I fell asleep propped against the edge of the futon with my pen in my right hand and a stack of yellow post it notes in the other. The book I was researching pinched my shoulder and my left breast so when I woke up after who knows how long I was out – I had a small hickey, which is the most action I’ve gotten in months. I got up and continued working till around 2:30 before I just couldn’t keep my eyes open.
I feel like a hermit. The basement room I’m renting is dark and provides the kind of atmosphere that’s making me say things like, “Who needs food – that would require going two blocks in the sunlight. Sunlight will cause me to burst into a pile of ash – I’ll just drink more coffee and work.” Or “No one will care if I just sit here and write – there’s no one around to smell me if I don’t take a shower today.”
The worst is I feel so starved for human contact that when Talldarkhotguy gets off his shift and walks in at midnight I have to fight the urge to peek out my door like some maniacal dirty old lady and say in a crackly voice, “You want some candy little boy?”
I’ve become something out of a horror movie. Pale and horny with my hair askew, sitting at my computer like a moth mesmerized by a flame.
Writing non fiction is so different than fiction as the research must be so much tighter than I’m used to, and I don’t have the company of my fictional characters when I’m lonely. This phase is almost over. One week to go before deadline and tomorrow I start another slew of interviews that will pull me out of the cave for a few days.
But if you see a hunched girl with braces in an oversized brown sweater and slippers with embroidered cherries shuffling down the sidewalk in Seattle while mumbling about ghosts… don’t worry, I’ll be fine.
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