Tom: "You're not doing anything with your life."
Me: "I'm recovering."
Tom: "From what?"
Me: "From the 1990's."
Tom: "Are you following a plan?"
Me: I'm sort of in limbo, I guess."
Tom: "Well, you should write. I'm telling you, you have the experience to draw from. You have the talent. You just need to put it into practice."
Me: "But it's painful."
Tom: "Then take a step back. Remember it doesn't have to be biographical every time."
Me: "I don't think I have the imagination for non-fiction. Maybe I am more of a reporter than a poet."
Tom: "Many writers have developed a rhythm and sequence by transcribing their favorite authors."
Me: "Huh?"
Tom: "Copying down, word-for-word, another authors entire story."
Me: "Oh God, that sounds awful."
Tom: "It's like study."
Me: "I know what you mean but that just sounds so damn tedious & boring. I get bored easily. Well, no I don't. I think I'm just lazy."
Tom: "Well, there you go - the first step toward recovery is admitting you have a problem!"
Me: Oh, haw haw."
Tom: "Just try it, seriously. Just sit down every day and write for a couple of hours. In five years you will be a genius writer. In ten you'll be publishing a novel."
Me: "Ten years? Christ, I hope I don't live that long. Can you imagine how crusty I'll be? Some lonely old spinster, guzzling down wine-in-a -box, working on her "novel" while ten raggedy cats mew in the background. Will I get to shake my wrinkled fist at the noisy neighborhood kids, too? Then I can wait for them to T.P. my house on Halloween & glare at them when I hear them call me a "Witch" behind my back in the grocery store."
Tom: "See? You should write down that kind of stuff!"
Me: "Hmmm..."
