Get A Heavy Hammer
It is four o'clock in the afternoon, and the author sits before a laptop, coffee in hand, a sneaky drab of whiskey put into it for good measure. The day is bright and sunny, and the author toys with the idea of wandering outside, getting a good dose of vitamin D and perhaps a pint or two at her favourite watering hole–with laptop in tow, of course. The trouble is, certain… people… refuse to leave her alone, and their needy, grabby, whining is really getting on her last nerve. No matter how heavy the hammer she throws at them, they always come back, broken and bloodied and demanding she do something about something.
Whiners. The lot of them.
Take this one fellow wandering in now. He's got nothing to do with this particular article the author is trying to write, but he keeps peeking in at her from the periphery, anxious eyes watching every keystroke as she types.
"You have to finish my outline," he reminded her for the four thousandth time.
"Not now, I have an article to write."
"But you left me battered and bruised and half dead, and there's a whole flashback scene you have to get to. I really need you right now."
"I told you. I'll get to you when this is done."
"You said that before. Then you went and worked on a short story. You don't care about me anymore. You don't love me."
"Of course I do. I hit you with a hammer, didn't I? Now get out of my office space and get back in that file until I'm ready for you."
He reluctantly did as he was told, but not without muttering a few choice words about how cruel and unreasonable she was being. Really, she was going to have to up his masculinity the next time she went over his outline and definitely before he fleshed out a few scenes. There was no way she was going to put up with a wimpy hero. Miserable and conflicted, yes, but never, ever a wimp!
Which brought her to her next problem. She sighed and hit the buzzer on her desk. "Outstanding Neglected Novel, can you come in here for a moment, please?"
There was some shy shuffling at her office door, and it opened with a tiny creak. Her Neglected Novel slid in and tiptoed across the carpet, to sit in the leather chair across from her creator. "Yes? Have you decided to finish me?"
"No," the author said.
Neglected Novel was stricken. "But…You worked on me for *hours*! For *weeks*! You were so proud of the words that were put together, we were really going places, things were happening!"
"No." The author was firm, unbending. "You were meandering all over the place, and your characters were bland. I've tried every possible way to fix it, but there comes a time when you have to admit there's no hope. The basis of your existence just isn't working. The conflict was incomprehensible, and frankly, you were more than a little boring. There is no hope for a novel that is boring. Controversial, ugly, maddening, yes, these are things that can redeem even the worst writing. But to be boring is worse than a death knell. It's like you shouldn't have been born and yet here you are."
"You can spice things up," Neglected Novel insisted. "I can become an experimental piece. A surreal exploration of the human condition."
The author yawned. "I'm slipping into a coma just talking to you. Maybe I can use some of the research in my other project, but right now, I'm afraid your services are no longer required." She pressed a red button marked 'delete' on her desk and Neglected Novel dissipated into a pile of crumpled papers at the base of her desk. She continued to type at her laptop, heedless of the quiet clean up job of her Editor, who muttered a few curses under her breath over the mess being made.
The door to her office slammed open, and yet another fellow stormed in, his face clammy with sweaty exertion.
"I demand a sex scene!" he shouted.
The author paused, her fingers hovering above the keys of her laptop. "I beg your pardon?"
"You heard me." He was breathless as he pulled up a chair. "I want a filthy, dirty sex scene. One that lasts four chapters."
"That is not going to happen. You're getting a fade to black, then do whatever you want, I don't care."
"But…"
"Protracted sex scenes are tricky to write, and when they aren't part of an erotic novel, they get boring. In a novel where sex isn't the plot or the focus, it gets weirdly clinical and icky. Just take a cue from the Bad Sex In Fiction Award and tell me I'm wrong. Last I looked, you were in a horror novel with a zombie focus, not 'In The Cut', so if you do manage to get a sex scene, it will be one paragraph of oblique feeling at best."
"Make it two and I'll be happy."
"I'm not here to make you happy." She picked up her hammer and swung a warning at him. She hit him on the side of the head and he collapsed onto the carpet, moaning in pain. "Miserable characters are conflicted characters and they drive the plot forward." She gave him a fierce kick in the stomach. "Now leave me be and let me finish this article!"
The afternoon waned on, the beautiful outdoors a passing memory as day slipped into evening. The author sighed and got herself yet another cup of coffee, which gave her a jittery, uneasy mood that rode on the wave of caffeine. She had the strangest, insufferable sensation of someone reading over her shoulder, an unpleasant feeling that refused to abate. She shook the invisible reader off, and it slid down her arm, across her keyboard and finally to the chair in front of her desk. Her nemesis sat prim and proper in front of her, a sickeningly sweet, pride-filled smile beaming at her.
"The last person I need to see right now is you," the author said.
"Everyone knows that all stories and characters are just extensions of their original author" She giggled and coyly bit her bottom lip. "It's all about me."
"Hardly. Great characters are made out of anxiety, misery and torment, and none of those things are part of my own experience. I live a pretty dull, and happy, life. My opinions on the great, untapped sustainable resource of penguin droppings should have no bearing on my character's personalities, and there is no need to make them soapbox it. It is vital that I get out of the way of the characters' development and allow them to breathe on their own."
The author opened her desk drawer, beginning a frantic search through piles of papers, sticky notes, research links, spent coffee grounds and USB sticks. It had to be here somewhere.
"Looking for this?"
Her nemesis, also known as Herself, held a shining silver gun in her hand. Herself laughed at the folly of it, for it was impossible to completely eradicate the creator from the process. Killing the author. How absurd.
"You don't have bullets," the author said, halting Herself's fit of giggling. The author smiled, and this time Herself looked worried, her hands clutching the padded armrests of her leather chair.
"I may not have a loaded gun," the author said, gravely serious, her weapon of choice weighed affectionately in her hand. "But I can always get a heavy hammer…."
