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Chapter One

1Roger asked for a peppermint tea and a stroop wafel. He got it. He took the paper cup
with the tea in it and went to the coffee station outside of the Starbucks place. There was no
seating inside the coffee place, you just ordered and picked up. Sometimes the line would spill
over into the corridor. He took the teabag out so that the tea would not become too strong. The
place had two mint flavors, one was more citrusy. Citrus Mint. One of the two flavors had
caffeine, one was caffeine free.
He sat down on the high chair that was facing the window. The high chair in the corridor
of the community college. There was always a lot of foot traffic. People going to the library and
coming from the library. Well, sometimes in between classes, it was pretty quiet. He put the
waffle on top of the paper cup, so that the gooey stuff within the waffle sides would melt.
Apparently that is the way they do it in Holland. He just came from Amsterdam, he was at YVR
in the morning, took the Canada Line to downtown, then the bus, he went to his walk-up in Kits,
took a shower and then came here to the college. He has to be in class at ten thirty. It is strange to
be jet lagged in American Lit class. His essay is due today, a short and not very good treatise
about the city in the book that was part of the required reading. He might get a C+, hardly
anything better. Not that the writing is not good, but his statements are not strong enough. His
main premise was that the locale is not important for the story but he is unsure if that will fly
with his prof. Roger did not really make a good case for his idea, he just states his opinion. This
is a universal story; it can happen anywhere. Too thin an argument. And the prof is good at
pointing out narrative holes. Disconnects in reasoning. He is way too scientific for a humanities

course. The course is harder than a math course. Nothing goes by the teacher. It is a literature
course after all, so everything should go. Unluckily, nothing goes.
He looks out at the big heap in front of the window. There are some flyers, some spring
wild floras, a bush in front of the big heap. Roger is not quite sure what the heap is, some sand,
building material with a tarp on it. He can see the new library or whatever that building is, the
construction, the construction workers. He is jetlagged, that he can feel in every part of his body,
in every bone. Well, bones do not really feel stuff or maybe they do. He is too young for arthritis
maybe. He is twenty-three. His dad wanted him to be a physician like himself, like his father
before him. The family business. He wants to be a writer, that seems more fun than cutting into
peoples flesh. Saving lives is too trying, too bloody. Writing is very competitive though. At this
point he is nothing but a glorified waiter. He works for this young upstart that flies to Amsterdam
and then back to Vancouver. A KLM-wannabe. One that might go under like so many budding
airlines. Like the one with the green logo. Well, he likes it, the money is good, and he sees both
Amsterdam and Vancouver. Over there he has to be careful when crossing the street, it is
Amsterdam after all, the bikes rule the street, they might as well run you over. And Vancouver.
Well, it is different from Montreal, from Westmount.
His father went actually into psychiatry, not into pediatrics, like his granddad. But still
medicine, the family biz. Writing, that is a toughie. How do you construct people out of thin air?
Believable people. Publishing is competitive. Who will take him on, who will miss her stop on
the way to midtown. All the lit agents live in New York, and they always want you to write
something that makes them miss their subway stop. Ah, he is not that kind of writer. He does not
write about bloody stuff, actually all his writing is way too tame. No action. He likes to write

about the everyday, you cannot make a movie out of that. No potential movie rights. Time to go
to class.
2.
Dania is happy. Better to live in Brooklyn than in Milwaukee. The dream of an emptynester, the life in the city. Trade your SUV for, well, the use of citybike. Or just go everywhere
by foot. You do not need a car in this city, it is a city for walkers. The burbs are still in place; her
house is still in its place. The semi-hoarderdom that was going on there in her old digs. The
office she works in is near Chelsea, actually just opposite of Eataly. Where Fifth Avenue meets
23rd, her boss is laid-back, he does not have hair. He is younger than her. She is one of three
interns, they are much younger than her. One is very aggressive; he is a student at Columbia. In
his twenties, in his early twenties. Not aggressive in a physical way, nope, aggressive in a
professional way. He is an aspiring writer. One of his short stories is published already. He
managed to up his LinkedIn account from 82 to 500+ connections in two days. He just contacted
everybody who wrote a query to the agency. And everybody, he ever met in Pittsburgh. He was
from Pittsburgh or maybe Detroit.
Dania usually gets out at Bedford Station to have a waffle at that Swedish bakery. And
when the day is over she gets out at First Street to go to the pizzeria that has clam pizza. She
pays more for the subway. She should figure out how to get a monthly pass instead of getting out
of the L-train, wherever she pleases, in order to get to her favorite digs. She is a kind of reluctant
New Yorker, more a disabled New Yorker. Maybe all New Yorkers are like that, they function
very efficiently in some parts of their lives and very inefficiently in other parts of their lives.
What do you expect from a place where everybody lives in an overpriced closet space? This is a
city where you have it made if you own your own washer and dryer. Apparently Dania has not
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arrived yet, she always uses the laundromat on Eighth. She used to live in Chelsea, on 20th, so
basically she sees that place still as the center of her NYC universe, everything is kind of
measured in how near or how far it is from Ziggys apartment. That was the place she sublet back
in 2008.
Dania loves everything New York. She feels at home here. Seems, a lot of people feel at
home here. Eight million. There is something about New York that makes you feel at home the
minute you step off the boat. Everyone here is a fob. You are either a fob or a boring New
Yorker. That is how the born and bred refer to themselves. Apparently everybody is kind of
ashamed of that New Yorker cartoon that portrays the quintessential New Yorker as oblivious to
the rest of the world. Dania ponders, maybe she should write a book. Or a blog. Tourist in my
own city. Technically she is not from here but then, who is? Everybody is a fob. Once you pick
up a Lonely Planet you can figure out this city. Once you had a tv. The odd couple is her favorite
NYC movie.
Dania plucks herself in front of Macys. The weather is nice; Herald Square is beaming.
She has a hot dog. So very New Yorkish. Though real New Yorkers might shop at Dean &
Deluca. Which is out of her league. The gourmet route is more what she did back in Milwaukee.
The suburban housewife route. That went well with her silverpolishingish lifestyle.
3.
Nick is a successful writer. Many of his books have been made into movies. Fame is
difficult for Nick. Success makes for paparazzi. He moved to Zurich, to the outskirts of it.
Kuessnacht. He can walk by the Limmatquai without being recognized. He always watches over
his shoulder. He loves New York. But he now has to live in this exile. There are things worse

than being exiled to Zurich. If he was a successful plumber his life would have been easier.
Writing is such a weird profession. And a so very solitary one. He is not the one that goes to
coffee shops. He likes the isolation of the writers studio. He writes best while CNN is singing its
songs to him. He makes sure that he stays fit. He goes for runs. Long long runs. His knees are
giving out. He should hike. He is kind of addicted to running, he likes the fastness, the bobbing
up and down. His brain jumping up and down in his skull. Maybe it is not good for his brain. He
does not know. Maybe he has early-onset dementia. He is a novel writer. He does not need a
well-functioning brain. A middle-of-the-road brain should be just fine.
4.
She sits in front of the typewriter and draws these characters. Roger, Nick and Dania.
Two males, one female. Roger is young, Dania is older, Nick is the oldest. She has three
characters as of yet. There is no story. One is in NYC, one in Zurich, one in Vancouver. The time
could be now, March 30, 2016. Apparently, stories have timelines. Because the scenes happen at
different times. Chronologically. Sometimes there are flashbacks. Maybe she should read books.
In order to decipher how to write a novel. On the telly, Jim Kramer yells on Mad Money. He sure
is an energetic guy. Ah, the songs of MNSBC. She should take a novel writing class. If you can
teach that. The Gotham workshops are very good. Very detail-oriented. Writing is a science.
Apparently. Or it is a craft. You learn by doing. You revise, you edit. You just keep on writing
some more. It is tough to cut out passages. She wants to write a nice book. A nice-enough book.
One that is non-raunchy. She does not like raunchy passages in books. They make you
uncomfortable. They are so yesterday. Post-WW2. Nowadays they are, ah, seen that done that.
So this book is about novel writers. Which is a toughie. How do you write a tale about
persons who sit and type? They peck at the keyboard. That is all they do all day. There is no
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blood, no murder, no drama. Just the sound of the typewriter. Well, good luck with weaving a
narrative arc into that. How to describe stagnation? That will make for a book as interesting as
watching paint dry. No movie right deals for that.
5.
She sits in the coffee shop on Arbutus. Watching the rush hour traffic. Watching her
waffle on the teacup.
6.
She is now sitting in this little tea shoppe on 31st, the one that looks as if you just stepped
into the Liberty Store in London. Everything is dainty. Paisley. Little flowers. Everything is
pastel. The Queen should have tea here. In her hat. This is so British. The food though is very
American. Marshmallow fluffy. She is not quite sure about the nationality of marshmallows.
Marshmallow fluff.
7.
She has 2000 words of her novel already.
8.
She feels sick.
CHAPTER TWO
9.
Back to Roger. The airline steward from Montreal who now lives in Vancouver. He is
Jewish. His name is Roger Goldfarb. He has curly hair. He is 23 years old. He seems like a

caricature. He is an aspiring writer. Maybe he would be more believable if he was a waiter.


Author here listened to this psychiatrist whose father was a pediatrician. He was interviewed on
CBC. She was listening to that interview while driving. She bases this Roger character on that
interview. The fictional son of a real person. This does not really work. You cannot make up
persons that do not exist. Well, apparently, all the characters in a novel are creatures on the pages
of a book. They are based on reality, on what passes for reality these days. What is reality? Her
writing has problems.
10.
It is 4:02. Four Oh Two.
11.
2101 words.
12.
Nick writes very long, very complicated mystery novels. He is very meticulous in
constructing the plots. He is very meticulous in doing his research. He goes for long long runs.
Nick is sixty-two. He has grey short hair. He is good-looking. Actually, all three characters of
this novel are good-looking. But not too good-looking. Good-looking enough. Upper average
looks. Too ugly or too gorgeous does not make sense for novel writers. They have to be ugly
enough to be believable. But not too ugly either. It is tough to gage the looks of fictional
characters. Are heroes good-looking, heroines? Protagonists? Antagonists? At this point, these
are all protagonists. We do not have antagonists as of yet. And they are not on a quest as of yet.
Well, maybe, Roger and Dahlia are, but Nick seems to have arrived at the end of his quest. The
quest being success in writing. In his chosen field. Author here ponders, how come her older
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white male protagonist is wealthier than her middle-aged female protagonist? She makes the guy
into a winner and the woman into a loser. Whatever happened to strong female characters?
Maybe the author is the strong female character, the one who draws all the strings, who makes
the characters in a book dance around like marionettes. A writer can make her characters do
whatever she feels like. Ah, animation was easier. In an animated movie, the roadrunner can be
crushed by a rock and jump up immediately again. Beep Beep. She will always be an animator at
heart. The author who comes from the world of animation. Once an animator, always an
animator.
13.
2380 Words.
14.
4:22 PM.
15.
Dahlia, huh? Author here does not know much about Milwaukee. It is good to make her a
US-citizen, so that she can work in NYC. Then again, she works as an intern in a literary agency,
she does not get paid. She must be independently wealthy. She is a former suburban housewife.
Her house is still intact. In Milwaukee. Her marital status is unclear. We do not know, how much
she weighs, her hair color, her hairstyle, her age. She is energetic, we know that. Her house is
messy, her former house. She is a hoarder that is getting better. A former hoarder. Her marital
status is unclear. She must be separated but nothing too harsh. A friendly separation of two
consenting adults. It is basically inconsequential. The love lives of all three protagonists are nonissues. Inconsequential details. These are writers, artists. This is a book about their work world.
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About the creative process. About how artists fare in capitalism. Late capitalism. How does a
capitalist society treat its artists? Its content providers? These are persons that do not provide a
service as a plumber or a doctor does. They produce a product that has not been sold yet. They
have to produce the product and then find the consumer. They have to hustle after they finished
the product. They have to market after production. They usually are not working on contract as a
lumber or a doctor does. Those will be reimbursed whatever quality their product will have. With
art, you do not know. It is a shot in the dark. Novels might rot in the attic. Until they are
discovered after the writers death. That is what happens with artists. Their best career move is
dying.
16.
2673 words.
17.
4:37 PM.
18.
So, Dahlia is not a writer. She is a Lit agent. More like a Lit agency intern. Author here is
not quite sure if she referred to Dahlia as a writer. So either she has to be portrayed as an aspiring
writer or as a lit agency intern. She can be both though, like the other intern. The one who is a
student at Columbia. This is all becoming overwhelming. Author here was at the coffee shop on
Arbutus. Had a tea. Bought Reeses Pieces at the gas station. Walked back to her car. Had the
Reeses Pieces in front of the telly. With the tea. They are those little Reeses Pieces pieces. The
Mini-Reeses Pieces. So this is what we write about here. No blood, no drama. No dead body. No
s-e-x either. No romance. Maybe she can make it into a travel novel. Make it exotic. The
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exoticness of Vancouver, Zurich, NYC, Milwaukee. Amsterdam. Hmm, how exotic is this? Well,
the glamour of travelling in the air. How do you market a novel? What makes people want to
read a book? You can make your friends read it. You can pay people to read it. You can read it
yourself and put it online. Your do-it-yourself audio book. You can start a blog. She is tired.
19.
Dahlia and Nick and Roger. Roger is named after Roger Moore. The only blond James
Bond. There are no 23-year-old-named Rogers. all Rogers are 60, 70. And Dahlias, they are not
middle-aged. But Nicks are 62. Author ponders, should her fictional characters be typical or
atypical. They have to be believable. Each story has to have its inner logic. On the telly, Modern
Family.
20.
People churn out novels in three days. In all those novel-writing contests. LaborWeekend-Novel, write a novel in 3 days. Even the national novel writing contests have persons
who are winners in 17 hours. 50 000 words in 17 hours. How do you flesh out Anna Karenina in
one sitting/ One trick is to use those soft wares where you speak into a microphone and the
computer writes down what you say. A Dictaphone. Or you write longhand and let someone
transcribe your words.
21.
Lit agents read books. All day long. It never ends. And the interns do most of the reading.
Manuscripts by aspiring writers. Dahlia likes to read. The tough part is to decide in a split-second
what is good, what is bad. You have to decide after one page. You have to separate the chaff
from or something like that. She is not quite sure how the saying goes. She basically works for
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free. It is like a New York holiday for her. A summer in the city. In fall she will go back to
Milwaukee.
22.
Roger seems to be the weakest character. No aspiring writer moonlights as an airline
steward. Aspiring writers might waitress. Though that is what aspiring actors do. What is the
profession of aspiring writers? Slinging drinks? Baristadom? Literary agency internship?
Construction work? How did Hemingway start? Journalism?
23.
Nick, the successful writer. He seems believable. An American in Zurich. The only other
famous one is Tina Turner, though. A singer. Well, still, she is in the arts. Nick, the male Tina
Turner, the male Tina-equivalent.
24.
3233 words.
25.
6:26 PM.
27.
The way that she does the chapters is kind of weird. Maybe she should do books. Book 1,
2, 3. And then number the little passages. There are ways to do this. She could go to the library
and check out how different writers do it. A bookstore is more fun. They have coffee places,
lattes. Caramel honey lattes. She is hungry again. She will be big as a house once this writingish
escapade is done.
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28.
Novel writing. It is a story, not a diary. You have to tell a story about the same characters.
In this case it is the Dahlia, Nick and Roger story. Author here already lost interest in telling it.
Making it up. Besides, there is no real connection between the three, they live in different parts
of the world, have hardly anything in common. Three separate lives in three different locales.
That is not one story, it is three different stories, three documentations of different lives.
Descriptions. Accuracy is a problem, continuity. Writing is tough. Author here amuses herself by
reading an interview with Norman Mailer, one with pictures.
29.
She went to the gym, had a coffee, her day is done. Now it is merely the typing machine
that waits stoically for input. Letter after letter. Throw your words at a subject matter and any
subject matter should do. It is March 31.
30.
3469 words.
31.
9:24 AM.
32.
Meet Anna. So there is a new character in this book. She has blond straight hair and green
eyes. She is 32. She lives in NYC. She teaches non-fiction writing at the Gotham Writing
Workshops. Hm. What else? She has a shih tzu poodle. She does yoga. Author here ponders,
could this description of a person be more generic? There was a real photo of a real Gotham
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Writing Workshop teacher, one that said: meet so and so. Everything in this passage here is
made up. She just looked like that, as if those are her vital statistics. Let us play some more with
it. She is single. She grew up in Tulsa, Oklahoma. She lost her Southern accent. The pic looked a
tad like Phoebe in Friends. All blond girls look like Phoebe. The blonder ones at least. These are
not characters, they are stereotypes, caricatures. A novel is a story full of caricatures. Yup, seems
that is how novel writing works. Author here should teach a class about novel writing. She does
not even like novels. She is like the woman who taught a group of mothers how to make apricot
jam for the student fair. When asked, she said, oh, I do not like to eat jam. I just make it for
others. So author here writes novels for others to read. She watches movies and somehow that
morphs into making her write. 3709 words, 10:00 AM, still March thirty-one. On the west coast
of North America. It must be five in the afternoon somewhere.
33.
3732 words.
34.
Walking around the house, she sits down on the white sofa with the flowers and reads
through the book that she started a long time ago and never finished. It had these raunchy
passages that made her uncomfortable. But she still has to finish it. It won an award. She will
read it little by little. Or she could take it to the community college where they have a book shelf
where you can put your book and take another one. Kind of like a swap. She gave books to the
salvation army, it was a weird feeling when she saw the book that used to be on her bookshelf
standing on the bookshelf in the salvation army store on 41st. it was called HOTHOUSE, the
book. It was about publishers and literary agents. Was interesting, gossipy, insiderish. She has

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this book about Norman Mailer. It is interesting, too. Some books are more interesting than
others. Yup, these are her insights. She should go out, venture into the world. No need to be
cooped up in here.
35.
The afternoon on the last day of March. So sunny, so blossomy. The man and the woman
outside of Starbucks, her good looks against his bad looks. This particular coffee shop seems to
invite disparate pairs, young woman-old man, they always sit outside. The place where MaySeptember relationships blossom. Author ponders what to read into that, if anything. They were
out of marble loaf. Very unsettling. Now she is back in the writers studio, she has to develop a
plot. On the telly a mystery show with the right suspenseful background music. She should write
stuff that has a building-uppy plot, where suspense tightens, where the music foreshadows what
will be happening. Her narratives go good with elevator music, nothing, no suspense. In real life
there are no gang shootings, not on a daily basis. There once was one, a block from her house, at
five in the morning. She knew the woman whose houses front lawn the shooting was on. she had
a British accent and did not agree with the other moms on the funding of field hockey or volley
ball or something, maybe, rowing. The allocation of resources. It had nothing to do with the
shooting, she was asleep in her home and suddenly there was a shooting outside of her window.
She was on the news. On the telly, a short scene from Big Bang. Sheldon Cooper and Amy.
Arrgghh, how to build a plot? Plot development. They teach that online. Her plot is: How to
amass words. Word after word until you reach 100 000. If you have 100 000 you can query an
agent. Then you will be rejected. Very politely. She knows the drill. Nothing ventured,
nothing gained. The Sisyphean quest for rejection.
36.
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Roger lives on York, near to the beach. On the third floor. He can see the beach from his
window. He likes Vancouver, it is so different from Montreal. West coasty, there is a whiff of pot
over the whole city. His dad just published a book with another author. He was interviewed on
the radio. About psychiatry. Rogers grandfather was a pediatrician. Author here ponders. She
described the Roger character before. He aspires to be a writer. He writes 1000 words a day. That
is not ambitious enough for an aspiring writer. Norman Mailer used to write seven hours per day.
Five days a week. Norman Mailer did not like to be misquoted. Maybe the info about his writing
habits is made up.
CHAPTER THREE
37.
She has 4000 words and 3 chapters. She will have 60 chapters once she has 100 000
words. That is not good. Her chaptering has to change. Longer chapters. There is a science to this
madness. Novel writing is a science. You cannot just plant yourself at the laptop and hope for the
best. You have to have a message. She has no message. She merely scribbles words. What the
Dutch call scrivener. Or maybe that is wrong. A scribe. A person who writes. She gave in the
essay in time. For her American Lit class.
Suspenseful music on the telly. They will find the culprit, they always do. In exactly sixty
minutes. With commercials therein. The main character is very good looking. He sells Givenchy
perfume. A blond woman talks confessionaly, snarkily.
Author here has this Roger character, Dahlia, Nick, Anna. All people that have to do with
publishing. One is a writing teacher, one is an agent, two are writers. And the actual writer here
is a writer. This is confusing. Nothing goes with nothing. Storylines have to make sense; inner
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logic is very important. A narrative should make sense. You do not want to listen to a story that
goes nowhere. An exercise in futility. We are used to be on a treadmill running in place. But in
stories we want to reach a goal. In order to close the book and go to another book. Author here
has so many books she did not read as of yet. There is not enough time. Shed rather write a
book. Document her struggle with the plot, the characters. The persons, she is describing, are not
related. There is no family dynamic to be underscored. These are individuals in different parts of
the world. They live in the same world in that they watch the same news. TV binds them
together. What is happening in the world. The locale is determined by what is flickering over a
rectangle screen. Donald Trump Hillary Bernie Sanders. Outside, the sun is shining. During the
day. It is winter now in Brazil. Spring, no, fall. The data all mush together. The personas are all
reflections of the writer. She is going happily insane. Too much tapping at the keyboard does that
2 you. Later on she will take her laptop down to the coffee house. The last minutes before
closing-time are always good. Content-inducing. She hums to herself. The man next to her in the
coffee house was humming. Useless observations that do not further the storyline. Linear
observations. Where is the story arc, where where. What does she want to tell the world?
38.
The show is over, now a new one is starting. It belongs to the same series. The woman
from Milwaukee. The one who lives in Brooklyn and works near to the triangular building in
New York City. How does she look like? If you describe her visual attitudes, the story might
crystallize.
39.

