. “--as soon as you get this, call me. They came by, asking about you. They didn’t do anything but they told me to tell you to call them right away. Look, I’m driving to...well, just call me, damn it.” The digit-voice cut off with a click.
“Press seven to delete the message,” the phone advised him.
How could such an archaic, plastic slip of a thing still work? He snapped it shut and looked at the girl again. “She’s probably dead,” Jack muttered to himself. “It’s a forty year old fluke and--”
The phone sang its song again.
Not knowing what else to do, Jack said, “Hello?”
Nothing. A picture shone on the tiny screen: an attractive blonde with digit-green eyes but lips only nature could make. It didn’t move, though, and it didn’t speak. He tapped at the screen. But then, what did he expect from a 40 year old phone? It rang again. He needed to stop that noise. In frustration, he split it open again, hunting for another button...
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