Yo, not everything you write will be a straight banger. This month’s title was a line I nearly wrote down. Instead I wrote “Tension hung in the air like mist on the pond, curling into my lungs.” Normal cheese does not hang in the air, and it’s weird to think about it just floating there like “Hi, I’m symbolic of tension! Nice to meet you!” I do not advise eating the floating tension cheese. I would eat anything for love, but I won’t eat that.
There was another one of mine, that I did write down: “The people were like turtles.” I used to drink quite a bit, and I’d wake up with my face glued to freshly written pages, more often than I’d wake up with a real hangover. So I’m blaming addiction on that lil’ gold nugget. It took me forever to puzzle out what I meant. (Me, being Sober Helen. I’m mostly Sober Helen now, but not Cold Turkey Sober Helen.) Anyway, it finally came to me in this super annoying, yet funny viral video that was popular years ago. It was a hamster doing an impression of a turtle in his little hamster house. “They poke their heads out, then they put them back in… Then they poke their heads out, and they put them back in…” I did that in a boyfriend’s car until he broke up with me once. It took several hours. George, if you’re reading this, leave your wife for me. What we could’ve been was as beautiful as a red slider’s belly!
Actually, while we’re on the subject, I once got ghosted because I ate a fake mustache in a snapchat video. We only went on one date, so it wasn’t a huge loss.
Anyway, what I’m trying to tell you is that sometimes you will write straight bangers and accumulate a small, but loyal fan base, that stays with you through several dry years, when you can’t find a publishing house you want to work with, and sometimes you will write so crappily it will scare off potential lovers. Sometimes you will write massive run-on sentences. Write anyway. You can always edit later. You cannot edit a blank page. Floating blocks of cheese do not exist, but you can make them cannon in your books if you’re bold enough, and if it’s done right. You cannot tell a story about a floating block of tense cheese, if you never start to write about a floating block of tense cheese. Embrace the cheese.
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Helen M. Pugsley 