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Author here should be a food writer. It is more fun to describe food than persons. Yelp
has a strong authorship. Writing a novel about different food items. Seems to be a new concept.
One that was not described in her lit class. We have to develop new ways of doing things. You do
not learn that by studying dead poets. You learn by doing. You develop you own path. Author
here seems to write a self-help book. She has 4097 words already. 5000 words in two days.
Quantity rules. She feels like having a glass of wine. Red wine. Writers sip wine. In Italy. While
listening-in to chirps by birds. Romantic settings make for good books. Poetic settings. She
should go down to the coffee house again. It will splash over her writers block just so. Down in
the coffee house on Arbutus her master piece will write itself. Just like so.
40.
She did not like THE SUN ALSO RISES. Or any of the other novels in her lit class. The
poems were much better.
41.
5007 words.
42.
6:28 PM.
43.
Gilda went up to the writers studio on the third floor. Three flights of steps. It was ten to
nine; she was the first writer in this place. She opened the door, went to her station. she paid 300
bucks per month for this place. Her own little office on the Lower Eastside. There was another
space just like this one in midtown. But they charged a hundred bucks more. So she vied for this
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one, the one where she has to go up the stairs instead of using the elevator. She puts her coffee
cup down and the paper bag with the two ds on it. The paper bag is slightly transparent; one can
see the dark red jelly ooze out. It makes a fleck on the white of the bag. She takes off her shawl,
takes out the laptop, plugs it in. She does not like this laptop, it did not come with a mouse. She
should buy an extra mouse. It is easier to correct your writing with a mouse. You can position the
vertical line in front of the letter you want to change. Somehow a mouse does that better than the
built-in cursor quadrant of the laptop. Or maybe she is not used to this one as of yet. Her novel is
coming along. The story is a story of a family in intervals of five years. Over a course of twenty
years. It is too symmetrical. Every five years, that sounds more like a neatly engineered lot of
real estate with clear boundaries, not like a poetic piece of literature. Every five years. On the
same date. She never took the novel writing class at NYU, she dropped out in time, to get her
money back in full. Barnard has classes in the Continuing Ed program, so does Pratt. She is not
quite sure if she wants to go out to Brooklyn on a hot summer night just to learn how to construct
a novel. She starts playing with her locks. Apparently that is what poets do. You have to have
long poetic locks in order to be a good writer. Wavy hair is a must. You cannot look like an
accountant. There are clear rules for writers. Apparently, the writing should not be super shitty
either. She takes a sip from the paper cup. The coffee has this weird flavor. Almond milky. A
slight whiff of almonds made in a lab. Almond extracty. It tastes artificial. The donut is good.
Dunkin is the best. Much better than all the designer donut shops around town. This is what cops
and construction crews favor. Then again, she is not quite sure, usually they opt for the
designerish stuff and the midtown crowd goes for the plebian grub. The grass is always greener,
that kind of stuff. She has to type up her notes. She took notes, they are somewhere crumpled up
in her supersized bag. Her writer bag. She is more into listening-in to poetry readings, or she

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watches YouTube videos, interviews with Norman Mailer. The guy who called Mailer names and
then was interviewed about why he did it. Once you stabbed a person, you are fair game. He
should have done time. But he did not. That would not be possible nowadays. She hated THE
SUN ALSO RISES, she had a dispute with her prof. at the community college.
She did not like any of the novels that were required-reading in her course. The poets
were great and the novelists sucked. Apparently the curriculum favored poetry. Where you can
distill a 300-page-long text into three words. Boy meets girl, boy meets world, girl meets boy,
girl meets world. Girl meets girl, boy meets boy. Boy meets nature, boy meets work, boy meets
poetry. Her book is more about boy meets work, it is a treatise about an architectural firm
through the ages. A family business. The struggle between the males and the females in that
family. Architecture, construction being a male-dominated business. Somehow her writing has a
lot of narrative holes. And the problem is that all the readers are super vigilant in pointing that
out. You cannot get away with anything. These days she reads a lot of amazon reviews, goodread
reviews, New York Times reviews. Everybody and their mouse is a critic. People have opinions.
Not the right time to become a writer. If your name is not Dostoyevsky, you will not make it in
this business. She would make more money working at Macys. And she would stay saner. Sanity
is overrated, though. Gilda, that is not her real name. Reality, too, is overrated. She is merely a
person in a book, a character. A generic writer. Living in a city of writers. And actors. All the
aspiring souls who flock to New York, to take Manhattan. Most of them will go back to where
they came from. Ellis Island is not that welcoming anymore. Those days are long long gone. She
did not see BROOKLYN. But tales full of nostalgia seem to sell well. Those tales are weird.
They have nothing to do with the reality of this city. The city of Dean & DeLuca, the
Meatpacking, the new Whitney. Citi Bike and Artichoke. Bill de Blasio. The donut shoppe on
19

23rd. The United Nations Building that is tucked somewhere behind the heliport near the water.
Port Authority in the morning. The bench on the subway with its little mark in the wood. The Ltrain. The Swedish konditori in Williamsburg. When it is too hot. Citi Bike. The three days in
summer when the city is closed to car traffic until one. When you can bike along Lafayette while
you are pouring sweat out of all your pores. When you have to go to the K-Mart on Astor Place
in order to buy new clothes because you left your suitcase at your friends house and they are all
out of town for the weekend. The city who does not belong to anyone and belongs to everyone.
Where police cars will descend on the Bowery, 30 at a time. More so than in a police state, more
so than in a place under martial law. New York is fascinating. No wonder the New Yorker
cartoon depicted the city as the center of the universe. You either love this city or you hate it.
That is how it is, that is how it is. She mumpfs away at her donut, has the too-cold drink, looks at
her screen, edits her words, loves her words, she is good at articulating stuff, but the subject
matter sucks, people want to read about important issues, issues bigger than them, not about jelly
oozing out of a donut, not about the everyday, the banal, the prosaic. They want bigger songs, the
Marseillaise, they want to follow a leader, in trance, that is what words are for and her words will
never be like that, she is not a patriotic Whitman, she is the Whitman of songs and sights. She is
the former animator, visuals are her thing and writing is merely an acquired taste here. And her
name is not Gilda, it will never be, it can never be. She is a generic writer, and she has no clue
how to describe people that are so very different from her reality.
44.
6238 words.
45.

20

9:25 AM.
46.
The coffee house with the generic music, a woman who merely made it to singing in a
suburban coffee house while cars whoosh by, in and out. A modern rest stop where drinks are
slung. Nobody listens in to her chansons. The Starbucks sign, the Subway sign, yup, this is an
up-scale strip mall, but make no mistake, it is still a strip mall. Definitely a strip mall, if there
ever was one, nestled in between 1-million-dollar homes. The strip mall for the rich is even more
of a strip mall than a strip mall in gangland. The breakdown of the American family. The inner
city. Alienation in todays world. That was more what sociologists would debate in years gone
by, in the bell-curve age. Now it is post that. The more things change, the more they stay the
same. She will submit her artwork to this place in nyc, the theme this year is race, a theme that
you only want to touch with a kneifzange as the Germans would say. A kneifzange is like that
apparatus that you use to hold fiery rocks that you want to throw in the fireplace. Dont go there.
That is how it is with race. Nobody wants to talk about race relations. It makes people
uncomfortable. The coffee house is still happening, more forcefully than before. Ten ten.
Time for coffee breaks everywhere and anywhere. The midmorning crowd from the local
high skool flocks in, for moments, moments. 649 words, 10:17.
47.
Antonio moved to the city from Chicago. He is trying his hand at writing. Mostly he
watches TV while typing. He has to look for a job in SoHo. Waiting on tables should not be too
tough. He is thin enough; he can be on his feet for eight hours straight. To do waiting, you need
good knees. And a low body mass index. He can eat as much as he wants. He has to sell his first
21

novel yet, though. Luckily he is a fast typer. He has finished seven manuscripts already. He
shopped them around, nothing but rejections. His friend told him, there have to be more than one
character in a book. His writings are mainly diaries. Glorified ones. Nobody wants to read that.
Apparently. Just the musings of a regular Joe, good luck with marketing that. There are better
stream of conscience stories. It was better the first time around, when it was called Ulysses. You
cannot reinvent the wheel. He should take a Gotham Writers Workshop but he is kind of weary
that that would backfire. He is not good at handling critique. Art schools kill the spirit. It comes
with the territory. And writing schools are glorified art schools. Literature schools. Writing
programs. The keyboard teaches you everything you need to know. You just have to have a
current subscription to Microsoft Office. And you can write the next American novel. Easy
peasy.
48.
So now we have a Dahlia and an Anna. A Nick and a Roger. An Antonio. 5 persons who
either write or work in publishing somehow. The landscape of poetry.
49.
1:37 PM.
50.
6773 words.
51.
April first. On the telly, Mike and Molly. She should make lasagna. Vegetable lasagna.
52.
22

Itzehoe, the coffee house, the three women near the window. She took the train out of
Hamburg, she always comes here, does her writing and then it is back to the city. Coffee, apple
cake, the crumbs on the plate. It is good for writing. On the other side of the street, the fashionin/fashion-out opens, it is ten in the morning. The woman wears a green shiny dress and a
pillbox hat. Tres chic, but a tad too flamboyant for the middle of nowhere.
53.
She types, types. You can type faster nowadays. Thus there should be so many more
books than there used to be. On the other hand, less books are published. Less people read. Or
they read online. She should really look into statistics. On the telly, BONES. Zara Hadid passed
away. So did Patty Duke.
54.
6931 words.
55.
5:10 PM.
56.
The city, the city. Describing the city is more up her alley than describing persons.
Writing is tough. Apparently. You have to be able to fight with the language and come up on top.
The words tend to do their own thing, they follow their own path. Language as tool.
57.
6988 words. Some more and she has arrived. Four more and we have 7000.

23

58.
7002.
59.
Even the numbers are fictional.
60.
5:15PM.
61.
Rada hangs out in bookstores, she never ever buys one. She just likes the orderly books
on the shelves. The dissemination of the world, all those thoughts, neatly arranged. She likes
people with glasses. She now writes herself. Not very good. Her stories do not go anywhere. She
is not really a storyteller. A storyteller by accident. Her stories are non-stories. She likes lattes.
Starbucks has this new flavor, Caramel Honey. She has it with whipped cream on it. She has to
lose weight. Her knees hurt. If she is thinner, her knees will thank her. Her name is not Rada. But
Rada sounds exotic. Where are you from? She is from a white neighborhood in the whitest state
of the union. This is where people call themselves Karyn instead of Karin. Lyndsay instead of
Lyndsey. Rada writes books that do not sell. And maybe that is good. Maybe she has nothing
worthwhile to say.
62.
7169 words.
63.

24

5:34 PM.
64.
April one, 2016.
65.
The coffeehouse near her house. A latte, the one with honey and caramel. This is her
favorite haunt. Her digs. She hangs out here and puts letters to paper. They are slightly bowing to
the right. Sometimes they are bowing to the left. She uses a green pen. Writing is a thankless
profession. You constantly write but no one wants to publish her works. She tells herself that this
will not always be like this. One day her words too will be published. She will hold readings. She
will give interviews. Autograph her books. Thank the prize committee in Stockholm. One day.
66.
She scours the nanowrimo site. There are many aspiring scribes. People who write better
than her and people who write worse than her. It takes all kinds on this planet. On the telly, still
BONES. The murderer is not found yet. Give it ten more minutes, and voila, we are there.
Happens every time. Isnt Hollywood grand?
67.
5:45 PM.
68.
Could it be time for chapter 4? Yup, why not.
CHAPTER FOUR

25

69.
She drove through the city at the cusp of sundown. So weird and strange to slither just at
the frontier of needing to turn on the extra light and not needing it. Everything is getting eerie in
seconds. The woman in the coffeehouse looks her up and down suspiciously while putting in the
plastic bag into the garbage place, it is so close to closing time. A woman in a colorful sweater
laughs into her phone, oblivious to the baristas who want to catch the last bus home. They are out
of stroop wafels, so author here leaves. Drives aimlessly, once by a parked police car that lurks in
a side street to catch speeders. She can walk through the aisles in the local supermarket in order
to soak up remnants of human companionship. Standing with a green basket in line, saying hi
and buy to the cashier, the quest for late nite grub supplies a false sense of community. She now
is back in front of the telly, Kramer and Jerry, Seinfelds parents on the phone from Florida. The
episode with Mr. Mandelbaum. Elaine smoking in order to not get the babysitter job. She has to
stick to her diet, maybe it is good that they were out of wafels. 7565 words. 8:21 PM.
70.
Itzehoe once more. Ten in the morning, the fashion woman on the other side of the street.
A pink striped shirt, dark pink and lighter pink. Three women near the window, the waitress in
her bored expression. The steaming tea, the crumbs of the apple cake. Her sentences on the sheet
in her notebook. She will catch the train back to Hamburg at 12:07.
71.
Writing has become recreational. It is no more a serious profession. If it ever was. Who
makes more money, a man of letters or a woman of letters? Are they equally destitute. She will

26

read Gissings New Grub Street, Orwells Flight of the Aspidistra. The novelwriters do not live
here anymore.
72.
Chandra ran up the stairs to the writers studio. She felt weird running, there was no rush
to get to her writing station. No urgency. But she paid the rent for this place, she should use it. It
is her quasi-office. She has to take this serious. If her writing does not go anywhere, she has to
pack her belongings and move back home with her parents. She has to write write write.
73.
Roger sits in front of the computer in the community college. It is next to the finals,
everybody is working on some kind of term essay. The two printers are doing overtime, spitting
out masterpiece after masterpiece.
74.
7800 words.
75.
8:36 PM.
76.
Saturday morning in the mall. A woman strolls through the store. Annahita asks: what
brought you in here today? The woman mumbles something to herself with a fake smile and a
nod and leaves the store to join the hustle and bustle of the Saturday morn mall. Annahita was
told by management that she should ask potential customers this, which is kind of a weird
question but apparently it makes the person who strolls in here reflect on what they are doing and
27

if they want a certain item. Anything to make the customer stay within the store instead of
moving through the mall like in a trance. The store has a lot of formal wear, not the kind of stuff
mallgoers wear. The store is next to a big food store so people come in here with grocery bags.
The store is on the way to the food court, it is next to a store that sells phones and next to another
fashion store. Annahita likes it here but it is usually isolated. The prices are too high for people to
stay and linger. She has to be nicely made-up, and she can wear flats. Which is comfortable if
you are on your feet for eight hours straight. There is not much fodder for her novel in here, no
blood is flowing, no love triangle, no murder mystery. No heist. Just people going about their
daily lives. A marketplace, where they get their wares. And somebody is bringing her wares to
market and Annahita is the well-dressed middle man. The one who knows how to work the cash
register. She thinks about the novel that she is writing, the one that will never sell. According to
New Grub Street, writing is a tough business, always was, always will be. Storytelling is tough,
there is always a better story to be told. One that will gather listeners around the town crier. She
does readings, they are fun. It is nice to look up at faces who want to listen to her. That applaud.
There is always someone to tell her to cut it short, your allotted time is over, seven minutes,
seven minutes. She does readings for writers federations, for writing groups. They always want
someone to hover around the open mike. Annahita, the writer. This is not the right name for
writing. Annahita, why not Anahita? Well, at least people will know her gender. But would they
listen more to a sincere male voice. A deeper voice. In a patriarchy, do you listen to what guys
have to say or what the girls have to say? And does it even matter? Is writing not unisex? She has
problems with crafting her male characters, who knows what the boys think. She is not a boy.
How can you pretend to give voice to an entity that you are not? A young couple enters the store.
What did bring you here today?

28

77.
So she is amassing little vignettes like beads on a chain. A necklace. All these aspiring
writers all over this little planet of ours, a ball hurling thru space in time, with aspiring creative
souls who want to make a mark before they disintegrate forever. A way to halt eternity, words to
be remembered by. Something to say hey, I was here. One of seven billion. I made a mark. She
could just go out to the subway and make a mark on the first bench on the L-train station, the one
before Brooklyn, before hitting Bedford. She could take out a pen-knife and make a vertical line,
scratch it in there. It will be there as long as the bench is there, as long as the station is there.
78.
Itzehoe happens. Her words on the paper. The crumbs on the plate. In time, she will catch
the train back to Hamburg.
79.
Rada, Antonio. Nick, Annahita, Dahlia. Roger, Chandra. Seven writers and quasi-writers.
Zurich, nyc, Amsterdam, Vancouver. A mall. A room with a TV. And now smush all of this
together and make up a story. The class in the community college was all about family sagas.
The theme of the Buddenbrooks. A family over the years, in decline. There are other stories.
Apparently her prof likes family sagas. His taste in poetry is much better. His taste in novels
favors the burlesque. Then again, profs do not write the books, they do not even chose the books.
They might just get the curriculum dictated to them by the bookstore. We have this book for a
good price in bulk, so please teach that. You are a teacher; you have to teach whatever
administration tells you to. The janitor is usually the most powerful person in academia. The
worst-paid, but still the one who can make or break the singers that perform in front of an
29

audience. The audience are we the students, the singers are the profs. Her assessment of academe
somehow hinders her ever acquiring a PhD. You cannot be that jaded if you need that particular
institution. There is something to be said for walking over a stage in a silly robe and funny hat
and getting a piece of paper that will then rot in the attic. People applaud you, somebody might
take a film.
80.
The description of the park. Yes, there is a park next to her house. She has hardly been
there; it is on the other side of 33rd. out of her way. Apparently it now has all these apartmentunits adjacent to it, she always saw them from the other side, never from the main side, the one
looking out on the park. They have names like magnolia, with a little sign of a flower, an
abstracted, wavy, curly one. Reminiscent of flowers, of leaves. A generic magnolia leaf. That is
the name of the apartment complex, maybe magnolia gardens. She parks her car between the fire
hydrant and a white jeep. A woman walks by with two fluffy dogs. Fluffy white dogs. One is
fluffier. She has blond-white hair to her shoulders. She is thin enough. There are men playing
Ultimate. Movement in the air. You cannot but follow the round sphere moving, it catches your
eye. Author here turns her head to see where it landed. If something is thrown through the air, it
attracts your eye. A ball, anything that does not belong in the still of the air. The midafternoon in
a park. She walks on the pebbly path until she reaches the path that is without little rocks. No
sand will go into the holes of her sandals. There is a funny looking garbage can in the distance,
looks more like a silvery piece of art. A sculptural piece, a statuette. Cars are parked around the
park, the Hellenic Centre church-like building is in the distance. There is an overpriced club next
to the park, one that charges a lot of money for membership. Usually one person is a member and
then invites all her friends to dine there too. She despises the country club crowd, mainly because
30

they are not the ones who will listen to her readings in a smoke-filled basement somewhere.
They will read her books in the library and will not pay for it. The country club set is old. So is
she. Old people hate other old people with a vengeance. The sunny day in the park. She marches
back to her car; she does not wear a bra. She forgot to put one on. Thus she cannot really venture
out anywhere, she has to go back to the house. Type some more words. Think about Annahita
and Roger. She reads this small note where she jotted down ideas for her book. She cannot
decipher it. It says, 4 with a circle around it. Scene 4 maybe. Apparently it is about how banal
stuff is more interesting for a book than political historical events. The world of OCD, she wrote
that in caps, and said that it is more important than one mans revolution. Lenin, Robespierre, the
like, they come and go. But OCD is there to stay. The psychological foibles of the individual.
She is back in her kitchen, at the table. The fridge sings but suddenly, out of nowhere, gets mute.
The edge of the table is kind of yucky. There is a reason why to have OCD. Neatness rocks,
yeah.
81.
Roger is back in Amsterdam. He always stays in the hotel IBIS, mainly because it is on
the other side of CENTRAAL. He stays on the first floor; he always has to make sure that he
does not bump into the mirror when turning left from the lobby. He is usually jetlagged; he tends
to walk to CENTRAAL at 5 in the morning. It is Europe, nothing can happen here. He always
has this false sense of security when he is here. He has the same one when he is in New York
City, urban environments bring that feel out in him. What he despises, are the vast places outside
mansions or even little suburban houses. Where the bushes are, all you can see and an ambulance
horn every now and then in the distance. Eerie ah eerie.
82.
31

Nick walks by the Limmat. He likes this place between where the Limmat meets the lake
and the walk to that famous swimming pool. It is a tad far from where dada started but not too
far. It is full of people who do not care about art. Children running, old people walking. Zurich is
such a fascinating city. Where bourgeoisdom meets rebellion, revolution. You can feel the
underbelly everywhere, under the mantle of respectability. It is a city where great books can be
written. It has all the drama of the world. Revolutions started from here. There are reasons for
that, but he is not a social historian. He just writes neat little stories in which people can find
themselves. Inconsequential anecdotes. In English. You can write quite good in the diaspora.
After a day of GRUETZI MITENAND and ODER you go back to your study and pretend you
are straight out of Compton. The diaspora makes him write better words. The diasporic
existence, the constant feel of dislocation. The not quite being here. The little houses near the
lake. Switzerland and its idyllic features, something straight out of Heidi. There is something
unreal about this place, diminutive. And it does not help that all the names have this little li at
the end, Wunderli, Fischli, everything-li. The feel of unreal, the feel of a certain eeri happiness.
Everything will be ok. Bad stuff happens elsewhere, not in a country where people take the train
everywhere. A neutral country that has money stashed away by people who make money off
warmongering. Other places people stab each other on the streets and bloody the sideway, this
does not happen when you have oysters in St. Gotthart or the Dolder. He loves it here, always
did, always will. He cannot even put his finger on why he loves it, maybe it is the ETH, its
fantastico architectural exhibits at the end of the year. The University of Zurich produced 150 or
200 or so Nobel laureates, you have to be really good to be accepted into this school. Excellence
out of a city with blue and yellow streetcars, he should write a blurb for the tourist bureau here.

32

Nick is getting old, but so does everybody else. We are on this earth only for a short time,
this is a line out of a song and he does not remember whose it is. Maybe Cat Stevens before his
Yussuf Islam time and after his something Greek time. It must be nice to change your name; he
will always be Nick. Well, short for Nickolas, St. Nick, but everybody calls him Nick. He hit it
big with his first book, at age 23 and ever since he has this persona of a man of letters. He had
arrived at the tender age of 23. Literature is like that, a strange field to be in. he produces a text
of about 100 000 words each and every year, the rest of the time he goes for runs and/or walks.
His life is predictable. He does not smoke, he hardly drinks. Sometimes he has flair-ups of OCD,
but they wane off after a time. He never got committed. God knows why. And he lives in a
country that makes a living from psychiatry. All the old hospitals for syphilis and tuberculosis are
now geared towards patients with mental probs from all over the world, moneyed ones. There is
nothing like being sick near a nice lake while listening in to cowbells. Psychiatry is such a weird
science, the lesser medical field. Lots of psychiatrists resent that cynicism by the established
medical, well, establishment, but he as a regular joe shares that view, he laughs at the cartoons in
the New Yorker. Maybe that is because he is an ill-informed dilettante. Which is what a writer, a
good writer, should be. Do not know anything in depth, but have a hunch about a lot of things.
And be able to express yourself eloquently. Throw your nicely crafted arabesques at any subject
matter you feel like. It is getting late, he will have a slice of pizza and a beer and then go home to
start writing en anglais. His workday starts in the evening, always did. Weird but true.
83.
Chandra stares at the monitor of her laptop. She is the queen of writers block. Her
designer bag, the kind of worn-in Louis Vuitton, that was a gift, is full of crumpled-up notes.
That is how she does research. She sits in a coffee house near Central Park, has a cappuccino, an
33

espresso, something decaffeinated with skim milk, watches the passers-by and lets her mind go
blank. And it works every time, something will come up that should be put to paper, something
that might further her plot. She writes love stories, usually a prof falling for his student, or a
student falling for her prof, it is all about academe, some liberal arts college in the north west, the
prof is always male and tall and has a full head of hair, white, grey, he is very waspy, and pretty
old, the student is always young, too short, exotic, ethnic, of Indian descent. She loves how this
can be interpreted as a roman-a-clef, any publicity is good publicity. Stereotypes are there to be
milked. The forbiddenness of cross-cultural love, a la Romeo and Juliet. The Capulets of New
England and the sth sths of New Delhi or Bombay. She herself does not think highly of marrying
over race borders, it is way too risqu, you do not have much in common if you are a boy or a
girl, why bring in the extra gulf of difference in rituals. Or maybe it is better if you have less in
common, there are so many philosophies about romantic relationships. The e-harmony guy
should know more about that. Chandra was more into finely crafted mystery novels but she is not
into blood and violence. Makes her cringe. She thinks a lot about Norman Mailer and his
stabbing, she has his biography somewhere and has only started it. She wants to win a Nobel
prize for literature, eventually, that is her long-term goal. Some critics posit that the lesser writers
win the Nobel prizes. Who cares, it is a million bucks after all. And she has never been to
Stockholm.
84.
10402 words.
Two oh three PM.
March two

34

85.
So author here has a bunch of writers, and the SHE in Itzehoe, the accurate verdict on
whether Dahlia is a writer or an agent is still out, she has to flesh that out somehow or maybe let
it stay ambivalent. She has to read New Grub Street and the novel by George Orwell, she really
liked the article by a guy named Packard, he wrote it in 1991, it was a fairly good analysis of
writing, the state of publishing et. al., the life of a struggling writer, yup, that is her subject
matter. Describing different novel writers, their difficulties, their struggles. A tad too much
negativity, is there a market for all this whining, this hand wringing. The description of a futile
field. Any field is futile. Lifes a bitch and then you die. A statement as deep as any. Words to live
by. Outside the sun is still shining, still some more hours left to kill.
86.
Youre only dancing on this earth for a short while- that is the line from the Cat Stevens
song, now if she only knew what his Greek name was, she will google that later, but she is tired
now, outside the world is happening and she is cooped-up in this dreary writing studio battling it
out with all these words here.
87.
She walks through the green and white city. With the one yellow dot. No, really, that is
how it is. The green from the trees, the grass, the white from the blossoms which are either on
the trees or have fallen down onto the ground and sprinkled it, the one yellow dandelion
suddenly. Near Starbucks so many people, the Saturday afternoon crowd, the spring that just
begun. Three or four policemen and women, in uniforms mingling with the civilians on the
bench in front of Bean Brothers. Children in their bikes and training wheels. The colorful
35

bookstore on the other side of the street. The tired barista in green and no make-up, the honey in
the latte, aftertastes. The thoughts about the book, her book. The story about the state of writing,
the eternal story of anybody who wants to write for the ages. Her slight philosophies, that are not
grave enough. That are simple philosophies, harmless. That are informed by simpler times,
simpler songs. Then again, those were the times of the Vietnam War. Nothing ever is simple.
Pacifism should win, but it does not. We did not start the fire, we beg to differ. The powerful eat
the weak. Is that fair? Fair for the powerful, unfair for the weak. But once they get powerful they
will eat the weak. This planet is hurling thru space. She has no answers and nobody has. It is
three and forty-one on a Saturday afternoon in Vancouver, Canada.
88.
10895 words.
89.
The woman jumps into her car and drives up 33rd. she wants to go all the way to Dunbar
but in between she changes her mind. She parks after Mackenzie, in front of a white roundish car
that is parking just behind her and kind of is tilted. A tilted parker who does not feel like
straightening the car out. The driver wears white Keds that match the car.
The woman, author, whatever you want to name her, makes her way to Butter. The door
is open, there is a little dainty igel sculpture as a doorstep. Everything in this coffee
house/teahouse is dainty, quaint. It is as if you enter another world. Where everything is in pastel,
in a certain creamy blue meets green meets grey. A powdery color. There are flowers on the wall,
marshmallows in the pastry. There are small greeting cards that make you giggle. That is what
they say. They have ice cream too; the pint is about ten bucks. Author is not quite sure if ice
36

cream season is on already. There is bird-chirping from outside. She orders a mint tea and a
peanut butter marshmallow slice. To go, yells the lady behind the counter, apparently they will
close in half an hour. The lady behind the counter has those unimaginable eyes that you cannot
describe. They are a mix of childhood and young adulthood. They remind her of an animal but
she does not know which animal. Maybe more a cartoon character. There is whimsy there and
politeness. Daffy Duck. Maybe. Author here ponders if she is good enough at writing. At
describing stuff in a flowerful-enough language. And a laid-back enough language. Calling real
persons Daffy Duck will not cut it. She is listening in to this audio book by George Orwell, she
wished she could write like that. Every writer wants to write like that. There are giants and then
there are mere mortals. She sits down on the beige chair, she feels kind of ambivalent, to go
means to go and she did not tip. The card reader did not go to the tip part, she is not to blame.
They just did not think, she will be sitting down. Or they did not want to give her the china.
Which might as well, she feels bad at making people do dishes when they want to take the last
bus home on a Saturday eve. She is now back at the kitchen table, typing away. Her mint tea is
still warm, lukewarm. Actually quite hot. Birds chirp here too. Everything is full of spring,
rebirth, chirpiness. The brashness of a spring afternoon so near to sundown. Her words sprinkle
against the monitor, she will go out again to get new fodder for her writing. The coffee house
next to the sandwich shop will be open, she might take this laptop with her. Type while watching
the world go by. All those cars all those cars. Up and down Arbutus. She does not have a plot,
yet, and maybe she should finish this tea pot before vying for the next. A chamomile-tea-fueled
writing frenzy. A book named the novelwriters.
90.

