1300

I don't know what kind of freaking silly nonsense we've had on this blog lately. We need to get a better class of blogger in this place. Whew! Someone open a window in here. Smells like toe cheese and menthol cigarettes.

1300 words today. I am in the Desert on a Horse with No Name. I am wandering around out there like the Children of Israel. Chuck Heston! Patron saint of phlop writers everywhere! Save me. Lead me to the promised land. My plot is so far off the rails there's no way I can ever get back and yet I keep writing. Because they tell me to. Because they tell me drafts are messy.

When they say mess, do they mean casual disorder, untidy piles of paper? Or do they mean carnage, blood and entrails on the wall? Both are messes. Only the latter describes the disaster that is my novel.

Like John Henry the Steel Drivin' Man I keep pounding those stakes, one at a time. Gotta beat that motherfucking steam-powered machine. They goanna carry me away from this novel in a horse cart, my booted feet jangling over the back gate, my face stolen by the Grim Reaper and replaced with a gray rubber mask that will never smile again.

I wish I had one of those spring-loaded arms that were always available to the Three Stooges during their cream-pie fights. I would take it into the town square and fling pies into the faces of passersby.