The Book of Heroes
The muse struck her with alarming speed and she quickly put down the smoking bong, cut the t.v. and ran to the other room to start typing - it was finally there. Before she knew it her latest creation had a gender, a personality, and...
...nothing. The flash of inspiration slipped through her fingers yet again. This had happened every few nights for the past month, and she was no closer to finishing her senior thesis than three years ago when she decided to major in creative writing. She wondered if she had it in her - or perhaps being "the writer" amongst her friends was a false title that she had bestowed on herself for lack of a better. She was vaguely aware of hating math and science for being so exact, and hating psychology and sociology for being self-serving and utterly false despite great hopes of cracking the human psyche. She knew deep down that she wanted to believe in "the humanities" (as her course selection book called them) but somehow that desire was wanton, though she couldn't entirely explain why.
The past 4 and a half years of school had been marred by assorted boyfriends who had either been rude enough to show up, or selfish enough to never find her. Why couldn't the good ones find her? She was right here!
But that's not the point. The point is that after years of reading everything under the sun and re-creating her favorite daydreams on paper she had finally come to a cross-roads: her "grand masterpiece" that her adoring councelor had begged her to finish 8 months ago.
But the dying winter had brought joy, and parties, and no inspiration. Her graduation had been delayed but that was ok, because the little piece of paper and cliche gown were just a side-affect. A published novel? That, my dear reader, is the goal. Was the goal. Could still be the goal a year from now. Where was her character? Where was her 2nd act delima? Where was her resolution and consequent absolution from this writer's block?
She knew he was a he. He had to be a he, because years of writing about she's had gotten her nowhere aside from a strange self-loathing mysogony. Somehow she had mastered the art of the tragic short story that ends with the heroin being revealed as villain. She's were just not her forte, apparently.
But then, what does she know of men? They're never there until you want them to leave. And when they leave, they never put up a fight - they're never willing to change or adapt to a situation with potential, but instead run away at the slightest bump in the road. And when they don't, her only reaction is to turn the mole-hill into a mountain and force him to flee. "Men," she decided, "can't be my hero. Men are not heroes. And I'm still a coward."
As the acrylic unicorn flew across the room and shattered on the wall she realized something was terribly wrong, and it couldn't be fixed like a broken heart - a bowl of weed, a bottle of rum, and a one-night-stand wouldn't get this story written.
Where was her hero?
And with that question she sank deep into the keyboard and looked up a moment later at the title: The Book of Heroes.
She grabbed 100 blank pages, bound them together, printed the title page, and brought it to her councelor. With a grin and a sigh he told her he understood, but that she was a writing major, not an art major, and she would have to actually write something.
The following morning her room was empty, her car was gone, and nobody at the school heard from her again. There now hangs a blank diploma on the wall next to the covers of her first three books which sold a combined 17,230 copies. She's serving coffee anonymously in Indianapolis now to pay the bills, but 17,230 people have read her books, and that's worth far more than a diploma and desk-job any day of the week.
...nothing. The flash of inspiration slipped through her fingers yet again. This had happened every few nights for the past month, and she was no closer to finishing her senior thesis than three years ago when she decided to major in creative writing. She wondered if she had it in her - or perhaps being "the writer" amongst her friends was a false title that she had bestowed on herself for lack of a better. She was vaguely aware of hating math and science for being so exact, and hating psychology and sociology for being self-serving and utterly false despite great hopes of cracking the human psyche. She knew deep down that she wanted to believe in "the humanities" (as her course selection book called them) but somehow that desire was wanton, though she couldn't entirely explain why.
The past 4 and a half years of school had been marred by assorted boyfriends who had either been rude enough to show up, or selfish enough to never find her. Why couldn't the good ones find her? She was right here!
But that's not the point. The point is that after years of reading everything under the sun and re-creating her favorite daydreams on paper she had finally come to a cross-roads: her "grand masterpiece" that her adoring councelor had begged her to finish 8 months ago.
But the dying winter had brought joy, and parties, and no inspiration. Her graduation had been delayed but that was ok, because the little piece of paper and cliche gown were just a side-affect. A published novel? That, my dear reader, is the goal. Was the goal. Could still be the goal a year from now. Where was her character? Where was her 2nd act delima? Where was her resolution and consequent absolution from this writer's block?
She knew he was a he. He had to be a he, because years of writing about she's had gotten her nowhere aside from a strange self-loathing mysogony. Somehow she had mastered the art of the tragic short story that ends with the heroin being revealed as villain. She's were just not her forte, apparently.
But then, what does she know of men? They're never there until you want them to leave. And when they leave, they never put up a fight - they're never willing to change or adapt to a situation with potential, but instead run away at the slightest bump in the road. And when they don't, her only reaction is to turn the mole-hill into a mountain and force him to flee. "Men," she decided, "can't be my hero. Men are not heroes. And I'm still a coward."
As the acrylic unicorn flew across the room and shattered on the wall she realized something was terribly wrong, and it couldn't be fixed like a broken heart - a bowl of weed, a bottle of rum, and a one-night-stand wouldn't get this story written.
Where was her hero?
And with that question she sank deep into the keyboard and looked up a moment later at the title: The Book of Heroes.
She grabbed 100 blank pages, bound them together, printed the title page, and brought it to her councelor. With a grin and a sigh he told her he understood, but that she was a writing major, not an art major, and she would have to actually write something.
The following morning her room was empty, her car was gone, and nobody at the school heard from her again. There now hangs a blank diploma on the wall next to the covers of her first three books which sold a combined 17,230 copies. She's serving coffee anonymously in Indianapolis now to pay the bills, but 17,230 people have read her books, and that's worth far more than a diploma and desk-job any day of the week.