Human Speed Bumps (Brian Katcher)

When I learned that the June theme was 'human speed bumps', I was very excited. Then I realized it didn't mean what I'd originally thought. Pity.

Instead, we're talking about dealing with things can can interrupt the writing process: illness, family, job, prolonged incarceration, etc.

Now when most people imagine the life of an author, they picture a dingy office, cluttered with stacks of paper (much of it wadded up), empty whisky bottles, putrefying plates of half-finished egg salad sandwiches and coffee cups, all barely visible through the nicotine haze as the author bangs furiously on a typewriter, bleary eyed and stubble faced.

This, of course, is 100% correct. But this is not my entire life. Every few days my wife, decked out in her housecoat and curlers, will pound on my office door with her rolling pin and demand that I leave the house and earn an honest living. Tramping over the piles of rejection slips and cigar butts, I'll pull on my battered fedora and try to earn a few dollars working as a chimney sweep or bootblack.

While I inevitably blow my earnings at the local gambling hall or gin mill, this all goes to prove a point. Time not writing is time wasted. Do you think Hemingway spent his precious time at PTA meetings? Did Poe write stuff like that because he wasn't a raging alcoholic? You think Kafka had a fulfilling social life?

In conclusion, life is short. Very soon, you will die. And do you want to lay...lie...lay? there, probably on the very sheets you slept on last night and think 'If only I'd spent more time writing and less time thinking of others'? Hell no, you don't! Stop being so selfish! Why are you messing around on the internet? You've got stories to tell and a liver to destroy!