37

She walks by all of those houses. Some of them in a state of disarray. Half-renovated with
tarps on the roof. With a toilet next to it. There is not much to see when walking around a leafygreen neighborhood. You reach Larch and it becomes interesting. More cars, speeding.
Apparently walking is good. Fitness-wise. She had two pizza pops, the 3-cheeses-kind, she had
the marshmallow peanut butter slice. Walking should be good for her. She cannot gain more
weight. She has to lose weight. her knees will thank her. Weight reduction in order to be able to
slog the weight around. Ever since she started driving again, she has gained ten, twelve pounds.
Taking transit is healthier. You move slowly, everything takes forever, but you are definitely
fitter. Ten thousand steps per day, so says the pedometer. Yup, these are her insights, she is not
good at developing the plot, so this text slithered into becoming a diary, a logbook once more. A
roman a clef. Musings. This is as good as it gets in novel-writing-land here. The ten or so
fictional characters are all after crafting, constructing the perfect story. So is author here. Weird,
huh, strange, ah, strange here. 11 632 words, so far, so far, so far.
91.
Dahlia reads books. Well, technically, manuscripts. She then types up a summary. She
sends it to her boss. And then the next manuscript. Some are better written; some have interesting
subjects. She has to grade them. How well do they fare in each category? Believability,
eloquence, suspense, the like. Some books are very gripping but not that well-written. There is
always something wrong. The ideal book does not exist, but they are all pretty damn good. And
then there is the market. What will sell, what wont? There are varying prognoses. The work of
an agent is pure science. But it sure is fun. More because of her colleagues. They are all friendly.
There is something about the camaraderie in a basically dead-end-job. Like the camaraderie of
waiters in a coffee shoppe. Dahlia has to go back to Milwaukee eventually. Where nothing ever
38

happens. Meh, shmeh. Dahlia reads books and they just keep coming. No end no end no end no
end.
92.
Roger goes up to his class on the third floor in the community college. He listens to the
prof, he takes notes. There are other classes, scriptwriting, poetry writing. Classes that teach
craft. This class is more for teaching the next generation of literary critics. Review the words that
others have written. Size them up. He longs for Amsterdam, mainly because it is so different.
The antidote to his boring existence.
93.
She describes Dahlia and Roger. Not accurately enough. There are narrative holes. How
can the life of a jetlagged person fresh off the plane from the Netherlands be boring? Isnt that a
glamourous lifestyle? Travelling, seeing the world? Besides, why is Dahlias life in Milwaukee
boring? Are all suburban lives boring? Isnt that a stereotype, a value judgement? Isnt life in
New York City equally boring? And isnt boring good? Predictability? Ah, and we still do not
have a plot here. The plotless novel about strange novel writers. She will now listen to the second
hour of her George Orwell audiobook. Learn from the master, ah, learn from the master here. 11
987 words, not much left to hit 12 000. It is silently becoming dark outside here. 12 003 words.
7:31 PM. March two in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.
94.
I could write books, said the woman in the nurses uniform. Well, why dont you? She
was actually the receptionist in the walk-in clinic, but apparently she had seen it all. Books, the
plural of book. Well, writing is actually a toughie, if you live long enough you have seen it all.
39

But usually the first time novels of very young scribes hit the jackpot, not the later works of
mature authors. Maybe it is the budding idealism that shines through. Or maybe it is merely a
marketing scheme. Or both. On the telly, a documentary about Truman. Author here has seen it
once. It is a repeat. The same boring documentary in the same week. Mainly because of the
subject matter. The race for the White House. Ah, Donald Trump sure is good for ratings.
Basically, he is just another white guy, hardly different from Bernie Sanders. But his gaffes are
so trumpeted, so overexposed out of contrast. In order to have ratings. Maybe author here should
be a pundit. She sure knows more than all of them combined. Politics is no big deal. Even
drunken discussions in the pub are accurate. In politics everything goes anyways. Bomb this,
bomb that, nothing ever changes. And all of these shows definitely walk the line. No journalist
would really challenge the status quo. He cant. She cant. It wont happen, trust me.
95.
12 248 words.
96.
5:29 PM.
97.
March 3, 2016.
98.
Put up or shut up. That is the phrase that the person on the telly says. He describes
apparently Trumans presidential race. Somebody said it. Actually he phrased it as it was
probably the biggest example of put up or shut up. Author is not quite sure what he really
40

meant. But it seems that CNN is very intent on perpetrating the idea that the US is this beacon of
freedom of democracy. It is not. The US is # 50 in freedom of press. Out of 128 countries.
Behind Malta and Nigeria. So there, take that. The herd mentality in the US is second to none.
Hardly anyone has an original thought. So sad so sad so sad so sad so sad.
99.
So these days, author is deeply engulfed in reading George Orwell. Wow, is he good with
the language. The funny thing that apparently he himself did not think highly of his own work,
he tried to ban it. Make sure that its publication is discontinued. His early work. Well, once it is
out in the public domain, you cannot really make it vanish. And why would you? It is superb.
But apparently the artist himself did not think so. Author ponders, is a writer really an artist? Art
is more visual. Oppenheimer said of Einstein that he is more artistic than scientific. Author
believes in that, in that school of thought that art and science are not different entities. Schools
like RMIT in Melbourne believe in that. Cambridge used to give an arts degree to its science
graduates. In the old times there was not this compartmentalization of art and science.
Everything has to do with everything, holistic is a hippy mippy word that sounds like voodoo,
but numbers and words are not separate. At least for this her writing, numbers are paramount. 12
567 words, she does not really care what the heck she is writing as long as her word count
accumulates. Quantity begets quality. That is how it is that is how it is.
100.
12 607 words, 5:49 PM.
101.

41

In the community college. On April 4, 2016. 12 615 words, that is what we have here. It
is eight and forty-eight. She will kill time by feeding some of her words to this machine. She
listens in to the noises in the computer lab, the ever changing noises. Once you want to document
a noise it is gone. All the moments that pass you by. Every moment a new moment. She loves
film. It kind of takes life, freezes it and you can play it again. Ahhaha. She has to read howl
and a caricature, a satire of howl. For class. She tries to resist the impulse to do her homework,
mainly because she has read howl and wrote an essay about it that got her an A. A long time ago
but why mess with success. She knows that in this class her prof will dismiss whatever she says.
He is that kind of person. He has it in for her. Some teachers are like that, they hate you. And it
works out just fine because others love whatever you say. There is no reason why that works. It
is called chemistry. You have no clue why some people love yer and some people hate yer. You
yourself are like that, some people you cannot stand and some people you adore. That is just
human nature. There is no reason behind it. We are all illogical animals. That is how it is that is
how it is. And with profs you just have to be careful not to piss them off too much because they
can always make or break you. Some students drop the class at the beginning of the class if they
notice that that particular prof is racist or sexist or ageist, they are the intelligent ones who do not
take chances. You cannot win with some people. Be realistic. Do not fight an uphill battle.
This month is poetry month. Make of that whatever you like. 12 940 words, a tad more
and we have hit 13 000.
102.
SOUR WORMS. On her walk there lay this empty bag of sour worms on her path.
Between the beige, ochre, dark-brown discarded leaves, all crumpled-up. The coloury, neon pink
plastic bag, downtrodden with inscripts in French and English. This is what makes her happy, the
42

stuff she sees on her walk from the strip mall to the market. While the day gives out, quietly,
suddenly, full of lights everywhere. Suddenly the city is sprinkled with lamp lights, the freshness,
coldness of the impending night, people walking in pairs, some exercise before sleep, the wind
that is still there. She tries to make up the right words, hunts for them, she had a tea, mint citrus,
a peanut butter dark chocolate something that was way too bitter, way too salty for its own good.
She sat down next to this man and this woman, the woman started to cry, author here changed
her seat, this was too close for comfort. We just want to have a mint tea here, unbothered. The
womans crying seizes. Author washes her hands, pushes the paper of the peanut sweets into the
trash can near the coffee station, takes her cup with the tea, looks for the right lid, got it wrong
the first time, has to throw away the tall cup lid, screws the grande lid onto the cup. Walking
down to Safeway, not quite sure what will happen to her car. There was a provident security
yellow, round car in the parking of the strip mall, but nobody would tow her car in the short time
it takes to go from strip mall to Safeway.
Walking down on Arbutus, making sure not to step on the watered-in parts of the street. It
was sunny today, nice, 15 degrees, sixteen. In New York, flurries, in Boston full-blown
snowstorms. In April, wow. Sometimes it is iffy here and great there, sometimes nice here, yucky
over there. The news on the telly fills you in about the weather, you can google it too. Smushing
your life thru different time zones while your reality is in this town, this is what technology
provides. Her class in the community college, Ginsberg, so long long ago. He wrote howl the
year that she was born.
Poetry and novels, there will be a test a week from now, in another room than the usual,
but still on the third floor of the A-building, half an hour later than usual class time. Two hours,
writing on poetry and novels. To be able to pen the right words after you hear the start pistol, that
43

never works, the words have to come to yer, inspiration does not happen on demand. This is not
the spirit that built the west, she should read up on the poets and the novels. Or just slither into
the writing. She has to take all the books to class and a dictionary, though it is not required. She
will miss that class, there was no teacher evaluation, she would have given it ten outta ten. You
have to be writing even if no lit class fuels your writing, reading, watching movies should suffice
to make yer hunt for the right words, the correct sequences in lingo.
She is now back in the room with the telly, the green plant that looks like a zersaust
monkey, the green couch. The songs on the telly, ever changing. The walk to the market, yup, she
could write some more about that, the supermarket aisles, the cardboards discarded next to the
freezer section, she had to push it aside in order to open the door, Hawaiian pizza pops, they
were out of three cheeses. No bag, she pushes the cardboard packaging into the cardboard place
outside of the market, takes the four frozen bags with her to the car up in the strip mall.
Her writing is non-flawless, somehow the language seizes to illustrate accurately what
she does, the physicality can just be hinted at, somehow it does not really make sense at all, you
can never be too wordy, nobody knows when you used the right amount of words and when you
used one too many. The poet walking happily the streets, oblivious to whether her words will
ever been read by another soul on this planet. 13 666 words, no plot yet, no plot ever. Writing
spurts all thru the day.
104.
13 683, 9:02 PM, April, 2016, Vancouver in Canada.
105.

44

Magnanimous- that was the word she looked up. A word in the novel by George Orwell.
A very English word, full of the whiff of old Britain. Smells like the hats of the queen. On the
telly, this jerry springer wannabe. Apparently his name is bill. Outside it is rainy, so very very
Vancouver. The always rain. Nyc is colder than here, at this time. She googled it. On the other
side of the world, things are different. Different time zones, different climates. She feels like
flying out somewhere as long as her passport has not expired as of yet. She has 13 795 words,
her seat in front of the computer, nothing but typing and typing, this is her life when she could
explore this planet. Her job that does not even pay a penny. Even retail pays more, even slinging
drinks. Janitorial work, grave digging. Everything pays more than writing. This is merely a
hobby. Someone pays for her living expenses while she has a hobby. A hobbyist writer. Writing
as hobby, writing as recreation. Just like a gym membership. Just like running the Boston
marathon. You have to pay the city of Boston in order to participate. Well, at least she does not
have to pay anybody to write, she just has to put in the time, show up, hammer away at the
keyboard, her middle finger starts acting up, she has to pace her typing. Because she does not
know how to play with ten fingers, how to distribute the load to all ten fingers, the load of
pressing down the keys on the laptop. The square keys, black within a white letter in the upper
left of the square. On the telly, a woman yelling, apparently it is all about whether men cheat or
do not cheat, they seem to be so very precious, the men, women are fighting over them. And they
are not even good looking. Well, actually, the women are just as good looking as the men in this
show. But it seems to be the most important thing on the planet, who has s-e-x with whom. There
are more important issues, bombs are falling, people die in the streets. For nothing. Who cares
about juicy stuff. Who sleeps with whom. And why and how. People are starving, dying from
cancer. Anyhoo, some more words in the machine. While the rain is coming down on this city

45

here. 14 097 words, near noon near noon here. And here is Vancouver, still, ah, still. She might
go out to the airport, watch the planes fly away. Wishing to be somewhere else, where the
weather is better, the people are nicer, the colors are more colorful. everywhere but here. Where
her spiel is to make up stories about novelwriters. The night before, she found this plot generator
based out of the uk, it was really good, you feed your stuff to it, well, actually, you just click and
the app does it itself, somehow, in the end she had this story about a person from Manchester
with granddaughter in berlin, who can change the ways of the world by manipulating the
brownness of brown toast. Very logical story. This is what happens everyday of course. It was
apparently a science fiction genre thingie. And there were two reviews too by enid something
and another source a lit magazine. Yup, that is how you write a novel in this time and age. She
should tell roger, dahlia, annahit, Chandra, nick and whatever the names of all those fictional
characters is. She is reading a book by Orwell online, so those characters are interfering with this
story, she is reading howl, the life of Ginsberg, everything is somehow mushing together. On the
telly, somebody who shot a woman named Danielle. Stories, stories, stories. She was in the gym,
in the mall, twice, she should write a story based in a mall a la mallcop 1 and mallcop 2. Malls
rule, yup, she should go to metrotown. Watch a movie. Life is weird and strange here, especially
if you are an aspiring writer without a publishing deal here. Writing ah writing ah writing.
106.
14 388 words, 11:07 PM.
107.
A LITTLE PART

46

Maybe SHE SHOULD BE DOING SOMETHING ELSE. It is the day after the finals,
she went to the buyback space in the book shop, she got a crisp fiver for THE SUN ALSO
RISES and THE CUSTOM OF THE COUNTRY. The sun also rises apparently was worth three
and a half and the other one one fifty. Weird. The SUN ALSO RISES was so very overused, it
had changed hands multiple times, THE CUSTOM OF THE COUNTRY was crisp and brand
new. apparently the state of the book is not important, its marketability is. Its brand value. Its
recognisability. You pay for the name of the author. Just like you have to pay more for a tattered
Louis Vuitton. The second hand biz vis--vis books, textbooks in a community college, the
forsaken niche of academe, where all the losers go. The old ones, the non-rising stars. The
stagnant philosophers, the poets that no one reads. She got a C+ on her end-of-the termassignment, her dissertation torn to pieces, with marks all over it. That prof does not recognize
valid lit if it hits him in the face. She cringes at the thought of having her amazing solid words
been trampled into oblivion, she cant handle the truth. Well, yuh, her work stinks but that is
irrelevant, this is personal, this means war. I will take my business elsewhere, to the UK, to fsg. I
will pen my acceptance speech for the trip 2 Stockholm, I will ascend on well, some mountain
Parnassus, pantheon, my worlds lack clear thesis, my b. constructive criticism, it does not exist,
you are either with me or not, the words were clear and clear and clear.
Author here got a coffee and a marble loaf bread for the five bucks, there was no tipping
jar so she had to take the rest of the money and put it back in her purse. For some reason the
buyback lady rounded it up, she did not have change, it was like bargaining in a mediaeval
bazaar, the art of the deal, the art of the deal. Author here has parked her car in the Y. hopefully it
will not be towed. She still has five bucks worth of print money stashed in her card, but what is
there to print out. She has read a lot in these four months of studiousness, of studentdom. She has
47

written, well, not that much, not that much. When the plot turns to sides that are unexpected,
unwanted, we dont like that, it hurts, scratchingly. In film it happens fast but reading is a dreary
long and winding road. Requiring patience, longer attention spans. She can use this library till
the twentieth of the month. That is how it is how it is here. The person next to her prints out an
article and a pic of an ice dancer, TAKE IT OUTSIDE-RECYCLE that is what the green sign on
the glass door says. And stop and spellcheck spellcheck.
108.
CHARLENE - Charlene just did her first poetry reading. It was a tad daunting, but it was
fun. Apparently. People clapped. It was in this open mic space in Austin, Texas. A coffee shop.
She had seven minutes and once she was finished, people clapped. Ah, poetry. Her poetry is not
very good and not very bad. She is more an essay writer, poetry is tough. You have to have the
right words distilled. You have to use the right intonations when doing a reading. She is wearing
all black and she has lost weight. So at least she looks good. She wears red lipstick. MAC. Not
too dark and not too light. Not exactly ruby red. More, brown-read. Apparently that goes with her
hair color, her eye color. She wears a shawl, she tries to look conservative. A conservative poet.
An authoritative poet. The woman that oversees all this gestures that the seven minutes are over.
Claps, claps. A thundering applause, well, not quite. Charlene is the last one to read, everybody is
happy that this is over. The foray into the arts by non-artists. By civilians here. Outside it is hot,
even now in the evening. An upcoming tornado somewhere lingering in the air.
109.
The day is just hovering around. On the telly, a movie about a rattle-snake. The person
who is talking about the rattle-snake makes a lot of noise and the music of the movie is very

48

suspenseful. The doc itself is very boring and stagnant and non-colorful. Green and grey and
yellow. Fast talking, fast music. A sitcom would be nicer but the remote control is lying on the
green sofa. Now there are commercials. Outside the sun is shining but in here it is merely typing.
It is a sunny Sunday, Vancouver sunrun day. Tomorrow it will be the Boston marathon.
Apparently this is running season. There is a documentary on running on CNN. Author does not
run, she hardly walks. She works at her novel. Ahaaagh.
110.
15320 words.
111.
Sometime in April.
112.
SUNDAY APRIL 17. 12:49 PM. In front of the computer in the lab in the community
college. Author here has parked her car in the mall, near the department store. On the roof next to
the door to the second floor of the BAY, just where all the fashion happens. The shoe sales, the
fashion sales. Belts and stuff is one story down, home-stuff is in the basement. The powder room
is on second.
She came to the Y, some stationary biking, she came to the college, maybe she will get
back her volume of 5 AMERICAN POETS. The one that has a used sticker on its spine. She has
to put another book there instead. She cannot just take it, once you have given something away
for charity, you cannot take it away. Then again, it was not charity. You put a book there and then
you take a book away. She just put her two books there, so technically it is as if she puts some

49

object somewhere and forgets it in the public realm and then retrieves it. It is her own book after
all. There were 2 books, the other one is not there anymore.
113.
She feels slightly sick.
114.
15 442 words.
115.
CHAPTER FOUR
115.
Novel writers is different from novelists. Poetry writers is different from poets. Just
saying. Outside, still a so very fresh morning, author here had coffee was at the gym, went to the
market and is now back at the writers studio. Everything seems better if you call it a studio,
cooking studio, actors studio, the prosaicness of everyday life is somehow shattered.
116.
15 509.
117.
Late April.
118.
On the telly, BIG BANG.

50

119.
Time to write some more. After a so very hot day. April 19, 2016. Very very hot. She was
all over town. A lot of walking. Ice cream. In rain or shine in kits. They had something called
raspberry ale which was a kind of weird flavor. She opted 4 vanilla, tried and true, though it was
way 2 sweet. The raspberry ale was weird but less sugary. More tart. On Granville island, two
Germans. A man and a woman. Author here ponders, if this is enough descript for a novel. Her
poetry book was not in the book stand anymore. Six American poets, apparently somebody liked
it. She wanted to purchase this book by grass, but then she noticed that somebody had taken the
poetry book and there was no point to put the book by grass onto the bookshelf if she could not
take the poetry book. This is a tad too complicated. She printed out 50 pages in the library,
though apparently the 50th. page did not have any writings on it. She could have printed out the
poetry anthology, but it now was 12 pages long and there would have been two extra pages if she
printed out four copies. Seems that writing is all about how many pages there are in a book.
120.
15 743 words.
121.
4:17 PM.
122.
She went to the IT-department and made them push the right buttons so that she could
send her writings from the computer to the printer. She had an Americano coffee. She stapled the
papers that she had printed out into four different little piles. She numbered her piles from 1 to 4.

