![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
The Honest Sales Clerks of Eden
Sep. 30th, 2006 08:14 amI thought of a title: The Rhythms of Eden. This will force me to plant some sappy dialogue around Chapter 6 – Doc waxing lyrical to protagonist Joe about the sounds and biological life cycles of the wondrous animals and plants all around them, yada, yada, yada, zzzzzzzzz and thunk.
But, you know, I'm a good writer. I can pull it off.
Plus in a novel that uses the historical Steinbeck as a character, you simply must reference "Eden" in the title. It's an absolute requirement.
Prime directive must be to create some kind of space for me to write. Everything, everyone must be subservient to that. Since I write best when I first wake up, it may mean waking myself up at some ungodly hour and pounding away till the household rises. Michael Gruber does 1500 words a day – eminently doable. On that kind of schedule, I could crank out a first draft in three months.
Photo is Mrs. Herbert Bland aka E. Nesbit, one of my patron saints, who more-or-less single-handedly invented the genre of magical adventures arising from everyday situations. She had many children and a feckless husband. She smoked like a fiend. She would have preferred to write Utopian Socialist tracts but instead was forced to crank out kid lit to support the domestic menagerie. The kid lit is brilliant – The Five Children and It, The Railway Children, The Phoenix and the Carpet, The Enchanted Castle and my very favorite of all (though structurally flawed) The Magic City. The Magic City is inextricably melded to Prokofiev's Fifth Symphony, which I listened to last night, thinking of my dead mother who also cadged the occasional smoke from the Devil…
Thinking of dead people just before sleep – not recommended.
I dreamed of E. I spent a day with her in the dream and then went to sleep (in the dream) and when I woke up – she had died. In real life, of course, E. is not a close friend of mine. Still I admire her and was very upset when I found out (in real life) she was ill. In the dream I was devastated by her death and wanted to call my daughter, "Elizabeth." In real life – thank God! – I have no daughter.
Strange.
In other news, a perky little gentleman came into the store yesterday and explained the mystery of the $9.99 price point.
"Oh, it has nothing to do with psychology at all, " he scoffed. "It goes back to the days of the first cash registers. See, the people who owned the stores were desperately afraid that their employees would steal from them, pocket the ten-dollar bill. But the cash registers were rigged so they would only open to give change if a sale was actually rung up. That forced the sales clerks to stay honest."
Huh.
But, you know, I'm a good writer. I can pull it off.
Plus in a novel that uses the historical Steinbeck as a character, you simply must reference "Eden" in the title. It's an absolute requirement.
Prime directive must be to create some kind of space for me to write. Everything, everyone must be subservient to that. Since I write best when I first wake up, it may mean waking myself up at some ungodly hour and pounding away till the household rises. Michael Gruber does 1500 words a day – eminently doable. On that kind of schedule, I could crank out a first draft in three months.
Photo is Mrs. Herbert Bland aka E. Nesbit, one of my patron saints, who more-or-less single-handedly invented the genre of magical adventures arising from everyday situations. She had many children and a feckless husband. She smoked like a fiend. She would have preferred to write Utopian Socialist tracts but instead was forced to crank out kid lit to support the domestic menagerie. The kid lit is brilliant – The Five Children and It, The Railway Children, The Phoenix and the Carpet, The Enchanted Castle and my very favorite of all (though structurally flawed) The Magic City. The Magic City is inextricably melded to Prokofiev's Fifth Symphony, which I listened to last night, thinking of my dead mother who also cadged the occasional smoke from the Devil…Thinking of dead people just before sleep – not recommended.
I dreamed of E. I spent a day with her in the dream and then went to sleep (in the dream) and when I woke up – she had died. In real life, of course, E. is not a close friend of mine. Still I admire her and was very upset when I found out (in real life) she was ill. In the dream I was devastated by her death and wanted to call my daughter, "Elizabeth." In real life – thank God! – I have no daughter.
Strange.
In other news, a perky little gentleman came into the store yesterday and explained the mystery of the $9.99 price point.
"Oh, it has nothing to do with psychology at all, " he scoffed. "It goes back to the days of the first cash registers. See, the people who owned the stores were desperately afraid that their employees would steal from them, pocket the ten-dollar bill. But the cash registers were rigged so they would only open to give change if a sale was actually rung up. That forced the sales clerks to stay honest."
Huh.
