Masturbation Hand

I basically picked this topic cos I'm a nosy bastard, and love finding out about other people's writing business. What pens they use, where they sit, how much time they spend writing a day or a week, whether or not they have set times or just go with the flow, etc etc. But unfortunately for me, I didn't properly think this through. Because although I now get to hear about all of you and the things you do, I realised something as I opened up this post thing in blogger:

My writing day in the life is rubbish. And you know - it's not even just rubbish. It's also weird. And yeah, I realise you probably all get that I'm a mad head, by now, but still. I'm sat here petrified, imagining all of your amazeballs days:

1. Get up to the sounds of birds singing. A little blue one alights on my shoulder!

2. Watch the sunrise while drinking something writerly and awesome, like coffee.

3. Adjourn to my office, where I work steadily on something equally writerly and awesome, like an Apple Mac. I also do things like look at the many important reference books that surround me, to ensure a clean and factual manuscript.

4. A serious author's lunch of tofu, balsamic vinegar and water cress.

5. Another five hours of diligent working, before retiring for the day at 5pm on the dot. More birds sit on my shoulders. I drink something else awesome, like Port. And then I have ahi tuna for tea.

God. God. My writing day is nothing like that. And yeah I know that everyone here probably doesn't have a day like that at all, but I bet you can't help the fear either. The fear that secretly, everyone else is out there being hip and cool and drinking ground beans from the slopes of Kilimanjaro or summat, and like, maybe they've got a writing beret, too.

Yeah, other people totally have writing berets. They sit in mahogny offices with Apple Macs wearing berets and drinking Mount Kilimanjaro while smoking cigarillos and typing 100 words a minute with all of their fingers.

Instead of just three of them, the way I do it.

Yeah, that's right. I only use three of my fingers when typing. And I don't even use both pointers, either! I use the middle finger on my right hand, and the pointer and middle finger on my left. And the right one I make into a kind of crab shape, the way I've seen girls in porn do when they're about to touch themselves - but I swear to God, I'm not about to touch myself.

Well, mostly I'm not about to touch myself. God, I bet the real writers out there never have a wank to the sight of Alex O'Loughlin's bulge in the middle of writing a scene about him doing stuff to someone.

But anyway, I'm off the point. Which is largely about me panicking, and then finally getting around to my actual writing schedule. And it goes something like this:

1. Start at some ridiculous time, like midnight. The birds aren't even awake to climb onto my shoulders.

2. Sit on my bed with my laptop on this board thingie, on my knees. The board thingie now has weird worn groove shapes all over it, from where I've bashed my laptop into it. Also there are crumbs and bits of old food in the little flap thingies that keep the laptop on. Oh, and my laptop no longer has a letter A stencil. Plus, the shape of my left hand is now permanently shined into the material of my laptop, even though it didn't seem to be made of a material that could take the print of someone's hand. Likely as not, I have melted my laptop with my acid hands.

3. Put a movie on. This movie will usually have someone in it who I'm basing my hero on. But I won't watch the movie - no no no. That would be crazy. No, it's far saner that I then put headphones in and listen to some shitty playlist I made that suits the story, while occasionally glancing at the hero's abs.

4. Type until I realise I haven't had a drink in five hours. Of anything. I'm not even cool enough for thirst quenching in general, never mind being cool enough for coffee. I also realise at about this point that I haven't wee-ed in about ten hours.

5. Have a really long wee, and make myself a glass of juice. It's not even Robinsons, either, so don't start thinking that gives me a cool out. It's ASDA's own brand summer fruits sugarless dilute juice, and it is quite possibly the least cool thing in all the world.

6. Watch an episode of something - Frasier, Simpsons, The Blue Planet - while maybe having something to eat, then type some more stuff. Maybe the same thing, maybe not. Maybe I'm tired now and want to fall asleep with the TV on and the laptop on the bed, then wake in the middle of the night to realise I've just killed Bertha.*

7. Go to bed around 9am, exhausted. But usually happy.

Which is the thing, really, isn't it? That even if you don't fit into all the cliches of what a writer should be, even if everyone else is out there, using all of their fingers...well. So what?

We're cool because we're doing it. That's all that matters. Right?



*Bertha is the name of my laptop. Please don't take away my writing beret.