51

With a circle around each number. She had a marble loaf, too. Her weight shot up since
yesterday. Two pounds more. That went fast. She will have crackers and cheese. And a glass of
wine. Then again, she has to stay the same weight. How to do this, how to do this? Novelists are
hard drinkers. But not necessarily with chardonnay. Sauvignon blanc maybe? Nah, nothing but
hard liquor will do the trick. If you cant chug tons of vodka you will never make it in lit land.
Vodka, whiskey, Guinness. The drink you prefer shows what kind of scribe you are. What kind of
poetic nature? And writers gotta be male. Apparently, apparently. The typical writer has to be an
alpha-male. Then again there is nothing more effeminate than putting words onto paper with a
dainty feathery pen. That you dip into black ink. Ah, writing writing writing writing.
123.
15 953 words.
She might go to an art opening. In the community college. She likes art openings. You
have to dress up, look at art, nod. Sip vine, munch on cheese and crackers. The problem is that
she cannot drive. Either driving or drinking. And it is kinda tacky to smell like booze on the bus.
124.
Still so very sunny outside. And we have 16 006 words here.
125.
Roger and the stroop wafel. That was her original protagonist. She kind of forgot all
about him. What was his age? He was an aspiring writer, they all were. Novel writers. Not
novelists. Novel writers are a different creed, more like plumbers. People that tackle their art like
a trade. Non-artists. Cooks, not chefs. Reciters of words, not actors. Animators. Doodlers. People

52

who are not blessed by the gods, people who cluck the clock. Who check in and check out. Who
count the words. Who are sure that quantity begets quality. Roger and the stroop wafel.
126.
IN THE ART SKOOL
She is sitting in the library and typing. Near to the books. Some woman sneezes. She
wants 2 fashion her nonnovel. She is not very good @ this. Novels are tuf. Everything has 2
make sense. The characters, the plot. You cannot jump around and if you do it should not be too
jumpy. Stuff has to make sense. The storyline has to be logical. Everything should fall into place.
Which is not how real life happens. In real life nothing ever makes sense. But the stories we tell
each other should march orderly in order to evoke the illusion that we live in an orderly world.
We dont. our real life narrative is surreal. Anyhoo, typing here typing here. The story about the
novel writer named roger who has a stroop wafel in the coffee house on fourth. A stroop wafel.
An Amsterdam style waffle. In a place far away from Amsterdam. Dutch style waffle in north
America. He is a writer. He wants to see his work published. It is not published as of yet. He sits
in the art school where he studied painting and animation. He throws words at the computer.
Author here is feeling weird, she types, she is not quite sure where her own persona ends and the
character she made up out of thin air starts. How can she even describe a person who is so very
different from herself? A young male aspiring writer. Huh huh.
IN THE ART SKOOL 2
Once more, author is back in the art school. It is later in the day. Once more she is sitting
at the computer ready to type up her words. Her influential novel. Her masterpiece. Her shitty
writing. A piece of shit. She learned how to be a visual artist but now writes novels. Her novels
53

are not yet published. But they will be. Where there is a will outside the sun is shining,
outside, Granville island is happening. The art school is getting ready for its foundation show.
She had to laugh when she saw this years picture, all the students which she does not know and
the one prof that she knew. He sure made a bored face, thirty years of teaching does that to you.
Everybody else looked happy but not the teach. Anyhoo, writing, ah, typing. The ice cream place
on kits was not open, it opens at noon. Apparently people do not flock to rain and shine in order
to have postmark raspberry ale flavored gelato in the morning. There is a time for everything and
anything. And the name of the place is rain or shine not rain and shine. It is overpriced but
apparently it is good. If you are not overpriced, you cannot make it in the designer ice-cream biz.
The designer cupcake biz, the designerdonut biz. The designer hot dog biz. Hamburger, pizza,
macaroni and cheese. Beer, wine. Everything designer boutiquey has to be expensive. You are
targeting certain people. So how does that work with writing. Is her writing designer? How are
her thoughts, her insights different from all the other eight billions on this rolling ball here?
Well, not all of them write, that is for sure. People are plumbers or doctors, candlestick makers,
the like and the like. Actors, artists. Cooks, nannies. Teachers, dentists. Artists who paint.
Filmmakers.
Her writing sucks but so does everybody elses. If you sling words, chances are some of
them miss the point. How many intelligent sentences can one person produce? How many semiintelligible convoluted word seas can one throw onto the page? Convoluted word oceans?
Anyhoo, still writing, still typing. She should go back to describing roger. The one who has a
stroop wafel. Who is male and young. Who works for an airline. Who just was in Holland.
Apparently that is how the story went. She is not very good at remembering her plots, her
narratives. They are ever changing. That is not how it should be. If you write about Romeo and
54

Juliet, you cannot suddenly change and write about Hillary and bill. You have to stick to the
names. And it is advisable to just have one person per name per book. One Michael, one Joanna.
It gets confusing if there are three characters called mike. She got that from watching king of
queens. In this one episode, Lou Ferigna says to Arthur that the problem with his screenplay is
that there are 3 characters named mike. And no person called sandy as the title implies. It was a
funny scene. Author here starts chuckling while typing which is kind of weird in a public place.
She has a stomach ache. And she types ah types here. 537 words in one sitting, not bad not bad
here.
So So
So maybe this is a good enough place to type. The library in the community college is
closed but somebody left the door to the computer lab open and author here just went in.
apparently she can access her computer from this place too, apparently if you are a student you
are able to use any computer you want or need. Who would have known. So now we can type up
our masterpiece from this place. Great. She has a new idea for a plot, she will follow a food
writer. Apparently there is a job called food writer, not a food blogger, not a food maker, not a
food eater, not a food critique, nope, a food writer. And there are web sites that employ food
writers. Well, apparently you have to be knowledgeable, author here read this article by a food
writer on boozy ice cream. It was very good and so very informative. The author now is writing
for a different food conglomerate, apparently these are the Huffington posts of food. Except in
that they are not about politics like huffington post is but they are about food. And they have
different contributors who get paid. Like food journalists. Restaurant critics. The article about
boozy ice cream was so very interesting, in the end author went to this ice cream place on fourth
and had a boozy ice cream. It has an aftertaste though and kind of gave her a headache. And it
55

had this aftertaste even while she was having the kiddie scoop. Somehow it did not feel right, it
was somehow out of kilter. It had raspberry ale in it, from this micro-brewery. And microbreweries can be shifty too. She has to do some more research, all she knows that this ice cream
makes her feel somehow woozy. Then again, all kinds of booze make her woozy, aftertastyish,
uncomfortable. She cannot hold her liquor and apparently that goes even if it is in ice-cream. A
woman came in and smiled at her. Hopefully she will not ask her for computerlab ID. That
happens usually with strangers who are overly nice for no apparent reason, next thing you know
she will complain about her intensive, excessive typing. Which is pretty loud here in this lab,
maybe this is not really the place where authors pen their masterpieces. In the old times writers
used pen and paper, nowadays they type; loudly, yup, that is how it is how it is. She should once
more write about her main character, roger is his name. He eats a stroop wafel. Yup, and do not
forget that.
STILL IN APRIL
Writing is a toughie. On the telly, Princes death. Outside, the rain that is still there. April
shower day. In the sink, dishes piling up. Upstairs, dirty clothes. Tomorrow should be laundry
day. She drove by her old art school, they have the opening for the foundation show. But they
were not open yet. She saw this young artist going to the show, the one who was really good,
who had a mini-show in the media room.
Author here left the visual arts and tries her hand at writing. With not any success so far.
She is not good at describing stuff. And stuff is not happening. Apparently, Hillary likes mystery
novels. Everybody loves mystery novels. Novels about unsuccessful writers do not cut it. There
has to be blood, something like that. On the telly, Seinfeld. Laughs. Author here has to sit still to
nurse her left ankle. Which is annoying. Apparently too much exercise does that to yer.
56

127.
Laughs on the telly, Seinfeld ah Seinfeld. She feels like going out and buying a tub of icecream and eating it in front of the tv. A perfect scenario for a Friday evening in april, ice cream,
huh. She hates watching her weight, all this watching does not really get her anywhere. She is
still fat, happily chubby. Round, not stick-figurish. But hey, still alive, who would have thought?
128.
17 593 words.
129.
8:44 PM.
130.
April 22, 2016
131.
April 24, 2016. A Sunday morn. Songs from 1963, 61 or even before that time. Another
time. Italiana, bambino mia, buonna notte, ich war noch niemals in new York. And in between all
this nostalgia, times gone by, an era gone, ads that are very much signs of our times, when the
moon hits something like a big piece of pizza, this was even before the beatles, bfore strange
days and jim morrisons suicide, wow, we are all old here, collective ageyness, wow.
132.

57

Still a lot of dishes piling up, that is when you are transplanted back to simpler times,
when there was late nite and radio Luxemburg until the wee-hours of the morn. Another song,
about Napoli, Sophia loren mambo italiano, very catchy a-tune.
133.
Fun in schlager-land. And the dishes are a-waiting, ahhhhhh.
134.
She should go back to the narrative about the writers, roger and the stroop wafel.
Something like bill and the beanstalk and his name was not bill. How can you possibly write a
novel when everything and anything is smushing together here, craziness is so oblivious and fun.
An Italian-american song mixed with euro-trashyness, new York, Americano, a certain kind, a
certain flavor, anyhoo, typing here. How to be a scribe after hemingway, how to carve out a
niche post-all the greats or whatever passes as greatness, tv, pop, well the whole world is under
purple rain. No more Bernie and sanders 4 a while, no dump trump, the world has suddenly stood
still, it is this weird time when april showers let out and may is not quite here.
135.
She can still go to all these art shows all over town.
136.
17881 @ 9:33, AM-time. It is nite now in berlin.
137.
In the morning in the library of the community college. It is a Monday, the beginning of
the week. This is her workplace. Where she fashions stories outta thin air. Where she makes up
58

characters and then forgets about them. Her main characters name was roger. So much she
remembers. Roger and the stroop wafel. Kind of like jack and the bean stalk. Which is an equally
meaningless title. Titles are all meaningless. Hamlet. What does that even mean. Have you ever
in your whole life come upon a person named hamlet? A hamlet is a place, a little place of
habitance in the wilderness. A borough. That is what a hamlet is. Othello. Whoever is called
Othello? Romeo and Juliet, how come they are the epitome of male-female relationship? They do
not even have a child to further the species. Stories are just a lot of hogwash. And we love them.
Prince, his dramatic demise in an elevator, getting struck from the common flu. And refusing to
go to the doctor. Which is what most people tend to do, it will be ok tomorrow, and sometimes it
is not. Jim Hansen died young like that too. Many people die like that, they think that they are
invincible which is normal, why would a young person even go to those tedious doctor
appointments. It is just unheard of that a cold will kill yer. But sometimes it does you in. Which
has nothing to do with the talking about how to write a novel. Author here is all over the place,
she weaves things that are on the news into her storyline. Her main storyline apparently is the
difficulty, the struggle to write a novel. Which was kind of an outcome of this American lit class
that she took at the local community college. The one where she got a B minus. The one that was
about poetry and novels. It makes her try her hand at poetry and at novels. It makes her write.
The lit class made her into a writer, we can do that, try your hand at being a literary genius. Well,
this novel is not going anywhere as of yet. We cannot have a reading as of yet. We are not
published as of yet. We do not have a publishing contract as of yet. Well, maybe we should just
write the damn thing, concentrate on constructing the story. So this is all about the makers of
texts, producers of novels. Hence this is arbitrarily titled the novelwriters. There are different
writers, different personas. They kind of mirror authors own story. So there are stories within the

59

story. This is all so very confusing here. She will have a mint tea. So much we can master. In the
morning, author here had difficulties when ordering her coffee in the coffee house down on
arbutus. She could not describe the piece of cake that she wanted, that swirly thing, the marble
loaf, the name of the black and yellowy thing is chocolate marble loaf, apparently and it is new
here in Canada or at least new here in this neighborhood. Apparently you can get it on the east
coast and anywhere down in the states. Anyhoo, the funny thing was that author here had probs
with the language, mainly because she was watching all those german songs on you tube. She
suddenly was back in Hamburg, thirty years ago, more like thirty-five years. In a place where
people conversed in anything but English. In hamburg you speak platt, and that is it.
Anyhoo, wrapping this up, a man walks by, author here weighs too much, that is what the
scales in the Y said, wrap this up wrap this up wrap this up here. Go to the Y and take your car.
500.
she is sitting in the art skool. In the library. Typing ah typing. She has parked her car all
the way in metrotown and hopefully they will not tow it away. She has to stay here because there
is a talk in an hour that she wants to listen in to, it is a representation, no wait presentation for the
job of the dean for foundation, there are 4 of those and today is the first. It is always interesting
to know what those people in the art school think about teaching art, they are usually dead on
wrong but that is not really important. The view, the perspective of students and alumnae is
totally different from the perspective of a prof, but that is not really important. Because it is good
to know how the people who grade you think and what makes them tick. If push comes to shove
you cannot teach art, you can make art. But let us face it, art has always been taught, apparently
it takes more skill to hold a piece of crayon than a five-year-old can master. That is why this is an
institutionalized education thingie where you can even get doctorates. For different reasons not
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only medical doctors get doctorates. Who can really fathom why that is. author here does not
have her glasses, she can hardly make out the letters on the keyboard, she certainly cannot read
what she has written without glasses, though you can zoom in apparently and then read what you
have written. But these days she types up what she wants to be part of her novel and then goes
back in there at a later time to edit out her obvious mistakes. She is not that much of an editor
anyways, she just corrigiers the orthographical stuff, lets the grammar hang. Temperamental
grammar is poetic, makes the reading more fun. Reading is a chore 4 lots of people, mainly
because we live in a world where tv rules. Still. We let us be entertained by a screen, be it a
phone or a laptop or a telly screen. These ever-changing rectangles run our lives somehow. We
listen in to what they have to say. We type into them. We talk to them. The screen is our social
world. We try to avoid other people. That is why we drink. Or eat sweets. In authors case
drinking is not really something she does, she is more a teetotaler. Which is apparently how
nondrinkers function in these countries here. In muslim countries and in jewish countries you do
not drink, period, but in countries like this you are a teetotaler whatever that is. Mennonites et al.
when she was in italy she had vino all thru the day, at lunch, at dinner, all three weeks in turin
and Milan and asta and alba she was never really sober. Vino vino with everything, rose, red, or
white. Fermented grapejuice that makes you dizzy and makes you talk way too much. The
happiness of a holidays. It is good that she does not live there, she would have a totally ruined
life, after all she will be 51 in may. If she had drunk all her life, her life would have been over by
now. Not
1100.
it was funny 2 have been a student here in this skool. She enters the art school library, by
ppl she knew and that she tries to avoid. 2 avoid. They have all gone grey by now, it is weird,
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strange, to notice these persons who have apparently aged over nite. Well, she has not seen them
4 the last seven years, so, no, they have aged over seven years, but the thing is, that author here
has seen them for the last time seven years ago, when they did not have lines in their faces, when
they all looked like fresh faced college students. Now they are suddenly old, they are all grey,
hunched over, with bald spots, the women less so, as a woman you can always dye your hair or
wear make-up or dress youthfully in leggings as if you are a five-year old going to preschool
dance class in heathers park. But as a guy, huh, you cannot really get away with dying your hair
or you risk looking like a caricature. That is good for Donald trump, if your name is Donald you
have the association of a cartoon character anyways and you are free to milk that. Any publicity
is good publicity, the guy will sail into the white house without even trying. He was against the
Iraq invasion that alone is good enough for the majority of americans, lefties and righties alike.
Sanders will not get the nomination, so you will all vote for the next best thing, another old rich
white guy, trump. Basically there is no dif between a trump and a sanders, sanders is from
Vermont, for gods sake, land of privilege, even though he has a thick Brooklyn accent. White
guys make it down in the states, this is why author here never ran 4 office anywhere.
She is back in the art skool, there will be a talk at lunch, people are fighting for dean ship
in this place. There will be 4 presentations by potential applicants, she has sat-in to one, which
was internal, so apparently the next 3 will be by external candidates. Whatever that means, today
is the last day of the foundation show, author here should really look around, especially at the
three artworks that she liked most.
In the morning in Starbucks the person behind the counter asked her if she works at the
art skool, so apparently she looks like someone who worked here. So maybe she should try out
for that. If you look the part, then, maybe, you can play the part. Like an actor who is positioned
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in a certain part. How do people who work in an artskool look like? Well, there are all kind of
faces ages, genders, races. Yup, she could work here, she knows some things about art, knows
that you use the letters A and R and T, to spell the word, apparently that is more than enough to
be employed at this place. Let us face it, in an art school nobody knows what is going on, the
subject taught is way to elusive, art, what does that even mean?
1101.
it is midmorning on a dreary rainy day in Vancouver on April the thirtieth in two
thousand and sixteen. Wow, we are old here.

1102.
So we are sitting here and typing this up. She listened in to the woman from Leiden. Her
writings has problems.
Mostly with the formatting, not so much with the contents. Maybe old-fashioned
typewriters have their merits. She pasted something but it got cut off mid-sentence and the rest is
somehow living in the clouds. The text that got lost forever. Once you delete it it does not exist
anymore. And if you select it and copy it and paste it, there is a problem if you do not select all
the words. Ah technology, ah technology. Even in Friends, Ross did not save his speech at the
dinosaur convention and the other guy who now plays in the remake of the odd couple deleted it,
the Canadian guy who is married to the woman who was in the Bruce Springsteen video.
Anyhoo, it seems somebody is watching way too much tv here. Stroopwafel, stroop wafel
and stroopwafel. Apparently the woman from Leiden wants to leave stroopwafel-country, but

63

author here has no sense why anybody would do that. Isnt Amsterdam the bomb? And how far is
Leiden really from Amsterdam? But maybe some provincial town with a windmill in the
Netherlands does not cut it. Her writing is all mangled up. She has to print it all out in order to
fix this problem.
777.
THE EVE
So this is a beaut. A sunny afternoon if there ever was one. The last day of April. Yellow
sun. Everything golden. The supermarket. The drive down Arbutus to the market. The walk thru
the market. So much to see. So many objects. Allan Ginsberg wrote an ode to the California
supermarket. Author here picks out juice and ice cream. Pink ruby red juice. No pulp. The big
container. They are all out of smaller containers. Then on to the ice creams. A man in a green
shirt and another one. The green shirt is more interesting, it is greyish. Not olive, more green
grey. Washed out. It signals summer. Summer when you do not really have time for laundry.
Casualness, flip-flops. Lazy Sunday afternoons. It is actually Saturday, somewhere between six
and seven, there is a wait in the market. Waiting for a lazy long weekend. For a writer, all days
are weekend days. Or workdays for that matter. The market sings its poetic songs. She will come
here later on, when it is after eleven. When people still gather to get chips and salsa. This market
does not sell booze. It is not like the markets down in California that always had booze.
Supermarkets. Suburbia. But even the ones in the inner-city yell out suburbia. The burbs are in a
neatly arranged supermarket. The car in the parking lot. The sun shining. The cashier has a too
red lipstick. And back it is to the typing machine. On the telly, people hitting each other. A fast
paced movie. The main actor is very young, he is much much older by now. An eighties movie.
This is part of her writingish master piece. She has to feed a certain amount of words to this
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machine. So this is it. 299 words so far. On the telly, the news 4 Boston. The ten oclock news in
Boston. Manchester. On the other side of the continent. Massachusetts. What to make of that?
How 2 wax poetically about that. Dorchester, firefighters. Roxbury. Billerica, Sheridan street.
So late
So late for writing while the telly is on, while parts of French connection come on on you
tube. She watched two parts of the ed oneill interview, tomorrow she will watch the third part. It
was after ten when she drove down to the market. Not many people, she got green beans and
chips. And then the drive home. There is more to that, there is a whole movie in that. Describing
everything, the lights, the people, the cars. The deserted streets after ten on a Saturday eve. The
store and all the products. The aisles in the supermarket. The cashier whose name is taryn or
tanya. The person with the sparkly non-alcoholic beverages. So much to see in a store. So much
to describe. A test in writing. Well, she is not good at this. Telling a story is not her thing. She
paints, she draws. Takes photos with her phone. Movies. The words come slowly. On the telly, a
commercial.
She started out describing novel writers. Not novelists, nope, novel writers sounds so
much better. More crafty. People who construct novels. Bohemians, romantic scribes. Who craft
narratives and cannot cut it. Who never get published. Who keep at it anyways. The journey is
what counts, the voyage.
There is
There is a marathon going on, all of 49th. is blocked. A half-marathon in downtown, a half
marathon up here in the boonies. Volunteers all in blue, near the water station. Author here
weighs 30 pounds more than she did in summer, she has to get that down. It is more about the
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food, cutting out ice-cream, chips. She has 58 words on this sunny sunny morn in may.
Apparently today is international bookstore day, independent bookstore. Strands in nyc is
participating. We write here write here. Her laptop informed her of that bookstore thingie, timeout nyc targets her automatically. And we type here, a book to put in your bookstore. Your
independent bookstore. An independent writer writing an independent book. What does
independence even mean? Everything is interconnected, she has 129 words while hammering
away in this darkened room on a sunny marathon morning in early May. She hums to herself
while typing up her masterpiece. 157 words. She has to say something slightly philosophical in a
world where everything philosophical has been said before. By better minds. Published minds.
Minds that matter. Male minds. White minds. 188 words.
The story of this book was about novelwriters. What they do, what they think, the like,
the like. There was this fictional roger person who just came all the way from Amsterdam to
Vancouver. He was male and young. That is all we got here. How do fiction writers do it, how do
they remember the specifics of their plot characters? Outside the sun is shining, apparently the
marathon is starting to rage. She has haricots verts to cut up, she bought a big plastic bag from
Salinas, in the market at eleven in the eve. Gotta cut those up and cook them. 291 words, 291
words. Dispatches from novel writingish land here, that is as good a title as any. How do writers
do it? Do they have booze first thing in the morn, are they chain smokers? Do they live
extravagant lives, eccentric lives? She should really start giving interviews. She watched 3 hours
of Al Bundys interviews at the American academy for tv, it is on you tube. 359 words. Maybe
she should have a latte in the coffee shop on arbutus. She had a coffee already and a marble loaf
on 41st. but somehow you have to consume many more coffees if you are a writer. Until you get
all jittery. Two nites before she slept at 4 in the morning, apparently that is what scribes do,
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poets, artists. They fight with the muse. Whatever the muse is. She could not sleep, mainly
because she fell asleep during the day on the couch in front of the telly. Does that count as
erratic, eccentric life or is it pure laziness. Is the life of a couch potato erratic enough, artistic
enough. The romantic figure of the artiste is so weird and strange, it kind of paints artists as
marginal figures. Whereas in reality these are self-employed contract workers, nothing more,
nothing less. The poets of our societies. The writers, the scribes. The ones that should cement the
status quo or question the status quo. Those ones those ones. She weighs 190, she has to go down
to 160. Well, at least. 130, 125 would be better. 60 lbs. to lose. How do we do this, how the f. do
we do this? 563 words, dirty dishes pile up in the sink. 572 words here.
May first 2016, words and words and words and words here.
1033.
22 095 words. She now just types up each and every days allotment and then copies and
pastes it into the main text. This is how this works forward. She will then edit this all in one big
swoop. She never used to work like this, but you have to try different things to keep it fresh. To
not keel over. From boredom, exhaustion, the repetitiveness of picking at little squares on a
keyboard. Writers congregate, they do readings, they all live in the village. Any village. The
village in New York. Writing has to happen in New York. It is todays Bloomsbury. Poets that
booze, that hover around in the metropolis. Suburban moms shall not apply. And if they do, they
have to type-up domesticityish stuff. Males are better with domesticity. They are fascinated by
what is in the fridge. Author here has to lose weight. Get rid of that Jerry Garcia thing. Ahhhaa,
maybe, time to go down to the market once more here.
3333.

