World Building Falls by the Wayside
Three-year-old and wife's work conspire to destroy planet before it's even built!
Sadly, the world and all its people, plants, and animals will have to wait for their global conflict until there's at least a globe planned out.
The trials and tribulations of writing while keeping house.
Now, we know that all boys dream of growing up to be supported by their wives while they wile away their time, plinking at keyboards, jostling joysticks (oh, MAN, dating myself and also unabashedly alluding to what men do in their free-time!), and creating culinary masterpieces for the family dinner hour.
But boys, being the old fashioned house husband isn't all it's cracked-up to be.
I've got a loose schedule worked out, around my wife's work schedule. As it is, it's not at all my ideal schedule.
Ideally, I'd wake up around 10 or 11 AM, drink a pot of coffee, and write until the afternoon. Then I'd go outside and make the yard pretty, take photos of spiders, build a wall or the raised garden that I need to build, mess with the composting, chat with neighbors, and go on some walks. Then I'd come back in, play with the kids, and eat something that tastes great and feels good that I don't have to prepare. Then I'd watch some recorded BSG or Lost or something, and go back to writing. Someone would bring me chocolate and coffee. (Okay, if we're talking ideals here, my wife would bring me coffee and she would be wearing short-shorts.) I'd write until the kids' bedtime, give 'em hugs and such, eat some chocolate, and have crazy sex with my wife. Then I'd go back to writing. I'd write until 2 or 3 AM, and go to sleep dreaming about my fictional worlds. The next day I'd wake up and do it all again. Not every day would be like that, of course, there would be days to go to the mountains or the beach, days to sit on the porch and drink wine, and days where the kids and I spent the whole day covered in paint in our giant art studio that's never used for storage, and days when I had to get up early to be on Good Morning America, or have to catch a chartered jet to someplace like St. Lucia. Ah, hell, it's ideal day, right? We freakin' live in St. Lucia. Or teleporters have been invented, and I can just go wherever I want when I feel like it. Mostly, I would write. Or world-build.
I would not get up at 7 AM to get the oldest ready for school. I especially would not answer the phone that early and then wake my wife so her boss can tell her that she has to come in three hours early that day. Because that ruins everything. That's three hours of politics, or weather patterns, or naming that thing in the solar system that's just like the Kuiper Belt, but isn't the Kuiper Belt because it's twenty thousand years from now, and millions upon millions of miles away.
Alas, this is all material for the world I wish to build, and therefore, I am apparently building it, though it seems that I'm actually helping the three-year-old build rattles, hammers, and space ships out of blocks and yelling at him to stop running down the hall and stay away from the stairs, while listening the the Backyardigans sing songs about the Lady in Pink and complaining about it all to the world (the one that exists outside my mind).
So now you know.
Boys, take shop class, be woodworkers, mechanics, salesmen, and bankers!
(not really. this isn't so bad.)
Three-year-old and wife's work conspire to destroy planet before it's even built!
Sadly, the world and all its people, plants, and animals will have to wait for their global conflict until there's at least a globe planned out.
The trials and tribulations of writing while keeping house.
Now, we know that all boys dream of growing up to be supported by their wives while they wile away their time, plinking at keyboards, jostling joysticks (oh, MAN, dating myself and also unabashedly alluding to what men do in their free-time!), and creating culinary masterpieces for the family dinner hour.
But boys, being the old fashioned house husband isn't all it's cracked-up to be.
I've got a loose schedule worked out, around my wife's work schedule. As it is, it's not at all my ideal schedule.
Ideally, I'd wake up around 10 or 11 AM, drink a pot of coffee, and write until the afternoon. Then I'd go outside and make the yard pretty, take photos of spiders, build a wall or the raised garden that I need to build, mess with the composting, chat with neighbors, and go on some walks. Then I'd come back in, play with the kids, and eat something that tastes great and feels good that I don't have to prepare. Then I'd watch some recorded BSG or Lost or something, and go back to writing. Someone would bring me chocolate and coffee. (Okay, if we're talking ideals here, my wife would bring me coffee and she would be wearing short-shorts.) I'd write until the kids' bedtime, give 'em hugs and such, eat some chocolate, and have crazy sex with my wife. Then I'd go back to writing. I'd write until 2 or 3 AM, and go to sleep dreaming about my fictional worlds. The next day I'd wake up and do it all again. Not every day would be like that, of course, there would be days to go to the mountains or the beach, days to sit on the porch and drink wine, and days where the kids and I spent the whole day covered in paint in our giant art studio that's never used for storage, and days when I had to get up early to be on Good Morning America, or have to catch a chartered jet to someplace like St. Lucia. Ah, hell, it's ideal day, right? We freakin' live in St. Lucia. Or teleporters have been invented, and I can just go wherever I want when I feel like it. Mostly, I would write. Or world-build.
I would not get up at 7 AM to get the oldest ready for school. I especially would not answer the phone that early and then wake my wife so her boss can tell her that she has to come in three hours early that day. Because that ruins everything. That's three hours of politics, or weather patterns, or naming that thing in the solar system that's just like the Kuiper Belt, but isn't the Kuiper Belt because it's twenty thousand years from now, and millions upon millions of miles away.
Alas, this is all material for the world I wish to build, and therefore, I am apparently building it, though it seems that I'm actually helping the three-year-old build rattles, hammers, and space ships out of blocks and yelling at him to stop running down the hall and stay away from the stairs, while listening the the Backyardigans sing songs about the Lady in Pink and complaining about it all to the world (the one that exists outside my mind).
So now you know.
Boys, take shop class, be woodworkers, mechanics, salesmen, and bankers!
(not really. this isn't so bad.)
posted by Kevin Shamel at 8:53 AM
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