I get erratic when I’m near the end of my novels. Maybe it’s a normal writerly thing to have happen—I’m not really sure. It astounds me every time that I don’t end up rocking around in a straight jacket, muttering about hummingbirds and shiny daisies. At the end of the day I’m so exhausted. When I’m driving to work, I imagine bedraggled men on the side of the road and wonder about the wilted bouquets that sometimes rest along the guardrail as though to mark the spot somebody died.
I analyze music, and only listen to things that make me think. I have vivid nightmares in which my agent calls to say “Good news, I’ve sold your manuscript for fifty-three cents!” and for some reason my friends and I celebrate this with mimosas at Outback (does outback have mimosas?)
Also, the sound of the vacuum becomes especially irritating. The cats paw at me for food. Stacks of books accumulate on the nightstand and tumble to the floor, get lost in piles of clothes that have needed to be sorted since sometime in 2008. Even during the inaugural address, I was thinking, “Should I incorporate this presidency into the plot? Is there room?” and then, “Would these girls I’m writing about even care about something for which they aren’t old enough to vote?”
And, above all else, I become a terrible, terrible receptionist. My boss is starting to wonder why it’s taken me over a week just to enter some statistics into an Excel document. Starry-eyed, I drive to and from the office while my gas tank pings The Song of the Empty Tank. And there’s a piece of paper, thrice folded, taped to my steering wheel covered in notes. I’ve almost gotten into a few fender benders. I look forward to dead-stopped traffic so I can flick on the overhead light and get some WORK done on the commute. I conjure up memories of how the subway feels, because that’s where my girls are at the moment.
It’s my favorite time about writing a manuscript: drawing to the conclusion, feeling the intensity of a world about to end. It could be today, or tomorrow, or any day this week and the next.
I think I would do it for fifty-three cents if I really had to
(If any publisher is reading, please ignore that last bit).