67

The feel
The feel of a Sunday morn, a quarter to nine. Once more, in the market, she is getting ice
cream, a box of Kleenex, a cucumber from the organic section and two hothouse tomatoes that
are still on the vine. She is not quite sure where the nonorganic produce is, this cucumber must
be more expensive.
LATER IN THE DAY
Some weird time between lunch and dinner, between day and nite. On the telly, some
black and white show, the computer sings in Italian, she has to sit here but would rather go out
and join the living. She is waiting here, somebody will drop by, she hates this, the waiting, shed
rather meet in a public place, a caf, downtown, where the waiting is not that visceral, where you
can peoplewatch in order to cut down on waiting time. Waiting by yourself in a room is so
trying, it makes you old before your time, it is like you are doing time in isolation, she is not
good at socializing, she gets into power struggles with people, she has opinions and tends to
share them. Sometimes that does not sit well with people, it is not writing where you can edit
what you say. She hates the stagnation of waiting. 212 words, her text marches forward, no
storyline as of yet, she will take the storytelling class, maybe they will teach her how to construct
a narrative. Still may first, still 1916. Sorry, 2016.
5.
May third. In 2016. She is back in the library of the community college. She is not quite
sure if she should take the English class in this place. It will interfere with summer because it is a
class from May to September. It is a difficult class. Something about video games. Author here is
no gamer. And all the writing is online. She has to figure that out. And then she has to stay put in
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Vancouver. She cannot really travel what with class, school. No I heart NY for her, no European
vacay. Just a wedding somewhere in Utah. She has to renew her passport. Travelling the world
seems like more fun than sitting in class. Twice a week, for four months. In the A-building, on
the third floor. Her prof seems very enthusiastic, which is so very addictive. The word is not
addictive, there is another word that connotes that you get a disease from another person.
Communicable maybe. His enthusiasm is communicable, you catch the bug of being equally
enthralled with video gaming. Author ponders, is there not an expiration date for the fascination
with video games. It is some kind of sport, like baseball, basketball. Soccer. Video gaming is not
a spectator sport. But apparently you can take this class even if you are not taken by the game. It
is all about analyzing the storyline of each and every game. The underlying narrative. She can
come here and work on her amazing novel and then prepare for the class. Should be doable
doable.
777.
She
She still has some minutes 2 kill, well actually next 2 an hour. Until the presentation in
245 in the south building. Wait, it is the north building, nb 4 short. She loves it here, maybe. She
went to school here, got a piece of paper and no job security whatsoever, you cannot be
employed with a degree in fine arts. It does not happen. You are unemployable. As an artist. You
can be a secretary or you can work in retail, or you can be your own boss. Apparently, there are
options but author here vied 4 being a writer. An unsuccessful one. With a huge output. Yuyp, we
are prolific which does not really help as of yet. Her musings are unpublishable, apparently,
apparently. Rejections, rejections. E-rejections. She is trying to get hold of this book by a guy
named Nigel Williams, it is about a writer and the rejections he gets from publishers. An aspiring
69

novelist or something. She ponders if the title has connotations to this poem by Emily Dickinson,
but first she has to find the book. It was written in 1977. Wow, three decades ago.
This place is always nice. The book about the Himalayas on the shelf opposite of the
computer. Some things never change. Continuity makes her happy. The same food at certain
times, these days it is a chocolate marble loaf and a pike place, tall. There was this discussion
with the slight woman in the Starbucks in Safeway in Oakridge, apparently there are other
pastries, too, that are marbled, chocolate marbled. Well, maybe not chocolate marbled, but
merely chocolate. Chocolate chunk, chocolate croissant, tons of chocolate. She is wearing her
glasses, she took them with her. Next thing we have to have those spectacles with a chain around
our neck, like a lady wanting to play bingo. George Costanza has ladies glasses, and Seinfeld
makes fun of him, you know the scene. Apparently, everyone who reads these her words has to
have watched Seinfeld, it is a must. Required reading, required watching. 342 words here, 342
words.
Later.
22 037 words. May 4, 2016.
STILL LATER.
Somewhere between day and night, the sun is still up, outside greenery with bright spots,
on the telly, Seinfeld, the computer sings about football in German, all this noise pollution should
make for writing up the right words, mainly because of escapism, writing is physical, not
intellectual. You just type and type. Later on you can go back and make it right.
She was in the art school and listened in to a presentation by a woman who wants to
become dean. It was more like a performance, theater at noon. That is what she got from the art
70

school, all this sitting in darkened rooms, like in a cinema. Looking at what is up on the screens.
On the telly an ad for some kind of cleaning solution for the interior and the exterior of cars, in a
yellow, green and orange gallon bottle, now a song about a count of Luxemburg, all kinds of
weird and strange songs. An ad for jewelry, a ring with a 1- carat diamond on it. 22 217 words
here, in one month. Still no plot, no real plot. Mainly the writer running after a plot that does not
really substantiate. That is elusive and ever changing. She goes a lot to the market these days,
actually to different markets all over town. There is something about all the food items, the
possibility of thinness and the possibility of fatness, the possibility of health and the possibility
of disease and premature death. Overindulgence and under indulgence. You can be anorexic and
you can be fat phobic. Fat phobic and anorexic is the same. Her writing is illogical. 22 314
words, she will go down to the coffee house on Arbutus.
91.
22323 words.
93.
Walking by the greenery, by all of the cars that are rushing by, rushing home. A woman
all in white runs on the other side of the street, all midriff, basketball cap, elegance in running.
Her outfit a fashion statement, not so much thinness than glamour. Author here walks by the old
peoples home, a woman in grey scrubs is having a cigarette. Walking down to the market, trying
to avoid this woman that she knows from somewhere and cant remember where from, walking
to the chips aisle, by all the mega bags, the long tubes in all flavors, getting a Pringles original,
the small kind. It will not make her sick, one can muster to have that amount of chips in one
sitting. It will make you fat but it will not make yer sick. She walks back to the coffeehouse; she

71

is thinking about what to write. When she had the coffee in the coffee place she was looking at
all the stroopwafels, she should be able to make a story out of that, Amsterdam-style waffle, she
could go back to her original character, her protagonist. Someone named Roger. Kind of a weird
character, and definitely surreal. How do writers do this? How can they grab plots outta thin air,
make up persons that do not exist? Who live in worlds that do not exist in reality. Like the vast,
weird strange realities in video games. On planets that do not exist. Unreal worlds in art.
Creations that have weird colors that are unrealistic. Images that do not resemble the real world.
But people churn out novels constantly, how difficult can it be?
DIANNE
Dianne is a famous author; she is giving a reading at Strands. at seven in the evening. In
April. It is not a panel discussion, nope, it is just her, she is the star of the event. Her new book is
out. The New York Times gave it a favorable review. Outside it is kind of rainy, misty. Her
writing is fun but it is more fun to do this while her books sell. It is not so much fun to lose her
anonymity, but she actually still can ride her bike all over New York City, run in Central Park,
she is a nobody in this specific city, here people do not have time to ask her about her books. And
besides, who really reads in America? People watch what flickers over a screen, they take selfies,
everybody is busy with his or her own stuff. Dianne writes because it is the only thing she knows
how to do. People come in, sit down on the beige and brown chairs on the fourth floor of the
bookstore. She is wearing a blue dress, she is kind of uncomfortable in a dress. It has a certain
formality but it is kind of a non-artsy outfit. More like what a flight attendant would wear, she
only needs a pillbox hat. She smiles politely and starts reading. It is a good passage, all flowery
and expressive. Painting with words that comes easy to her. The logic of the story usually lacks
substance; it jars all over the pages. She is wearing her pearl earrings; she wonders if she looks
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writerly enough. Her voice crackles, she is still fighting the remnances of a cold. Her voice is
husky, crackly. She gets through the reading, now it is question period. A woman in green asks
about the protagonist, a serious young man asks about her writing process. She answers by
outlining her routine, her daily routine. Coffee first thing in the morn, a piece of cake, then the
gym. And back to the typing machine, feeding in about 1100 words. Then a walk, lunch, usually
a diet meal, microwaved. Twice a week she teaches at the City College in New York, she loves
the structure. And then she changes the tone, she talks about using a penname and why she
refrained from doing so. Her name is not really a writerly name; it is more a soccer mom name.
557.
23 018 words. Eight and eleven in the evening on April four in 2016. On the telly, the
news. Donald trump et.al. a man in a British accent gives his account of the presidential race. A
scene from Indianapolis. Brazil impeachment.
912.
23 060 words.
911.
ANTON (antoine, maybe)
Anton went to Tisch. He graduated exactly seven years ago. He is good at tending bar.
Not good at furthering his art career. He does not penetrate the art market. He lives in Portland,
Oregon. Which is so far from everywhere, anywhere. If you are in the arts, you have to stay in
nyc. You cannot micromanage your art career from so far away. The hinterland is the hinterland.
Everything happening is in nyc. The metropolis of art. Or London, Berlin, Shanghai, Tokyo,

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certainly art does not happen here in the boonies. Miami, maybe, what with Art Basel. Basel
maybe. Ok, so his assertation is kinda wrong, but it is kinda right too. He writes these dats which
does not go anywhere either. He is good at tending bar. His mom would be so proud. He is
exhausted, he might just move back to nyc, somewhere near to his old alma mater. Every alma
mater is old. Lady gaga made it outta tisch. Well, his art career is not happening, this one he
knows for sure. And he is young and white and male and looks like a hipster. It is still not
happening. His grades were not good enough, not high enough for a grad degree. Art school
managed to bring down his grades. Aarrrggghhh. outside the weather is fine, he types up his
masterpiece. 227 words. Here.
LATER LATER LATER LATER.
In the library in the community college. Pondering whether to register in the summer
course about video gaming. There is still time until May 8 at nine in the evening. That is when
add and drop ends. The course is about storytelling in video gaming and it opposes Roger Eberts
view that video gaming is not an art form, or better, videogames are not art, they are games just
like soccer is, chess is, baseball, basketball. Ah, potayto, potahto. The course seems very good,
the problem is, that it seems like a lotta work too. And one has to stay put, no travelling. In the
hot summer months. She will have less time to work on writing her masterpiece and is that really
something she wants to fester onto humanity. One less masterpiece in the pantheon, her great
work unwritten. Maybe one cannot really decipher novel writing, one just has to come to this
place and start typing up whatever one feels like. Somehow it will crystallize into a great novel,
the plot will write itself. Ed ONeill said that if you put an actor in the right space, the right
place, he will act like the guy in taxi driver whose name author here does not recall. One of the
greats, you know, the one who played in the intern and who started up the Tribeca Film Festival
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and who has an Italian name. no, not Marlon Brando. Anyhoo, typing, typing against the music
from the computers, against the chilliness in here, against the fledgling stickiness that subsides
mainly because it is a sunny Thursday afternoon and people go home to go to the pub. Yup,
boozing, beach bumming, pot. Which is actually not how young minds work, she is at five thirty
sharp in front of the Starbucks in Kerrisdale and all the people opening the door 4 her are young
young young. First thing in the morn-people. A person sits next to her and he talks to the person
next to him. This is a place where quiet should rule, this is a place where would-be-dostojevskies
pen their masterpieces. The three people next to her laugh and talk, the guy tells the girls to be
quiet, apparently author did elude an air of disapprovement and because she has grey hair she
gets respect without even trying. But her novel sucks nonetheless, no plot, no plot no plot as of
yet.
Ranyyy
23 706 words @ 5:47 PM, while the sun is shining outside, while her car is parked in the
Y and hopefully not towed as of yet.
EVENING EVENING in may (may 5)
On the telly, a sitcom. Laughs galore. She has chips, pringles. Outside the day is ending
up, blueish, in need of light world, still contrasts of greenery against the, well, actually she can
merely see white flowers in shrubs and all of it is kind of in a shiny mirror image because the
window glass has the reflection of the interior of this room in it. And still, another episode of two
and a half men, the one with Ashton Kutcher. The lesser two and a half men according to the
peoples consentus. The word is not consentus, but now she remembers the name of Robert de
Niro. Shooting 4 words is tough, in this predementia-age.

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YUP.
DINAH
She moved from Pittsburgh to Italy and calls herself Dina. Without an h at the end, she
wants it to sound italianish. She wears summery dresses and flip-flops. Or sandals. Flip-flops do
not really go with Italian romanticism, they are too stateside. She is working on becoming a
writer which is not working out very well. She is kind of bored, it is not very interesting here.
Driving a fiat with stick shift, that is new and exiting the first time. The supermarket here is the
same as back in Pittsburgh. Everything seems just mere slow, just like in any cul-de-sac in
suburbia. To be an empty nester with vino or sans vin, shmeh, it is basically the same. Her
marriage is on hiatus, staying apart is just more easy if you lived together 4 forty-one years. You
cannot really take a lawyer and divide your stuff up, the only one who profits from that is the
team of lawyers and there is not enough money to go around. A divorce is a luxury that you can
afford when you are young. At age 61 you just have to agree to disagree. You try to avoid each
other and enjoy the world. The Italian sunshine for instance, the little church on the hill, the
grapevine hills. She has a lotta vino, one day white, one day rose, one day red. She works on her
masterpiece but the story just lingers. There is no story to be told, all stories worth telling have
been told already. But she types each and every day, at least 1000 words. Lots of days 2000,
3000. Depends on how nimble her fingers feel, there are hints of arthritis that stilt her typing.
Especially her right middle finger does not like the typing, it is the one that has to push the
keyboard buttons the most. That is how she types, peck and choose, she is not one of those ten
finger virtuosos. Nope, it is the middle finger of the right hand, and the middle finger of the left
hand, one is doing all the work and the other one just plays the accompanying notes. Her hair is
too long and too wild these days, she cannot even comb it, the water here makes her hair go all
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wild. Like the hair of Monica in Friends at the trip in Barbados, where ross is giving the key note
speech at a dinosaur conference. She watches reruns of friends, Seinfeld, Married with Children
on you tube. She watches the biggest loser or super skinny versus super, well, fat. Her life is
pathetic. The food in the agrotourismo is so so, sometimes it is very good, usually it is just barely
making it. Too greasy, too salty, whoever is the cook here is just temperamental. Apparently
different people just try their hand at cooking, the young woman from morocco who wants to be
an anesthesiologist is the worst. She mainly has her head in her textbooks, in between she does
the bare minimum in cleaning or cooking. She is a happy one though, always engaged, always
happy always snarky. Of course that is how you are if you avoid repetitious house work,
drudgery as much as possible. Author here knows that, she herself just tried to do the absolute
minimum of domestic chores. There is not much to do in a house, Martha Stewart and her ilk be
damned. Men like chopping and cleaning more anyways. It is a male trait to think that the grass
is always greener, it is an equally female trait. It is a human trait, we just long 4 what we can
never have. Italy, how did she ever end up in Italy. Her foremothers, her forefathers were
Vikings, she is as straw blond as they come. No brunette sofia lorenishiness 4 her, she looks
plain and bla. Not even sun kissed, just too white-ish. Dina, huh. First she said Dinah with an h at
the end, which was weird like a 60-s porn star, wholesome, but really not. Then there was Dinah
shore, but whatever dina is, it is just some name that smacks of vespas and shawls around your
head. She feels so outta place and in the supermarket even the old people talk with their
grandkids as if they are a sketch, a caricature in an Italian film by mastroianni, all hand gestures
and face tilting. Mastroianni was an actor not a director, but according to Wikipedia he did both,
la strada luigo, Fellini, her cinematic knowledge is zero zilch. Italian movies have to be black
and white and they have to make no sense whatsoever, twisted struggles with amore, everything

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has to be from the sixties. Her writing sucks, mainly because she lives in some nostalgia bubble
that is fed by her total isolation. She says hi and bye 2 people she hardly knows and she does not
want to know. She just wants to be a famous writer and that will never ever happen. All
publishers can sense, all agents too, that she is merely a bored housewife, a worn out soccer mom
that does not have any soccer practice left to drive to, because all the soccer players have long
ago left and besides they used to play field hockey or baseball. It is just you and your writing.
She tried her hand at painting, she was very good but she went to this school that reprogrammed
all of the visual artists into literary greats who wrote about other people painting. You learn how
to describe visual arts instead of producing visual arts, how sick is that.
SO TODAY
So today is May 6, she is once more in the library in the community college, this is her
second invasion of the computer lab. Her seat is way too low, and she has her mint citrus jade tea
next to her. She had her second marble cake piece of the day, she just merely will have a
cheeseburger in the drive-thru at five or so. Then she will scoff it up in the lower level of the
parking lot in the drugstore on east boulevard. Yup. Everything is pathetic, but apparently that is
how you lose weight by eating your food hush hush, throw the other half away, the secrecy, the
mysteriousness is what makes yer lose weight, just like magic. It needs peter falk as Colombo to
find out how she did it, weight loss, she wrote. There has to be dedication, a singlemindedness,
this is an operation that is worth Oppenheimers input. Yup, the ultimate Manhattan project, how
to lose 20 pounds and how to keep it off. It needs dedication, it needs no social life whatsoever, it
needs an obsessiveness that even hardboiled ocd-ers have to study, admire, songs will be sung
about her weight loss, the woman next to her is irritating, how come these people sit exactly next
to u when there are rows and rows of empty seats. And she throws her dirty long hair around,
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yuck, do not throw it on me. There are seats and seats but no, she has to hover next to author
here, geez. how can we pen the next big thing when some weirdo is hugging our place here?
There has to be a minimum of personal space, author here will never understand people. They
are the worst. Look at it, there are rows and rows of empty seats in this lab, why on earth does
this woman plump herself next to her. They all do, they apparently long 4 parental guidance,
author here is the old one, they congregate to her as if she is some mother hen. That is not true, I
am a writer, a gifted poet, the future Nobel laureate. Not somebody who will give yer a ride to
soccer practice. I am the star now; I will not make sure that you are the star. And the woman
walks too near to her, personal space, personal space, mind the gap. And all the time she is
throwing her too long hair around, yuck, nobody wants your hair on them, geez. Author here has
to change her seat, apparently she will not be able to pen her next best thing under these
circumstances. The tea rots silently away, next to the keyboard. 449 words, she had 449 words
and she did not even describe what happened at the coffee station, there was a guy in front of her,
in a hard hat with stickers thereon, one of the construction workers of the new building, he was
holding his glasses in his mouth, while playing with his fone and giggling, the way that he held
his glasses was very interesting, he seemed to bite on one side of it so that the glasses were
firmly in place, the glasses were security glasses and they had a longer than normal shaft so that
they stay in place when doing construction, he had work boots too and paint splattered jeans, or
maybe specks of cement, dried concrete, anything, some white, sandy specks, there were lots of
construction workers there, and many students and the workers in the coffee shop, the students
were all dressed up and super elegant, the construction workers all fuzzy and frazzled in their
construction outfits and the coffee ppl. somehow in between., and then there was author, the
woman who writes up her masterpiece in hopes of publication, the Sisyphean quest that will

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never ever fly. Anyhoo, having tea here and tea here and tea here and tea here. It is next to
eleven, her car is parked in the Y, next to the golf place, hopefully no over-eager security guard
will tow it away tow it away,.
JADE.
685 words, may 6
CITRUS.
AT HOME
Typing at home while mnsbc is talking, talking. Talking heads or more like talking torsos,
one woman in salmon colored, light, without sleeves, one guy with not much hair and something
greyish blueish suit-likeish with pale tie and white shirt. All around a very pastel morningish,
midday news talk, not serious evening wear. All-can-happen-Friday, maybe. Fridays as it is done
in business, you cannot really wear jeans, but you can wear light stuff, light colored in order to
look as if you are awaiting the weekend, bbqs, the Hamptons, cottage country, whatever.
Author writes, types, she drove thru and had a cheeseburger, she was asked twice, only a
cheeseburger, one sixty Canadian will not make the cut, even if you have sold billions and
billions. Or millions and millions whatever the slogan is. She did not drive to the parking lot of
the drugstore, mainly because there were too many cars obstructing 41st, it was not possible to do
left. The day before, it was sooner and she did a right onto east boulevard, that is how she
managed to get to the parking lot. She pondered if she should go down to the parking lot of the
market, the one on Arbutus. Maybe if all her food is consumed in parking lots she will lose
weight, automatically. Today in the eve there is a social event, kind of annoying, kind of
annoying. It is a big production, hair et. al. and it is too hot for social stuff. Art preview nites,
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they are not that interesting, studios are interesting, the idea of wearing a t-shirt with paint stains.
The romantic angle.
AND STILL LATER LATER
Roger is sitting in his walk-up in Kits and typing. He will go down to the Island to sneak
into preview night. Not that he is not invited, apparently each alumnus has one space. He is not
quite sure, how many persons really want to attend this shebang, after all it is an art school and
all the people, he went to with, do not work in the arts. Well, except for the one who teaches
there and has a growing bald spot now. Apparently, that happens when you teach. You have to
look professorial and a bald spot screams professorial. Rogers art career did not work out, but he
writes. Each and every day. His novels are all so, so and they are all rejected. Nobody likes the
premise of his stories. They are all about struggling authors. They are self-portraits. In the other
room, a serious-toned journalist is talking about serious stuff. Now an ad, something more litehearted. Yesterday, Roger had a stroopwafel, they still have those in the coffee house. In caramel
and in chocolate. The caramel one is much better, the chocolate one is bitter and blah. He should
be a food critic. A food writer. You get paid for doing that. Eating and living to talk about it. That
must be the life. He once saw a documentary about a famed food critic. So you can even be an
actor, a movie-star, all with chatting about the different tastes in food. He types away at his novel
and the plot does not really coalesce.
AFTERWARDS.
Author here made it to the preview nite which was quite a fieldtrip. 3 hours from parking
in the mall to taking the train down to Broadway and then taking the bus, getting off, walking
down to the Island. The art school was in full festive mode, there were oversized balloons, there

81

was some finger food, there were elegantly-clad people and some good art, mainly the car that
was cut in half and had animation in front of it and then there was an animation table that was
portable. The rest all is mushing together. She met this woman whom she had not seen in ages,
the lady looked very nice and was very nice, the noise was very loud though and one could not
hear each other very well. She is a teacher now in North Van, author here then went on to look at
the show. The show is even called THE SHOW. It says it everywhere. She ran into other people
she knew, too, but mainly tried to avoid long conversations in order to make it back in time. The
waiting time at the bus station was a tad long, anyhoo, she was back in the mall at 8:30. There is
never any parking at times like this, that is why one has to take public transport to the place.
On the telly, two and a half men, sans sound though, which is annoying. Strange and
weird. The time of silent film is over and it definitely does not go with colored film. Alan and
some woman talking, nope, it is not Judith. Or Leslie, for that matter. The lady in the art skool
asked, do you do any art, nope, just enjoying life. Her words. Well, she sure watches a lotta tv,
constantly, but we write here too, we are taking an American Lit class and the novel here is
marching forwards. 26 325 words, on May 6, 2016, in Vancouver, British Columbia.
AFTERWARDS AFTERWARDS.
Still the tv. 26 365, the words are accumulating. Still no plot though, no plot. Just a
descript of the writing process, which is a tad boring.
AND STILL LATER.
Not much writing these days. This was quite an eventful weekend, the preview nite, the
opening and today, birthday and mothers day. Wow.
ON THE TELLY
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On the telly, Colombo. This is what happens each and every Sunday at exactly eight in
the evening. She went downtown with the 22-bus, which stops at this bench near the dentist and
the bakery. It has this very villagey feel, as if you are in the midst of nowhere, somewhere in a
village behind the mountains in the alps. Or more so, on the outskirts of the village, between
villages. Idyllic. And you just hop on the bus and it takes you straight downtown, smack into the
heat of things. From quietness to hecticness. In minutes, seconds. When she came back, she
walked up Arbutus, while all those cars were passing her by, the sun was shining, so summerly.
She had two kinds of baklava at the grocery store, a round one, a square one. She has until
midnite to book a place in the Lit class in the community college. Or she can just keep on
writing, without having to check-in with a teacher. With an institution.
26 588 words.
writing interesting stuff
so, she is back in the art school, she parked her car in a space that seems way too big for
an ordinary parking space, but apparently it is legit, it is this big and roomy because it is at an
angle and it is in front of the Keg, apparently there was not space for two parking spaces but for
one that was really really big and oversized. It kind of makes you wonder what went wrong, are
not all parking spaces the same size like pearls on a necklace, like plastic beads, maybe, pearls
are different in size but beads are thrown out by a machine, carbon copies of each other,
apparently these parking spaces near the art school are each and every one of them a piece of art,
thus the widths differ from each other. Anyhoo, we are in the artskool library, nothing is
happening, quietness, you can write or pen - whichever- your masterpiece in silence. there are
books here, some researchers who are engrossed in their readings, there are silent librarians who
gossip loudly most of the time but do not seem to have anything to gossip about at this time, they
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rest between chattering around, one can hear the flushing of a bathroom, one can hear a cough,
somehow author here would rather listen-in to noises that are more sanitary, more removed from
bodily functions, that is why she comes to the library, to type, there is a silent studio, silent
workshop aura about this place, in the distance one can hear music, but not loudly, a trumpet, a
big band orchestra, a philharmonic, a symphony, a place where people sit in evening gowns and
tuxedos and are quietly listening only to clap their hands at the end in thundering applause, she
likes that, everything is very regimented, very militaristic, like the Hitler Youth marching. well,
maybe that is a stretch, musicians would not like that metaphor but apparently in musical
performances there is not much space for free flow, you have to march according to the notes,
even Sinatra changes hardly anything when performing New York New York live in concert,
merely some jazzlike variations but on the whole you know that it is New York New York, he
can not really do too much of a change and the reason why he does it at all is because he is
Sinatra, once you have arrived, you can change the rules, you are the rule maker, you are a god,
you are Sinatra.
Anyhoo, she will now start afloating thru the grad show, apparently 500 people are spit
out by this skool this year, hopefully they will do better than she did. it is now six years later and
her success is marginal to say the least, but we are hammering away, trying to write the great
American novel, you dont need to hold US-citizenship to do so, the great American novel is
open 2 anyone, u just need to write in the English language and feel free to put in words from
other languages, it will make your text flow more lively, more exotic, something like that
something of that kind. Back to Roger, the stroopwafel guy. so he is male, we know that, he has a
funny name because nobody nowadays is called Roger, it is an archaic name, an unbelievable
name, not the name of a believable character in a story, in a novel in 2016. a fictional character.
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he is between twenty and thirty years old, thus he cannot really be called Roger. except if he has
an ethnic name and then anglicized it to Roger. but that is not the case. Roger is originally from
Montreal, his dad just wrote a book and was on CBC promoting it. author here types away in the
art skool library, she does not really feel like making up fictional characters. she is hungry. she
would like to have a stroopwafel, but she had lunch already and she has to lose 30 lbs. which is a
lot. A big colossal undertaking. her weight tends to fluctuate in big chunks like that, 30 pounds
up, 30 pounds down, apparently that wrecks havoc with ones health. well, we are still alive,
what more could one ask 4 here? She has 717 words, not bad for a Monday morning in May.
ANAHEETA
So, maybe author here should produce some more words. in nanowrimo you have to
write 2000 words per day if you want to make it in time. at least. there are those that produce the
obligatory 50 000 words in 17 hours. there was this woman in Iceland who did it, apparently
Reykjavik is very good at furthering writers careers. they seem to have the most published
authors per capita on the planet. or so she read somewhere. you have to have dedication to write.
you have to type and type and type and type and type. your words have to permeate the planet.
even if they are inconsequential, even if they are redundant. Who will judge? Who can judge?
People with degrees in literature. People with good taste. That sip wine coolers and participate in
artsy thingies. well, author here goes to a lotta artsy thingies, so she should have a foot in
already. Apparently though, she does not look artsy fartsy which is actually a plus. Anyhoo,
typing here and typing here. no plot noplotnoplot. we live in noplotland here. far away from any
kind of discernable plot.
27 509. 2:48. 05.09.2016. and so it goes.

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She is just reading an article called Iceland-where publishing is a national sport. Tres
interessant.
DOOFOOR
A title that is kinda nonsensical. A book should be divided into chapters, there should be
order. Seems, that author here kinda lost her thread. Maybe she should number the passages
again, there has to be an inner logic in the way you arrange your thoughts, even if it is a piece of
creative writing. Even songs, music has to have order, so that one can decipher the piece of art.
Apparently that is the rule. Or not.
CHANDRA
27 615 words. Three oh eight P.M.
Somewhere in Brooklyn.
She moved to Brooklyn because this is the new Bloomsbury, she was told. Nada
happened in Lit land for her, nada happened in visual arts land. She goes a lot down to the
sculpture garden in Pratt though, there is always something going on. Readings, that are pretty
bad, but the people are all nice and happy and the weather is not too hot yet. There is an air of
everything can still happen, there is youthfulness, eagerness, the struggling aspiring artist who
is not jaded as of yet. Happy in her macjob, happy in her hopes for the future that is not written
as of yet. Everything and anything is still possible. Ellis Island greats from afar. Somewhere in
Breuckelen. If that is your real name.
WORDCOUNT WORDCOUNT

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On the telly, SEINFELD. Outside, still sunniness, the wind blowing through the greenery,
the leaves moving violently for a moment just to bounce back as if nothing happened, the
melodicness, the virtuosity of the short choreographed dance, anyways, the faces on the telly, the
music, the laughs vie for authors attention here. Apparently, Jonathan Franzen is said to oppose
the distraction that anycomputer provides, but you have to take these quotes with a grain of salt.
A writer will take anything he gets to morph it into a story, a narrative. And besides, there are as
many stories of writers as there are writers. She here has now 27 864 words, this is what she did
in 40 days, she used to pen 50 000 words straight in 15 days, apparently, she is definitely slowing
down. Back to SEINFELD, we can use some laughs here.
55.
27 900 words. What a round number.
56.
On the telly, BIG BANG. Lots of laughs. The tracks of laugh. Sheldon et.al. The author is
writing, typing while perusing what is flickering over the screen. The story, the narrative.
Apparently Sheldon Cooper is from East Texas. Good to know. Maybe it would be better to pack
this up and move down to the coffee house on Arbutus. Travelling is good for writers. That is
what this website postulated. And btw, Sheldon Cooper is not insane. His mother had him tested.
In the coffee house she can watch cars go by. That will make her write better words. Insightful
sentences. She might even find the plot that this text here so obviously lacks. At this point, this is
merely an accumulation of unrelated vignettes. On the telly, Penny. And Raj.
57.

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28 040 words. 7:47 PM. May 9, 2016. All these numbers that somehow forge the story
here forward. The coffee house will close at eight. There is the other one on 41st. which is open
till eleven. It always has those students who work on their assignments and a lot of seniors who
are weary of going home to an empty apartment. And the wait staff who is waiting for closing
time. It is all kind of out of a Billy Joel song. And the Mc Donalds never closes, neither does the
Tim Hortons. Lots of stuff going on in Kerrisdale Village.
CHAPTER FIVE
58.
Danielle (or Darnelle) moved to Amsterdam. In order to write. That was the plan. Well,
technically she will just stay three days here, she will then move on because she is here on some
business trip. It is irrelevant to her writing. Her dream of being a writer in Amsterdam. She is not
a writer but she likes to pretend that she is. For three days she will feel as if she is this bohemian
figure who runs after a life of art. Like people in Paris in the twenties. The crowd who then
became published. An American in Paris. The Americans in Paris. Danielle is a one-expatpowerhouse. She is not even American. She is the poet of Amsterdam. She looks out the window
of the slow-moving train and feels disoriented. She is forging a persona for herself that does not
exist. The train moves too slow, even for a train. She thought that she will be whisked from
Schiphol to Centraal. Last time she was here this went in a flash. This time it goes all so very
slow. Like the train between Milan airport and Milan train station. The train between Kloten and
Zurich Hauptbahnhof always is very brisk. Maybe the time of the year has a bearing on how the
passage from airport to train station unfolds, not the location. Maybe the time of the day colors
the experience, the weather, the light that permeates thru the windows into the passenger
cubicles. The clothes of the other passengers, their luggage. She wants to write; thus she has to
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register everything she sees. She will have a Heineken once she is in town. It is Amsterdam after
all. Or she will have a glass of rose next to the airport in this place where all women there
seemed to be alone and on business trips from places like New Jersey or Phoenix, maybe
Scottsdale. They all are on a mission, they have toddlers at home with their hubbies, they are
there for a short while and coo-coo into their cell phones, lilting, Mommy will be back soon.
They have better jobs than their husbands, not because they are better, but more eager. Or
because they are riding a wave of reverse discrimination. The people who hire do not care who
their peons are, they just want a number to fill the job.
Danielle looks out the window, her observations about life are off, which is fine, because
she feels so off. She has to change in the next station in order to transfer to Centraal which
apparently has had an overhaul, a complete one, since she was last here in Zero Nine. It is now
Two Oh Sixteen, April bordering on May. Kissing May. The food she had on the airplane was
mush, not that good, but the muffin thing she had in the airport was very good. Something Dutch
that she always has when she is here which is usually on transit while she is waiting for her next
flight. Well, this is the third time she visits the actual city, she will take the trip to Rotterdam, to
Leiden, maybe even hop over the border to Antwerp, Bruges, she has three days or so. Three
days is not enough to get a feel of Amsterdam, Amsterdam is a world on its own, bikes all over,
bookshops all over. Very specific bookshops, each carrying a certain kind of books. Very
specialized bookshops, that she remembers. People drink Amstel or Heineken, there is a station
named after a brewery. There are lots of women in hijabs working as shopkeepers. And
everybody around her speaks in a lilt that she does not understand. She has doppio espressos
here, she loves everything Dutch. This is the place to be. All men look like Rem Koolhaas. The
train slows down, she departs, takes her valise with her. She wanted to take the black bag with
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the slightly shimmery outside, the one that she had bought from Topshop in downtown when she
had broken her shoulder, but in the end she took the suitcase she had bought in New York on
Seventh, the one that she can drag behind her, the one that is super ugly in its drabby colour
hovering somewhere between green and dark blue, a colour that does not really make sense at
all, that has no personality whatsoever except that it caters to male colorblind individuals. She
fells soggy, and jetlagged, more soggy, soggy inside. There is a feel of freedom when you are
somehow outside of reach in a city full of bikes, in a country far away nestled away where bikes
rule, where there are bikes and bikes outside the hotel window, on three stocks of the parking lot.
She remembers it well, she runs to catch the train down to Centraal, she forgot her toothpaste and
she will go into town to get one, one that has Dutch inscripts on it, one that will stand up, well,
she will do all that, once she gets into town.
She sits down on the nicely checkered seat, small-checkers, the woman opposite of her
does not look Dutch enough, more like an Italian woman or a Greek one, one out of the Zorba
movie with Anthony Quinn. She looks like all the women who come on Sundays to the Hellenic
Center on Arbutus, the ones that seem to be set in a certain time, frozen, a time after World War
Two, immigrants who freeze in the time that was the point in time when they left their country.
That is how all immigrants do things, they do not change their clothes, they preserve that
particular moment in time, while life marches forward in the place they have left, changes
completely, but they remain the snapshots that freeze that particular year, like living photographs,
like total caricatures, a formulaic depiction of what reality is. The clothes we choose say
everything about our aspirations in life. About our health, about the way, we bear ourselves.
About the blood that runs through our veins. God, she really is full of bullshit, maybe it is good
that she is not a published writer, her ideas are definitely a tad too sterile, too Bee Essy, too full
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of exaggerations that do not make sense and that only illustrate her total jet lag. It is a different
time now at JFK, in New York City, in Brooklyn, she ponders, is Brooklyn part of New York
City or does New York City only mean Manhattan and not the outer boroughs. Apparently one
has to use the right wordings when penning a novel, there is more leniency if you are a poet, you
can sing whatever you want, like a bird outside a window. The train goes into Centraal,
everything is yellow. She grabs the black handle on the silvery glistening thingie that sticks out
of the suitcase with the weird color, straightens herself up, Amsterdam, here I come to write, to
watch to see to live to feel like a Dutchman a Dutchwoman, for moments, for moments. Maybe I
stay here until the end of time, my marriage sucks anyways, there is nothing to hold me back
where I came from. She joins the persons who walk with a purpose, that is how people walk in
any train station, in order not to be mowed down by potential Mafiosi, by shady characters that
hover next to any train station on the planet. Trains, the vehicles of yesteryear, still the ones
though that rule Europe.
2.
It is seventeen after 4, she makes her way to the Hotel Ibis, just right of the entrance of
Centraal. So many people on the sideways, so many many bikes. You have to defer to the bike
traffic, you are lucky, if you are not run over by any of them, they might just mow you down and
they could not care less. Ah, you have to love Amsterdam, where everything is so different from
anywhere else on this planet.
The woman at the reception is very nice, last time Danielle was here, it was five in the
morning and the concierge was a young, very eager guy who was from Turkey or Morocco or
something and who told her his life story in a split second and who tried to impress her because
she was some old woman who would give him good marks on his SATs. Danielle is disoriented
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and her thoughts baffle her. They are ah so disjointed but she has to hold it together, pretend that
she is functioning normally, she cannot disintegrate into the shaggy carpet of the Ibis Hotel here
next to Centraal Station. The woman has blue eyeliner, but green eyes, kind of clashing strangely
colour-wise, but because she is young and pretty, everything goes, she has a silvery hairpin on
the left of her brown hair. She has red pink lipstick that is shiny, she is very professional, much
more than the guy was last time. She has an attitude like a nurse, she shows generic emotions,
she is not fazed by anything. Welcome to Holland, she says, she has a slight Dutch lilt, she says
Holland instead of The Netherlands. To your right, first floor. Danielle takes her key and makes
sure that she does not bump into the glass partition like she did last time, it is kind of weird and
confusing and not very clear, it seems to be here to confuse all those poor souls who come
jetlagged, disoriented from Schiphol after a long trek thru time zones. Her room is sparse and
nice, the curtain is open and one can see all those bikes, bike after bike, in all colors, glistening
outside, heaped upon each other in the three-storey bike parking outside the window. Just as she
remembers it, so nice that she has a room reminiscent of the one she was in the last time that she
was here in this city. She puts down her suitcase, just takes out the light willowy jacket thingie
and heads into town for the toothpaste before the shops close. She is trying to make sense of the
coins and the bills, but hopefully she can use her card or any of her cards. She brought three
different ones, just in case.
An afternoon in Amsterdam, she is not even quite sure what day of the week it is here,
Thursday, Friday, Wednesday, it must be Thursday, dates change when you fly and that is good
so. There is nothing like the disorientation of the traveller, everything goes and you lose yourself
in your newly constructed imaginary world. Amsterdam rules, but only for the travellers. Not for
the persons who live their everyday, humbug, work-a-day lives. Only tourists live the real life,
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the one of disjointedness, disjunction. She remembers that she had a lotta crepes with sugar on
them, lemon and sugar and that the waiters were very very tall and yelled at her as if she was
deaf. It is as if she goes down memory lane, last time she was here, it seemed that all the
sceneries were changing constantly, when she went back to a place, it did not exist there
anymore, well, mainly because she was confused, the city stayed the same but her sense of
orientation varied constantly. She moves through the city passages, by the obligatory coffee
shops full of dazed tourists who come from no-pot-land and want to have a pot-fix, because that
is what people do in Amsterdam, weed and prostitution, while the city itself is very regulated,
has very clear taboos and strict rules that make it function this meticulously, ah, you gotta love
this place. The grachts. The sing-songs of the language, something not German and not British,
this is a nicer Hamburg, a more exotic one, a city with a port that is somehow somewhere in the
distance, not quite there, there are tulips on all the postcards, there are canals and she is now not
seeing that, because she is going walking through the darkened alleyway near all the shops,
finally making it into a pharmacy and coveting her long awaited trophy, the toothpaste with
white and red and blue and Dutch hieroglyphs thereon. Ah, life is grand, take that, all you
minions back home, who could not make it out here to the new world the old world, she is a
jetsetter on the other side of boring Midwesternish suburbs that all look alike. She is the urban
equivalent of Marco Polo. Ah to travel ah to travel while everybody has tp live extra-boring
lives. She will be awake all thru the night, walk by red-light districts that have nothing to do with
her, because she is female and can do that, she will have French Fries that are too mushy and that
have dollops of mayo on them, she will have stroopwafel after stroopwafel from the vending
machine in Centraal at five in the morning while there are too drunk persons talking loudly and
scarily to themselves, she will survive this strange city because she is invincible, because she is a

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tourist and they always survive, except for the ones that get killed and mowed down, because
they do not belong here in this unfamiliar environment. Anyhoo, she has her toothpaste, the
woman behind the counter in her black and white hijab and make-up and lipstick, the one whose
ancestors must have come from Indonesia because that is how a lot of features look like in
Holland, the woman who is barely out of her teens hands her the small plastic with the unfamiliar
stripes thereon and the Dutch writing thereon. Thanks, the woman speaks English with her, does
she really look that much like a tourist from somewhere in North America, is it because of her
chubbiness, who knows, Thanks anyways. Smiles on both sides.
Outside the store the weather is so nice, not too hot, not too cold, no rain, this is perfect
timing for a trip to Amsterdam. This is where writers are born, shrivjes, scribners. It is nice how
little Dutch she speaks. Well, she can say Schiphol and maybe that will be all the Dutch that she
will master until the rest of her days. All the Dutch she needs to survive here. As long as she does
not get mowed down by an on-coming bike. Or be run down by a tram. It is scary here in a city
far away from what nowadays stands for home.
She will wander the streets, avoid falling into a canal. Drink concoctions like double
espresso, rose wine or strange foamy beer that is too warm for her taste, she will walk by the
Royal Palace, she will evaluate her life, but merely because that is what tourists do. She will be
walking the city all night and make sure to not frequent places where nobody is. The tourists that
hover in the city at night, the ones that make the city safe just by being there in their unnatural,
momentary states. She will write about all this, once she is back home but not now and not now
and not now and not now here.
57.

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This writing group is for seniors, it meets each and every Wednesday from May Fourth to
July Sixth. In the community center near to the artschool, and you have to be over 55. It is kind
of like a social event, not like a breeding ground for future Nobel laureates in literature. After 55
you are over the hill anyways, you hover in coffee shops that look more like senior centers, you
crochet, more so because you feel that is what people do who play Ma-Jong. You try to
accommodate the stereotype, not defy it.
79.
He is writing feverishly because he has to meet a deadline. How did he ever become a
writer? Is that not what you do with your life, if nothing else works anymore? If you are too
fragile on your feet to stand behind a counter and sling drinks and call yourself a barista
whatever that means. How come, that a company that was born in Seattle, Washington has
worker-bees with Italiano titles. Weird, strange. He has this round chocolate piece that tastes kind
of stale and bitter, the one that is out of the box that was sent to him by this company that wants
to promote its business. There is greenery outside and he starts to hum to himself. He should not
write at the kitchen table, mainly because there is nothing to see here. Just stagnation and you
cannot really describe stagnation with ever-changing words. You have to sit in a coffee house or
in a pub, that is where you can weave stories that make sense somehow. Stories of murder and
chaos, intrigue, explosions, stories about some guy called James, Bond, Double Oh Seven, or
love triangles, exciting sex lives that are not humdrum and work-a-day like everybody elses, as
a writer you have to describe the extraordinary, not the mundane, that only works if you are
named Larry David or Jerry Seinfeld, you cannot replicate that now, can you, can you. He should
go to Rain And Shine and have one of their raspberry postmark ale ice-creams that have a
weirdly strange tart aftertaste and that are not sugary enough and that are served by the lanky guy
95

who owns the place and asks you to reuse the wooden spoon from the taster he gave you before.
Kits is happening, but it is no Amsterdam. It is a city he lives in which makes it utterly nonexotic, where there is a tv and a laptop that shows you tube movies from all over the world. He
has no plot here no plot here no plot here no plot here.
79, again.
31 129 words. 10:02 PM. May 10, 2016. 14 Degrees Celsius outside and much much
colder inside, the fridge next to the kitchen table starts up its songs. Wow, is it boring to be some
kind of writer. She has to get the photographs from the drugstore at eleven.
81 now.
31 180 words.
82.
So, maybe, sitting on the verandah overlooking something and sipping pink Italian
champagne with funny names is what one does when one is a fine published writer. Maybe one
should have a name like Antonella or Antonia. Maybe one should look like Sofia Loren.
Somehow, she thinks of Italy when imagining literary success. There is no reason for that.
Writing has nothing to do with any region of the world. It is just putting together the right words
in the right order. The sequence of vowels and consonants should ring nicely enough. There is no
difference between being published and being rejected by agents and publishers. You just keep
on polishing your words until they sparkle, until you and only you like them. Well, given that
perfection does not exist, you will not go anywhere. She listens in to old songs, she looks out at
the greenery, she imagines walking thru the aisles in the supermarket, something that she will do
later on. That is what all the writers do. They type a tad, and then they nap, then they type a tad
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more. Then they go shopping for produce, for groceries, for bread. They live so very prosaic
lives. Where boredom meats artistry, where yawning is what drives the words forward. How to
spin a yarn out of nothing, how to retell stories that do not exist? She has to produce a 1500words-long story for an online class that she is taking, she gave them a short 150-word outline.
The class is kinda weird and strange, but it makes her write. It is very specific, so many persons,
so many locales, it is pretty exact in what is required for the plot.
She turns on the telly. An Old Navy ad, the one that says that they are very specific in
what they want for a T-shirt: right sleeve, left sleeve, neck hole, it is kind of like the plot of the
online-writing class, clear instructions.
Yup, verandah, prosecco, bubbles in a glass, nope, writers are just sitting and crafting
their word-sequences. They drive-thru Mc-Donalds, they order Big Macs, nothing romantic ever
happens in a writers life. They watch Judge Judy on the telly.
87.
31 553 words. 3:37 PM. May 10, 2016. 16 degrees in the shadow.
88.
On the other channel, on You Tube, Sinatra at Carnegie hall, New York, New York. He is
still pretty thin, maybe early 80s. how do you write while listening to someone belt out New
York New York? Is that even possible? She could go down to the bookstore, looking at books
that others wrote, always makes her want to write her own versions. Producing words on paper,
something you can take with you down to the beach and read until you nod off. Stories of times
gone by, times to come. Great storylines. She often uses the plot generator, it often makes for
funny lines, funny stories. She is totally out of plots here. Listening to music does not help.
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Going out for walks does not help. Taking the bus is always good, you see so many different
faces and wonder what their stories are. Their lives.
She has gained next to 30 pounds. The same 30 pounds that she lost with such tam-tam.
Every body was: wow, how did you do that? Well, dont worry, folks, it is all back. She uses the
term folks as if she is Donald Trump. He addresses the audience with folks, kind of a nasty
term. Too folksy.
8-10
31 773 words. On the telly, Big Bang starting up. Without sound. There is something
eerie about a TV without sound. You see the mouths of people move, but you have no clue what
they are saying. There are pictures of baked chicken, it is an ad. Her book here is about novel
writers but she kind of strayed away from that. She has to go and watch TV. The telly as chore.
Weird, huh.
888.
The sitcom a source of entertainment. She consumes way too much media, this is not that
conducive to writing. Especially to penning a novel. Which has to have a certain storyline.
Whining about how you cannot construct a storyline will not cut it. Maybe she should write
about a group of aspiring writers who have no success and come together, meet up once a week
in the basement of a community center and moan about their lack of inspiration. Somewhere in
Arizona, somewhere in Scottsdale.
871.

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On the telly, Sheldon Cooper talking to Penny, she tries to ignore him, roles her eyes,
while he is staccatoing his words and pointing out how she drives badly. Author here needs some
more words to reach a round number. Nothing to talk about, nothing to tell the computer. It is
easier to tell a story to a live audience. If you are just typing away in the living room, it is as if
you talk to yourself. There, she has reached 32 016 here. Nice.
850-eight-five-zero.
Dirk is in Reykjavik. This is where he will write his masterpiece. It should be possible.
He does not know anybody here, thus no social pressure for attending anything that will take him
away from his novel-writing task. It is like a writers retreat, one imposed by himself. He
checked into the hotel, he now walks the streets of the capital of Iceland. It is June and the
weather is so very nice. Everything is pleasant, nice, a tad too much for an aspiring writer who
does not speak the language. It is a Tuesday and he is slightly jet-lagged. It is eleven or so in the
morning here and pitch dark back home. Their night versus the daytime here. He opens the door
of this coffee house here, has a round kind of cake that has a chocolate glaze and some kind of
mushy filling. He has a black coffee and puts just enough cream into it to make it change colour.
He sits near the window and starts people-watching. Women with shopping bags, men in suits.
Seems, everywhere men are still officy and women are non-officey. Not that he cares, he does
not work in an office. Gender roles are not that interesting to him, he is more concerned with his
lack of writerly inspiration. His is the world of writers block but he sure is trying. He travels all
the way to the other side of the world to pen his masterpiece. The fun is in the journey, in the
quest. Even if it does not go anywhere. He can describe writers block in detail. That should be
his forte. A woman in yellow comes in, talks in Icelandic with the woman behind the counter,
leaves. She did not order anything.
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It is not lunchtime yet, it is lunchtime-adjacent. There are no cars outside, this is a car
free zone in downtown Reykjavik. Dirk will venture out and explore the city, but at this point he
just soaks in his new environment. People walking in the city, chatting, rushing to and fro. A
scene that could be anywhere on the planet. Human hecticness.
875.
She walks to the bus station on 38th. and Arbutus. It has a bench and even a roof so if it is
raining, you do not get wet. Nice, efficient. There is not much to see, except for all the vehicles
going by. The bus comes every fifteen minutes, every twenty minutes on weekends and on
statutory holidays. Today it is Tuesday, so the waiting time will not be that long. A young woman
in striped leggings, a man with one too many tattoos. An old woman in grey. The bus comes,
everybody lines up and gets on the bus. Author here plucks her compass card against the
receiver, it clicks, she proceeds. The little screen even reads PROCEED. The bus goes down
Arbutus, by the Hellenic Center, by the clock at the gas station, by Starbucks. It is ten after three
in the afternoon. She is just going downtown because she was bored by typing, she will walk
thru downtown because Petula Clark says so. It is good 4 yer. Ms. Clark cannot be all wrong.
871.
22 557 words. On the telly, Sheldon and Amy. Laughtracks. Outside, greenery, late
afternoon. She should watch the news, stuff is happening, the Prime Minister or President of
Brazil faces impeachment. Stuff is happening, you have to stay up-to-date. Instead of typing
away while the songs on the telly are singing away. 32 608 words at 4:57 in the afternoon. It is
eight or so in New York. She weighs too much here. All these numbers, all of these numbers
here.

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872. a.
The way that she numbers the passages in this her book are kind of outta kilter. No real
system. The system of unruliness. The logic of chaos, of slight, slithery anarchy. The music of
the words. She changes the channel. Who wants to watch zombies? The Flash is much nicer, it
is adventurous and author has no clue what is going on. Batman, Captain America, Wonder
Woman, these are all stories that do not really make sense. Full of supermen and superwomen
who fly thru the air. Nothing ever makes sense. But what happens is usually in downtown, in the
city, as if an urban environment furthers illogical behavior, people flying like birds. Usually one
cannot even see real birds when one is downtown, nature is somehow sanitized, the buildings are
paramount, they run the visuals of the city. Cars rush by, for moments, moments. She still needs
to type some more, to reach 33 thou.
872.b.
A coffee in the coffee house on Arbutus. It is next to seven, this place will close at eight.
A woman reading near the window, a man working on his laptop. The two baristas talking.
Luckily author here has never met any of them, she tries to avoid human contact. She does not
want to be distracted from the chore of storytelling. Her novel will not crystallize but she has to
keep on trying. Chugging away, chugging away. That is how you will get published finally, how
much longer can you just go on Xeroxing your words and bind them in the copy store on West
Broadway.
She has a coffee without cream, black, but then she changes her mind and goes to the
coffee station and takes cream. No sugar though. She has a stroopwafel and puts it on the coffee
paper cup. It gets all mellow and gooey inside by the vapor of the beverage. Cars drive by, she

101

watches them. Everybody rushes somewhere, in those metal vehicles. A woman jogs by, a man
walks his poodle. The night is near, but not quite not quite. The day lets out slowly, pensively.
She could walk down to the market, get a Bartlett pear or something. Well, first to finish the
coffee. 33 007 words. Yay and yay here.
832.
She gets out at Union Square and walks up the three storeys to the writing studio. She
puts her stuff in her cubby and fires up her laptop, she sits in her desk space and starts typing.
This is what she does each and every day, five days a week, she takes the weekends off. She has
to be published, she is willing herself towards publishing. Every agent has rejected her so far but
she will die trying. Each and every day she produces 3000 words, that is her minimum. And then
there are the days of rewrite, of editing, it is a never-ending endeavour. In between she goes
down onto 14 th., she has Cookies by Melissa. Sometimes she walks down to the pizza place,
Artichoke, by the eye hospital. The ear and eye infirmary. She loves 14th, there is always
something to see. In the city that never sleeps. Ah, Sinatra, Sinatra.
832.a.
Dirk in Reykjavik, Danielle in Amsterdam, Roger in Kits. Aspiring writer galore. The
unpublished novel writers. The ones that put words to paper without being lauded by the world.
The ones that struggle in obscurity. There is something romantic about being unpublished, about
having no success whatsoever. Failure, huh. The novel writers could care less. Theirs is the world
of words. And that is what counts here.
836. c.
Her body is giving out, her back is hunched over. Everything for literature.
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837.
Time for a time-out.
897.
Waitressing when not working on the novel. This is what she does these days. She lives
in Hamburg, in Winterhude, and she commutes down to Itzehoe. Which is the opposite of what
most people would do. You live in a small place on the outskirts and work in the big city, she
lives in the big place and commutes to the small place. Well, everybody does it differently. Her
novel is marching forward, she works in the small coffee house opposite of the fashionin/fashion-out store and afterwards, once back in her small rented apartment in Winterhude she
works on the novel. The novel in English. Which is a tad tough if you speak German all day
long. You have to readjust your brain a tad. Her novel is this weird love slash adventure story,
kind of utopian, kind of weird and strange. The plot does not make much sense but her writing is
pretty good. Musical, artistic. With pauses and cadences. Nicely choreographed. She is now on
the train back to Hamburg. Outside it is rainy, drizzly, meek. The perfect weather typical of this
part of the world.
871.
Outside, night is near. Everything has long shadows. Still the telly is singing annoyingly.
The background music to her typing up her master piece. She has seen this show before. It is just
a repeat. 33 484 words. On the telly, people yell at each other. The remote control is, well,
remote. She cannot change what is going on on the screen, so she just types away against the
noise pollution. And word count stands at 33 525 here.
872.c.
103

THE AUTHOR THAT ROLLED OUTTA BED


That is exactly how she feels, as if she just rolled out of bed and planted herself in front
of the first type writer she came upon in the community college. Well, apparently lots of things
happened before she was here but now that she is here and started typing, nothing else seems to
matter, she blocks out everything else and just stares stoically down at the keyboard, which is not
that easily to be made out, the lights overhead reflect into the small squares on the keyboard and
you have to see the letters kind of as if you look thru thick fog, which is even thicker in the left
side, of the keyboard. The music of the AC is deafening, dense, she feels isolated, some legs are
walking by in the library. It is way too soon for this place here, she usually comes here much
later in the day, it is now desolate, her car was the only one in the parking lot which did not make
it feel very safe. She will feed her 3000 or so words to the machine and for some weird reason
every line in her text is underlined, she has to fix that. Ok. Fixed. If you push the right button,
everything will work- like magic, on the other hand, if you push the wrong button, then god only
can help you. She is not supposed to mention any deity in her writing, this her writing has to be
worldly, sanitized, emotionless, clear and lucid, she hates being a writer because it is a tough
tough job. Well, they say that shoveling graves is tougher, so maybe sitting hunched over at a
keyboard will fly, it is basically as if you talk to a little black machine. A man in a turban comes
in, talking on a phone in a language that author here does not understand, he now sits in the
corner and grumbles into the phone. Another man in black and yellow comes in, sits down, one
can hear still the grumbles of the first guy. Ah. The library of the community college is
happening, happening. The sound of a chair, the sound of its metal giving out. There are other
novel writers on this planet, those are the ones who have better plots, clearer plots. Hers is still a
descript of her inability to fashion a plot, she is more into describing her daily routine, how she
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rolled outta bed, got a coffee, went to the gym, somehow ended up in the library at the typing
machine. The coffee was interesting, she parked her car on the second floor of the mall, while
listening in to these two dopes in Seattle talking about lice, and how selfies are the reason why
there are more lice because people smush their heads together to fit into the selfie frame and thus
the bugs jump from head to head. Anyhoo, she went down into the mall, all stores were still
closed, well, except for the supermarket, the grocery place and the Starbucks therein. Author here
has marble loaf and a tall pike, the woman behind the counter stopped talking in Cantonese or
Mandarin or Korean to another woman and gave her her order. Author here got a can of beans,
there are so many different baked beans, with tomato sauce, with bacon, deep fried, anyhoo, in
the end she got what maybe was the right kind, they are all Heinz, apparently, apparently. In this
store, that is, she should have gone to metrotown, there you can get the no name kind in a yellow
tin, well a tin with yellow paper around it and the letters spelling out no name in black, all in
black. Author ponders, one trip to the grocery store is so eventful, there is a whole story in there,
suspense, romance, the struggle with your demons aka the quest for weight loss. There is ample
fodder for writing of a novel in each and every daily routine. Her writing career has to unfold,
this is the year that we get serious, this is the year that it all starts up, her readings in dingy coffee
houses or booze-soaked basements, her reading tour all through Washington State and Oregon.
Nevada. She has read before to a crowd, it was always very very well received, well, except for
her classmate who was very unimpressed but that does not count, you have to count the positive
remarks and let go of the negative ones, besides you cannot take a critique to heart, everybody
thinks differently here.
A woman in blond and black glasses and a pullover that matches her hair, a beige yellow,
kind of darkened lemony color, she gave author here a big smile when she came in, maybe
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because author and she are the same age or something, who knows who knows, who knows,
somebody has opened up music in here.
She listens in to this cheesy song because this computer here can make the sound audible,
silently the you tube video sings the cheesy song by the cheesy singer that actually is quiet good
now, apparently musicians can evolve. She has 871 words which is pretty good, nice output for a
day in May, Bernie Sanders won West Virginia, this is what is on the news on the news, a woman
in orange and with long blond hair next to author, all youth and youngness, youngness. The
community college is happening, the woman seems to have a cold, dont give it to me, dont give
it to me. Too many microbes in this place, no thresholds which bar diseases, malaria, zika,
typhoid fever. The quest 4 knowledge will do us in. Emily Dickinson lived out her last years as a
recluse in Amherst, so maybe that is what writers gotta do if they vie for fame and fortune. You
have to be far away from society and then you will make it, ah, artdom is weird weird weird and
strange. 1013 words here.
A DIFFERENT COMMUNITY COLLEGE
Let us construct another college like this, another library, a fictional one, one in Seattle,
so still on the West Coast. The carpeting is reddish, different from the one here which is all
green. The computers are not Samsung as they all are here, let us say they are hp, Hewlett
packard, Carly Fiorina country or something. The college is more in suburbia, everyone drives,
people are fatter. Does not really make sense, young people are all thin, author here is not good
with constructing something fictional. Even the fictional has to be believable, it has to reflect
what can happen, the fiction in a book has to mirror reality. Author really should teach creative
writing, she has no clue if what she postulates makes any sense, but in a classroom you can say
anything as long as you say it with conviction. Besides, the mere authority structure gives weight
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to what the teach says. One person talking in front of a group, the other ones taking notes and
asking questions. Anyhoo, still typing, still typing.
WEST 23rd.
She is in the macaron store where everything is dainty, she has the macaron that is half
kir-royal and half champagne, the purple beige one, and the beige part is all shiny. This is maybe
too much for a morning coffee, too potent. The place is very French, maybe it is ok to have
alcohol in Paris. All the flowers on the textiles on the chairs, this is such a removed place, it
yelps out nostalgia. Times gone by, something palatial in todays world, palatial and royal in the
birthplace of democracy. Author is not quite sure if the US was the first democracy, her prof in
American lit seemed to imply that, but then again, he said a lotta things. They were usually very
convoluted. He knew an immense array of obscure words, he did not give her a very good grade,
but actually a much better grade than all the other profs in the community college back home.
Author here takes out her laptop and pecks at it a tad, maybe in this place one should use pen and
paper and transcribe it later. Outside, New York City is happening, there is a dunkin donuts on
the other side of the street. A duane something is on this side of the street, author here has seen a
movie, a short film that depicted twenty-third street in 1901, made by Thomas Edison himself,
the funny thing was 23rd looked exactly like it looks today, more than 100 years later. Some
things never change.
1500 words
The college library has more persons now, a man with a green turban. A woman in orange
talking Punjabi or something, Gujrati, maybe, to another person. The woman has long hair, is a
tad chubby and has an orange jacket. And her dress is too low cut. Writing is all about value

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judgements and there is no reason why you make those judgements. You should be more
accommodating if you want to be published. Another woman has cartoon characters on her tshirt. A man is dressed ugly and he has an ugly nose and an ugly walk. See, value judgements.
She still has to feed more words to the machines, she will edit this later. Once she has her
glasses.
ON THE TRAIN
Train rides are good for writers, so are bus rides, you watch other people, their facial
expressions, the tones of their voices. Well, you do not watch that, you register it. Writing is
documenting, making comments, constructing relations where there were none. At the other
computer a man in a blue turban, darker blue that goes with his lighter blue shirt. Author here
still types, maybe it is good that she did not register in a class and focuses on writing. Apparently
the computers in this place are Samsung but the software is powered by hp. It says hp in big
letters on the screen next to her. Aha, the hardware is hp, the keyboard is acer, the monitor is by
Samsung. A hodgepodge of corporations. Well, the author here is purely herself, though born
somewhere, living somewhere else. The machines reflect the international aspects of its users.
There is something one could write about. The hodgepodgeyness of our existence in 2016 BC.
AC. AD, well, 2016 in short. A woman with a backpack with flowers thereon comes in. We have
1700 words, 1300 more and we are outta here.
Authors back hurt in the morn, she could hardly stand up straight. She has that a lot these
days, it is because of the crooked mattress. Or because of advanced age. Or because too long
naps. If you sleep for too long you can hardly move. She has to lose a lot of weight, so that she
can be more nimble on her feet.

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ITZEHOE
She is on the train out of Hamburg, she is a writer who goes to this coffee house each and
every day in order to write up her amazing novel. It is in English which is weird because all day
long she hears people talk in German. She lives in Hamburg, she writes in Itzehoe. You should
not confuse her with the person who lives in Hamburg and works in Itzehoe. That person has a
different story. Author here mushes together all her stories. Apparently Nabokov used index card
and wrote on them. Maybe there was one index card per person, so that he would not mush up
the characteristics of the characters. If you tell a story you have to stick to the characteristics, you
cannot suddenly change the specifics of a person. Or can you? Does it not get confusing, well,
one could argue that all our stories on this planet are somehow related, there is a common
experience, common knowledge. That is how we roll. No man is an island. Not even Queen
Elizabeth with all of her hats and her little corgis. Author here is utterly confused. On the train to
Itzehoe, there are raindrops outside, she is taken by this metal container swiftly down to Itzehoe.
Or up to Itzehoe. She will sit in the coffee house writing, having coffee and crumbly cake,
looking out at the fashionin/fashion-out store.
RESEARCH
RESEARCH: AUTHOR HERE IN THE COMMUNITY COLLEGE LIBRARY COMPUTER
LAB AT THE STATION NEXT TO THE DOOR WATCHES A YOU TUBE VIDEO OF
DOWNTOWN ITZEHOE. SHE HAS NEVER BEEN THERE OR MAYBE SHE HAS BEEN
THERE ONCE ABOUT 15 YEARS AGO AND JUST STAYED AT THE BAHNHOF FOR A
SHORT WHILE. ANYHOO, THE YOU TUBE VIDEO SHOWS THE PLACE IN
DOWNTOWN ITZEHOE, THE FASHION STORE THAT SHE DESCRIBES AND A PERSON
SLIPPING AND COMPLAINING TO THE CAMERA. THIS SHOULD BE ENOUGH
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RESEARCH FOR A SCENE IN A BOOK; THIS IS HOW WRITING IS DONE NOWADAYS.


YOU DO ALL OF YOUR RESEACH ON THE COMPUTER. AND THEN YOU PEN YOUR
MASTERPIECE AND SEND IT OUT TO AGENTS IN NYC. WHO WILL OR WILL NOT
REJECT YOUR QUERY. A MAN IN A TURQOUISE TURBAN.
SOME MORE WORDS HERE.
AT THE OTHER COJ
800 words 800 words 800 words
Still in the library, still in the computer lab. This place is now bustling with students who
all work at the computers and then print out their texts. Author here is not a student here
anymore, so chances are she cannot print stuff out and she has to use the overpriced copy place
on West Broadway. The good thing is that one can still use the computer lab, apparently one still
can do that, that is what the IT-person told her, so even a former student can use this place, it is
all totally legit, no funny biz here. This is what authors really think about, not storylines, it is
much more about the logistics of typing this up. And it kind of diffuses the fact that author here
does not really have a storyline. It is merely a descript of aspiring writers, a documentary. A
documentation of more or less fictional authors, aspiring writers. She sure reads a lot about real
writers, Orwell, Nabokov, Norman Mailer. The persona of the writer, his life. There are more
male writers that she researches, which is funny, there are a lot of female writers. Seems, that the
gender of writers is fifty-fifty, in other words, there are as many male writers as there are female
writers. And they do not necessarily stream towards storylines that are gendered, nope, women
write on science and men write on marriage. Everybody does what she or he likes. Author here

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should really write about animators, visual artists, after all that is what she trained for. She has
the piece of paper to prove it. A Bachelor of Fine Arts, whatever the heck that is.
There are problems with this software, at the other computer station there is one man with
a pink turban, one with a turquoise one, one with a dark one, how come all the turban guys are
working together on something. Well, to be accurate, there are non-turban guys too, but mainly
people here in this place seem to cluster together based on age gender etcetera. This is how it
works here. She still has to write and write and write and write here.
REYKJAVIK
She walks the streets of this city, she feels isolated, desolate, alone. And happily so. This
is so very good for writers, she tells herself. But apparently she feels shitty, a tad, a tad, writing is
not everything, you have to be social too. After all, it is all about the language and it is used to
communicate. Language is there to communicate between people, it is a tool. It is not there to
make people wax on and on virtuously, poetically. If nobody reads her shit, what is the purpose
of doing this, yep, she can put it on scribd or on issuu, she used to put it on docstoc too, but,
apparently, docstoc went out of business, got out of business. Scribd and issuu are still going
strong, so she can provide as much content as she possibly wants. She will not be remunerated
but that is fine, apparently, everything online is free, everything in the cloud. How does facebook
make money, it does not and it is a public company, an IPO. Nobody knows, how this works and
nobody really cares. She should have taken her glasses; she cannot really decipher what is going
on. Well, nothing that is written in a way to be read. Reykjavik is happening, she will have
another piece of cake. She lives on sugar and caffeine. this is how her life works these days.
Sugar, sugar, sugar. She rations caffeine, does not like it that much anyhow. One coffee in the
morning is more than enough. She tries to stay away from booze, sugar addiction is more than
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enough, one addiction is fine. She is a hoarder, and an OCD-person, no doctor told her so, but it
is pretty self-evident. all our little quirks, shh, that is how the cookie crumbles. How the cookie
crumbles.
WILLIAMSBURG
So, this is where all the hipsters congregate. This part of Brooklyn has always been here,
it just now is this amazing place. And everything is super-expensive here, well, real estate.
Breuckelen as the super-hyped oasis for real estate people. Well, the same goes for Manhattan,
SoHo, Nolita, watafa, it is even satirized in pop culture, in Friends there was this episode with
the real estate agent, and there was another episode in maybe King of Queens. Author here
thought it was very funny, mainly because she had witnessed a real estate agent saying exactly
that. There is a reason for satire, it mirrors reality, exaggerates it a bit or mainly just mirrors
reality, maybe even underexaggerates it. Anyhoo, be this as it may, author leaves the L-train at
Bedford and goes to the little Swedish konditori near to the station. She has a tea and one of
those waffles that they have, the ones with the uneven edge, she has tea with it and she is happy
that they are not out of those waffles. It is pretty hot outside, it is near noon. She sits down
looking at the street, there are a lot of hipstery persons at the communal table. Well, more like
puffy, computer geeks who start up their start-up here instead of their parents garage. The person
who looked at her funnily does not work here anymore, that was maybe four years ago. Well,
author here is still a hapless author, some things never ever change. A mothy bookstore attendant
a la Comstock right outta Keep The Aspidistra Flying. Writing ah typing ah typing. Mothy, she
sure is mothy. Unkempt. If you are in the arts, you have to look like that, it comes with the
territory. Looks are everything, you have to look the part. How do bards look? Not like suburban
housewives, like mallrats, like soccer moms. Appearance is everything here. Williamsburg, huh.
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Long flowing curly hair. She is losing it and her sentences do not make much sense. Gibberish,
gibberish, this is bad when even the writer herself has no clue what she is taking about. Ah, time
to have food, time to devour the waffle. Later on she will go back to Eighth Avenue and take the
bike near to the little hotel in Chelsea. Not the Chelsea hotel, not the Savoy Chelsea, the little
one whose name she forgot. 1078 words, stop and spellcheck spellcheck here. 1078.
AHA.
On the telly, Jim Kramer of Mad Money on CNBC. It is cold in here, too cold for writing.
Yup, we are back in the room with the telly, the tv is singing its songs. Outside the day is
marching forward, kinda indifferently. We write some words, throw them into the machine. The
machine that does not judge. The receptacle of all the words. For all the words. Which is not
really true, this machine tends to erase words, nobody knows why and how, it deletes stuff at
random and makes it disappear. Pen and paper is better, then again she talked to this person who
lost all his work flying off his bike on the Burrard Bridge. Drawings for an animation, but still.
The parts of the story. Maybe we should just stand in a corner and yell our words at the world.
The storyteller of this planet, the singers, the bards. What exactly is a bard, gotta google it. She
will go out and have a peanut marshmallow slice in BUTTER on 34th. Seven more words and
were outta here-37000 - yay and yay here.
LATER LATER
37 007 3:33PM May 11, 2016.
STILL LATER.
She went out to get cookies. First she was gunning for a stroopwafel at the coffee place in
the market, but they seemed to be out. A woman with a depressed expression was standing in the
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way, in line. She seemed to be of the kind who judges. Seems, actually everybody in that market
seems to judge. That is the problem with American and Canadian supermarkets, everybody is
judging. That is the real reason for the obesity crisis, the judgmental looks of super market
patrons. Yes, eureka, we finally deduced how come everybody is becoming fatter. She should
write about that. She has much more to say about fatness and thinness and she cannot construct a
plot anyways. The storyline of her book has to be about weight loss. Or she should write a nonfiction book. About the weight of the nation. Anynation. Well, ever since she started to work on
this her novel she gained weight. There has to be a correlation. Writers have to be fat so that they
come up with the right words. The words reverberate in their bodies. Yup, that is how it is how it
is. Nonsensical ideas always catch on. Well, at least we have 27 215 words here. While the telly
is singing its songs. A sitcom that author usually hardly watches. The Goldbergs. The mom used
to play in another show and she cannot remember in which show. It kills her. Well, we can
always google it but how do you look up stuff on this computer while writing. There is no way
that one can do this easily, this computer is kind of weird and strange. Very confusing in its
interface. Not user-friendly at all. But we have 27 300 words here and we still have to tell the
story of the foray into the supermarket. It was half past four which seems to be the worst time for
grocery shopping. Everybody seemed to be on edge. Usually there is something relaxing about
supermarkets but not at that time when everybody seemed to be hungry. Grocery shopping as
chore. And now it will be Modern Family on the telly. Al Bundy as Jay Prichard, ah, whatever
whatever.
27 381 words. 6:01 words. May eleven, 2016.
It is near to night. She has to feed some words to the machine. The telly is singing its
songs. That is how it always goes. She tries to slow down so that she does not mistype her words.
114

While Anderson cooper is talking about trump, sanders, and clinton. How do you write
something substantial while talking heads are talking, author here ponders once more that the
term TALKING HEADS is antiquated, nowadays they show the whole person, apparently that
garners more ratings. Or the time of talking heads has just run its course. Author ponders if she
should go down to the coffee house on 41st. or to the other side, to the market, walk by aisles of
spaghetti and pasta sauce. She has to move, motion, get away from this seat here. She has sat
here for two hours straight, reading an article in harpers, doing research about a three-year MFA
program at the University of Austin in Texas, which would be great, Austin is great, she has been
there once for three days, everything was just peachy over there. Anyhoo, night is somehow in
the air, even though it is not dark yet. She is not the kind who wants to be taught how to write,
shed rather write and figure it out by herself. If you practice you will get perfect. It makes you.
Or not. She has 37 621 words, she wrote a lot today, most of it in the library of the community
college. You just tend to write there because everybody is typing away. And the scenery
constantly changes, it is a so very busy place. She likes busy places, hates solitude and quietness.
77 670 words, stop and spellcheck spellcheck spellcheck spellcheck spellcheck spellcheck
spellcheck spellcheck.
781/9
On the telly, an ad for a car. Still the night is marching forward, it is slowly getting
darkish outside. One can still see the colors though they are somehow morphed, less vibrant,
sleepily yawning. This is the time of the day that brings out the inner poet in everyone. The time
before sleep, before calling it a day. She still wants to type some more words, quantity begets
quality and the words on the screen might just magically jump into place.
111.
115

Deirdre is busy with her writing. She has done the dishes, folded the laundry, sparkled up
the silver. Well, not really. These days she works on her great novel, but it is more a pastime. And
that is why the novel is unfinished and is staying that way. She should take up poetry, painting,
crocheting, embroidery. Some yucky, any yucky creative outlet will do. Fixing the leaking
faucet, going to the gym. Losing weight. Nope, she is busy with her writing. She enrolled in a
class at the local community college. She takes notes. Reads novels. Really really bad novels.
But even they make more sense than the novel that she is writing. Ah, what can you do?
717.
Roger is typing up his longhand entries into his journal. They are slightly convoluted, but
maybe that is a good thing. He is not that unhappy with his writing, it is full of really lyrical
descriptions of landscapes. They are kind of boring too, so they might put the reader to sleep. He
might shorten them. Make the words pop. However that works. Use simpler words, use longer
words. Do this, do that. There is no clear rule, you have to make up the rules as you go. Just like
in life. You have to play it by ear. He is really tired. He is a recovering actor, whatever that is. He
came upon the term when reading the website of a playwright. He liked it.
718.
38 012 words. 10:49 PM. May 11, 2016.
719.
She is just puttering around the house before going out for her obligatory morning coffee.
Kind of like calisthenics, rituals to make her shoot into her day, form her day. The movements
that a writer does before tackling the daily requirement of words to be formed on the screen.

116

713.
7:27 AM. May 12, 2016. Vancouver, Canada.
715.b.
38 079 words.
727. e.
The writer cooped up at the kitchen table. Awaiting his daily allotment of inspired words.
He was down at the coffee house wondering why the heck they changed the interior. They
always do that with that particular chain, they have an always evolving interior pattern. Once, a
car blast into their front wall, it was in the news and later on he saw the police tape and some
policmen and women huddling around that place that was careened off to the public. Author
ponders that while stopping for a man in red walking over the street. he saw an old man in blue,
too, jogging. The men might have been the same age, one chooses to jog, one chooses to hunch
over and hardly make it to the other side of the street. They will both die. The persons on the
radio with their snarky voices, the very nice and sunny ladies in the coffee house. The one behind
the counter calls the other one MARGOT. Author ponders what to make out of all this. He still
has to fill up the tank, 27 to empty is what the car tells him, he chooses to go back to the kitchen
table to type up his words. The community college library, the lab therein can wait. The three
men with turbans can wait. It seems these days it is all about which place to go to type up the
words. The words that manifest that he cannot come up with an interesting storyline. He will
have beans for lunch or maybe a cheeseburger from the drive-thru on 41st. only time will tell. Ah,
the suspense of the everyday.
7350.
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It is morning in Hamburg. She wakes up, has a shower, dresses. Jeans and t-shirt. It is
warm outside. She makes it in time to Dammtor, catches the train to Itzehoe. She sits in the train
and reads an Illustrierte. That is what they call magazines here. She feels out of place and she
tells herself that authors, writers, poets have to feel out of place in order to fashion the right kind
of words. That is why she lives in this self-imposed exile on the other side of the world. Outside
it is starting to rain. Maybe she should have taken a jacket with her. A man sits on the other seat.
He is very young and dressed in a suit, dressed to impress as the saying goes. Author here closes
her eyes. The train chuckers forward. Not much till Itzehoe.
573.
In the room with the green sofa. The telly is not on. The light fixtures dispense their own
songs. She looks up at the books in the library shelf. They are all about visual art, design. Some
book about engineering. A volume teaching German. She has to fold laundry, though it seems
better that the pile of laundry stays put in the washer, nicely tucked away. There will always be
new loads of laundry. Cycle of life, cycle of laundry.
74.
38 575 words. 8:14 AM. May 12, 2016.
78.
The way that this text is ordered is pretty random. Decidedly so. Authors gotta
experiment. Apparently. It is called artsy or something. Outside the sun is shining, there are nicer
things, better things to do than feed words to some machine in a darkened room. Maybe she
should take up jogging like the old man in blue who was jogging towards her when she went out
for coffee. He made a grim face as if he was forcing the jog on himself, everybody is a reluctant
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athlete, so it seems. Or maybe just that one particular guy in blue. Blue shirt, blue shoes. A
fashion statement of sorts.
71.d.
She should go by the gym. To weigh herself. That is what she does there more so than
exercise. She keeps tabs on how much she weighs. Writes it down on a sheet of paper. Stacks the
papers in a pile. Everything is very regulated. She still gained weight. Well, actually once she
stopped keeping tabs on her weight. It all crept back. She had lost 30 lbs. within five months and
then ate voraciously to gain it all back within the year. Half a year or some to bounce down, half
a year to bounce back up. Well, her face looks less wrinkly but she cannot move that swiftly.
What do you want, nimbleness or non-wrinkliness? Everything is a choice of sorts.
55.e.
38 827 words. She sits near the window in the small coffee house in Itzehoe. Two
construction workers come in. it is ten in the morning. They order coffee. The three women are
sitting near the back. Chattering. The waitress has her usual bored face that says what the hell am
I doing in a godforsaken place like this? The fashion-in/fashion-out store opens up on the other
side of the street. The shopkeeper lady is dressed in white and is sporting a pillbox hat that
somehow seems to be held in place by pins.
Author here is mushing the crumbs on her plate and having another sip of the quite cold
tea. She is writing with a green pen in a lined notebook. She is some writer, dedicated to her
craft. Too bad, that she still does not have a storyline. The storyline is her hapless existence as a
writer, as a person who struggles away in a hapless job, honing her craft that has no takers. She

119

will peddle her wares though, send a query to every agent in New York City. Somebody will give
her a pity contract. Wow, what a life. Well at least we have our health here.
72.
39 031 words. 8:43 AM. May 12, 2016. Nice weather outside.
73.
She is waiting to do her reading. It is open-mic-night at the railroad-caf on Denman.
Most of the readers are students or faculty at the community college. And then there are the
patrons of the restaurant, eating, drinking, chatting. It is half past eight. She will read for seven
minutes; everybody is supposed to read for seven minutes. Her shot at fame. They will clap for
everything. It is amazing, there is no other way to describe it. Like a drug, maybe. Total strangers
clapping their hands together. What does that even mean? Clapping your hands? What is the
origin of that? She can google it once she is back in her dingy apartment on 3rd.
She wanted to be an architect. An urban planner. She watched too much Seinfeld. Now
she reads from texts in rooms that other people built and designed. What is the difference? It is a
creative outlet, gives her something to do. To wake up in the morning, to take a shower, comb
her hair. Writing reading. She has never ever read Anna Karenina. War and peace. She reads the
lines that are on buses. She reads the words on a cookie box. That is as much reading as we can
muster here. Lo-lit, hi-lit. we will all die in the end. In the end it does not even matter. A song by
Linkin Park.
73. again.
39 274 words. 8:55 AM. The weather still nice and sunny.

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The meticulous scenario of the everyday. Hi, this is kia in Bellingham, she is once more
sitting in the car, going south to the little bakery on 33rd. she can see her dentist coming out of his
car, going to work. She asks the lady behind the counter about the ice-cream that they sell, this is
for one pint? Yes. One pint is nine bucks Canadian. What exactly is a pint, how many spoonfuls,
how many bowlfuls, they have something called lemon-thyme. How does thyme taste? There are
people sitting in front of the bakery, in colorful garb. They are male. Males dress more colorful
than women. She ponders while she is moving along. She thinks about stuff to write about. There
is a bald man raking something. The sun reflects on his hairless head. Ah, shiny. There are too
many cars taking 33rd. she can hardly get out of the car. There is a preschool near the bakery. This
is what she will write about once she is back home in the darkened room with the green couch.
Her words will be consequential. They will freeze these moments of her in time. Trump is still in
the running. As if it even matters. We will all die, we will all die. Maybe she should not be a
writer, she pens too many doomsday messages. She should watch Colombo on you tube. Mystery
novels is where it is at. Poetry sucks. Her words do not make sense. It is twenty minutes after
nine. She is writing since she got up, since she rolled outta bed. It is sunny outside, make of that
what you want.
573.
It is her turn to do her reading. She stands up, straightens herself, walks to the podium.
Starts reading. She tries not to look up because she knows that she will freeze, stop cold. Her
voice lingers, then traverses the room. She does not really know what she is reading, she does it
more automatically. At the end, thundering applause. Aha, this went pretty well. She has to catch
the last bus home. To suburbia, the burbs, the burbs. Poetry that lives near the burbs. An
oxymoron if there ever was one. 9 654 words here.
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331.
She bought a peanut marshmallow slice in the dainty bakery. They have such American
fare for a place that is so super English. Nothing goes with nothing and maybe that is the allure
of the place. And it is called butter, everything non-health conscious. The bakery subsides in this
neighborhood where everybody is weight conscious. Its patrons are in bike shorts. Butter, huh.
Peanuts and marshmallows. Huh, huh.
332.
The fridge starts up its songs. Outside the sun is shining. A little later she will drive thru
in McDonalds on 41st, get a cheese burger from the too young guy at the drive thru window, the
one who wonders if this is how his work world will be till the rest of his days. Stuck in a window
at McDonalds on 41st. she will devour her burger in the parking lot of the London Drugs,
somewhere in parking space 209 or 210. She will do it secretly, eating has to be done secretly in
north America. Everybody has to weigh less than they usually do. There is the right weight and
then there is the wrong weight. Body mass index rules, it rules. This all started up with Jane
Fonda. Yup, let us blame her for our obsession with our communal weight. That is how it is how
it is. Her neck is stiffening up, too much typing does that 2 yer. Everybody has a story to tell. She
will reach 40 000 in time in time. She watched this interview on Charlie Rose where the woman
said that all she does all day is sleep so that she can perform on Broadway in the evening,
sometimes two shows, on Wednesdays. Sleeping to gather your energy to stand in front of an
audience. Writing is like that, painting is like that. You distill all your energy let it flow out and
then you are all empty inside and have to recuperate. Yup, something like that, something of that
kind here. She will now go and have the peanut marshmallow slice. And the fridge is singing its
songs here.
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342.
40 006 words. 9:35 AM. May 12, 2016. The temperature is 16 degrees Celsius.
351.f.
40 025. Here, here.
On the telly, Shake Shack and J.C.Penney. They talk about stocks. The day before it was
about Macys and Disney. Author here listens in to the discussion about shake shack, who does
not like to talk about burgers? There apparently is a shake shack opening at penn station, one
person says that you will not wait for your burger, people are in and out of Penn station to catch
the train, the other guy counters, speak for yourself, implying that he would definitely wait for
his burger. Author here had Shake Shack, there was always a long long long winding line near
that big iron something building, the burgers were just burgers. What is the dif with
McDonalds? Apparently the price. Now the news is about Paul Ryan and Donald Trump, author
here does not really know what this is all about. Trump and Ryan meet, that is the headline on the
telly. Everything is white blue red, the colors of the star spangled banner, apparently this visually
underscores that they are talking about US-politics. Outside the sun is shining, the day is
marching forward. She is heaping up the words into the screen, onto the page. Even on the screen
there are page numbers, when in fact these are virtual pages, digital pages. Not pages that you
can hold in your hands. Though she will go down to West Broadway and print this out, you can
edit better when you are holding a red pen and make real, physical marks on a white piece of
paper with black letters. You feel more like a real real writer; one whose words are worth
publishing. 40 300 or so words, near noon on a sunny day on the west coast here. In two
thousand and sixteen.

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FOUR THREE.
She is in Turin in x-mas time. Well, it is actually the 21st of December, the weather is very
nice here, mild, not icy-snowy-ish. The concierge woman said that it is unusual for Turin in
winter to be this nice and mild. Outside of the hotel that has a number as name, there is the
shopping passage, and people are congregating to this downtown to do their shopping. Petula
Clark could be singing about this. So many people, a music band is playing, young kids are
singing in Italian. Two women want her to support a charity, I do not speak Italian, no problem,
give us your money. All charities want young people to raise the money, nobody says no to
young eager individuals who look idealistic and are clean and nicely bathed. The smell of
infantile innocence. Author here is boozed-out, it is Italy, you start having red wine with the
linguini at lunch, more Barolo at dinner and so it goes. You are never really sober in Italy. Well,
obviously you are if you live here, but not if you are a tourist visiting from the other side of the
planet. Multo Barolo, so it goes so it goes. Her Italian sucks, but so does everybody elses.
Fromaggio, you just like to say that with a berlusconian gesture of emphasis. Mastroianni,
Mussolini. Well, more Sofia Loren or Gina Lollobrigida. If you are Italian you automatically are
good-looking, everybody is a movie star in this country. It comes with the territory here.
SEVEN THREE FOUR
Ten twenty-eight. She is sitting in her little cubicle, on the third floor, in the writing
studio place near union square. There are other persons here, she is not the only writer on the
planet. Others type, others inscribe papers with BIC-pens. Some might be published; some will
never be published. But there is an air of communal struggle with the muse. She will go out for
Cookies by Melissa, she will have a vodka pizza at Artichoke, she will walk by the ear and eye
infirmary. She feels like a writer and that is all that counts here.
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FIVE SIX NINE


Impeachment in Brazil. That is the headline on the telly. She is still sitting in the room
with the green sofa and is typing away. A good-looking woman on the telly talking about the
Brazilian impeachment. The sun is shining and author here is out of words. Maybe she should go
for a walk, by people who jog, who walk their dogs, who push a stroller with two babies therein.
She could take the bus and weigh herself in the Y on burrard, the one where everybody looks like
a movie star.
SEVEN OH ONE
40 779 words. 10:37 AM. May 12, 2016. 17 degrees Celsius.
Just sitting at the window in the coffee house. Looking out at the busy street. Cars are
going up Arbutus and down Arbutus. There is a little parking space between the coffee house and
the street. So one is removed from the street. There is actually the pedestrian strip too. So one
cannot really see the cars that good and they all mush together. The chair near the window is a
high chair. There are several high chairs, three, sometimes four. They are all next to the station
with the cups, the sugar, the cream, and the two kinds of milk. Apparently they do not do that
anymore, there is only cream or milk. If you want skim milk or soy milk you have to ask them.
Maybe it worked differently, author here does not care, she is a black coffee person, she just puts
cream in at the station. The busses go by. A teenager in school uniform comes in. author here
types away on her laptop. People in the back are chatting. Yup, this is as much as there is to
describe here. She can walk down to the market, walk by the aisles of baked beans, watch the
afternoon rush on the grocery store. She can have another coffee in the coffee place inside the
market. Ah, so many choices and one can write a book about that. Wait, she just did. A woman in

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a high-pitched voice comes in and orders an Americano. That is as much as is happening in here.
Author works on her novel. A whodunnit. A not very fast-paced one. 41 059 words.
Three three three
on the telly, Two Broke Girls. And laugh tracks. Snarky repartees. An ad for a medication
for dog flees. An allergy medication. An ad for a hospital. All three ads are for health stuff. There
are different commercial streams based on time of day. The ad people target different
demographics. What is the demographic niche for a writer? An ad for pen and paper? She has to
read more in order to get some inspiration for a story. A fast-paced story. Where stuff is
happening. You cannot just whine about not having a storyline. Or can one? This will be her
niche. Describing how paint dries. Even stagnation has some movement forwards. \
FOUR
The rain in Dammtor. She catches the rain to itzehoe. It is like going to the office. The
days are all the same, rained-in. Her novel stalls. Happily. She looks forward to the coffee house,
the fashion place, waitress et. al. Nothing much happens. The Bahn person asks for her ticket,
punches a hole into it. Fahrkarten. On he goes.
FIVE
It is kind of romantic to sit here and dive your fork into the crumbly cake. The whiffs of
the peppermint tea. The waitress and her face full of utter resentment. Three women chattering
near the window. Fashion lady on the other side of the street. It is ten alright. At 12 she has been
back at the station to catch the train down to Hamburg. Nothing ever changes nothing ever
changes.

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SIX
It is another of many days in the coffee house in Itzehoe. Somehow her story is coming
together. The descriptions of the characters are dead on. She reworks them and reworks them
until they are just right. She is very visual with her language. The afternoons in Hamburg she just
moves through the Innenstadt in Hamburg, through Karstadt, Alsterhaus, the
Moenckebergstrasse. It is as if the city is singing her songs to author here. The Hamburger
Kinderstube, everything so very hanseatic. People have a strong Hamburg accent, she likes that.
She watches people, how different they are from each other. People are in tribes, just as they
used to be. Along age, along social status. They dress accordingly, author tries to fit in, dresses
very inconspicuously. So that she can watch people, take mental notes. She walks a lot. By the
Alster, the different parts of the Alster. Binnenalster, Aussenalster. She sits in coffee houses, but
her mainstay for coffee house is the one in Itzehoe. Where the curtains are lacey, where it seems
as if time stands still.
She uses pen and paper, a lot. She transcribes her written passages in the sparse hotel
room, using her laptop. Writing is so uneasy here. She makes sure to get out of the path of bike
riders. She feels so uneasy. Gets certain kinds of chocolates that she cannot get in the states.
Marzipan Kartoffeln. She walks a lot to not blow up like a house.
NINE
Once more Reykjavik. So her mainstay is hamburg, but she has to travel to different parts
of Europe just to have a change of scenery. She tells herself that that is what writers should do.
Her writing might suck, but her life is very dedicated to her craft. She is a tad uneasy, from the
flight, from the train ride into town. She drops her luggage in the hotel, goes into the city, walks

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by the shops. She has a coffee and this round cake with the chocolate gloss on it in the bakery in
Bankastrati. People talk in Icelandic and she still does not understand a word. Even though this is
her third time. She feels that she just does not want to learn it, she just likes to listen in to the
Nordic mysterious lilt. Something out of a movie by Ingmar Bergman, in black and white, with
subtitles. Well, Icelandic is different from Swedish but still close enough. Mysterious, exotic,
cold and Nordic. In her book everything Nordic is exotic. That is how she sees the world. The
round cake with the chocolate glaze has a mushy filling. It is pretty good. She will take a pic and
give it a good enough review on yelp. Her writings are extensively published on yelp. And you
thought that she is not published. Issuu and scribd are there too. She feels sleepy, she will go
back to the hotel. She is beat from the flight. Tomorrow will be another day, another day here in
Reykjavik.
EIGHTY-EIGHT
Union square, third floor, the laptop at her desk space. Typing typing. Her novel will be
published. Or not. She does not really care anymore; she really cares more about the process. The
journey. The quest. It is a weird idea, but it holds true. You have to enjoy the moment not wait for
the goal. You will reach the goal eventually. Her story is coming together. A tad convolutedly, a
tad strangely.
She feels like having something Mexican. Or maybe an avocado toast will kill that
craving. Or just a jelly donut in the dunkins downstairs. After all, as we all know, America runs
on dunkins. She is walking up 14th., towards the highline. It might be too much of a walk, but it
keeps her busy. She did enough typing for the day. She could hover around the apple store, check
her e-mail. She could sit on chairs near ninth. She passes the flags of pratt. Her writingish
adventure is so weird. She goes into the drugstore, picks out dental floss. This one, with mint
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flavor. She walks out into the street, the fresh air is doing her good. Most of her writing is
interrupted by walks, one leg in front of the other, the motion is good for you. Makes the blood
run through the veins, makes her think more clearly, writers have to think clearly in order to
write lucid stuff. Lucid. Orwell postulates thus. She hates being a writer. It is ah so boring ah so
boring. She will ride a tad with a Citi Bike. Just for kicks. Writing can wait, writing can wait
here.
NINE NINE
She sits on one of the green chairs outside of Macys. Summer over Herald Square. So
many many people. Licking ice cream, rushing by sporting shopping bags. Talking, running.
Sitting and enjoying the sunshine. New York City is happening. Just keep on people watching, it
will inform the process of writing. This is what her creative writing prof back home said. Ah,
what does he know, he merely published two or three short stories. That is not an oeuvre. And
how can you write when you only talk about writing. You have to sit and type, day-in and dayout. Until your fingers start bleeding, until you are too hunched over to walk with a straight gait.
TWO TWO
Once more it is a stroopwafel for roger. In the starbucks on arbutus. It is late, half an hour
to closing time. He has the caramel wafel, honey oat or something. Puts it on the paper cup so
that the middle gets all gooey inside. Watches the cars go by. Wishes he was back in Westmount,
back in Montreal. He has class the next day, American Lit. The poetry they read is much better
than the choice of novels.
A woman comes in, orders a caramel soy latte. Or something like that. She is very
specific. Whatever happened to ordering a simple cuppa joe? He has the wafel and sips his tea.
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He will go home to Kits and do some more reading for the American Lit class. The sun is silently
going down over Vancouver.
SEVENTY.
On the telly, the mentalist. It is six and forty-two minutes, so there are merely 20 minutes
or so left. Author here has no clue what the story is about, but she likes the show. The guy who is
the main character now has three different perfumes out, by Givenchy. What does police work
have to do with smelling like flowers? One cannot really phathom Peter Falk peddling an
aromatic odor, perfumes a la Columbo. To go with the wrinkled raincoat. The whodunnits of
today are well kinda different. But the main storyline is the same. Though in Columbo you
usually know from the beginning who the murderer is. Anyhoo, still typing while the telly is
singing its songs. She did a lotta writing today and yesterday, 5000 words per day. That is quite
an undertaking, it is tough on the body. Pushing down little squares on a keyboard, all day lone
all day long. Working in a coalmine, well, not quite. But it sure feels like that. Her right shoulder
is definitely acting up, her whole body is rejecting this laptop. It is kind of like a race against
time, she still wants to get a stroopwafel before the coffeehouse closes down for the day. This her
story is all about stroopwafels, they seem to be the red thread that runs through the story. And we
type and type and type some more here.
ONE
Metrotown is a pretty good place to do mall walking, it prepares you mentally for a day
of typing up parts of a story. You run into the same persons doing mall walking or just hanging
out in the mall. Old people, retirees. Fatties who want to lose weight. Author here is one of them.

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She can use derogative terms like fatty mainly because she is one of them. She is good at yoyodieting. It all comes down; it all goes up. Story of her life.
SEVEN
She walks from Granville Island towards Kits. By the grocery store that claims to sell
everything at bargain prices, by the ice-cream store that is extra expensive. Kits is a world in
itself. The sun is shining; it is near noon. Kits is kinda weird, then again to author every place is
weird. It is easy to describe a locale as weird, it is easier than to describe a locale accurately. She
thinks about her writings. Novels. She is not really built to tell stories, she is more a person who
paints with words. That is kind of a liability but if you know that then maybe you can use it. And
not every reader is that interested in story and in everything working neatly together like a welloiled machine. Real life is not like that anyways, it has all these narrative holes, all these stories
that are happening at the same time.
It is noon now; she reaches West Broadway. She turns and walks towards the bookstore.
She walks by the Thai food place, takes the bus back home. The bookstore has to wait, it will
still be there tomorrow.
FIVE FIVE
Itzehoe, the coffee house, the three women chatting, waitress, cake, tea, fashion store.
Everything is exactly how she left it, some things never ever change. Maybe the structure is good
for her writings. She will type a tad, she has brought her laptop, she will catch the train back to
Hamburg in time. In the afternoon she will walk all over Hamburg, the walking is good for a
writer.
SEVEN.
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The coffee house in Arbutus, a marble loaf cake with tea, cars are whooshing by, it is still
some time until this place closes up for the day. She inscribes her notebook with the green BIC
pen, her letters are kind of leaning to the left, she is looking at her tea, the whiffs coming out of
it. Her writing is so mechanistical, it is more as if the body is taking over and just writes just
writes because it does not know what else to do here.
ELEVEN-f
An afternoon walk while the sun is still shining. Children playing in the street, the green
nicely manicured lawns are happening. There is the choice to go down to the market or up to the
village. She turns towards the market only to change her mind later and to turn back to the
village. The coffee house on Arbutus will be closed once she will reach it. So up it is. By 35th
which has its monster trucks which are now asleep, like a moon landscape awaiting the
construction crew, by the apartment houses, by the Starbucks with all the people inside and
spilling out onto the sidewalk, into the donut shoppe by the fruit stand, and it says coffee house
brewing since 1964 - open 24 hours. The place is so nice inside but hardly anybody is here. Even
though this place is half the price of Starbucks. Apparently donuts are scoffed at in this
neighborhood. She has a maple donut, Canadian Maple, the other woman is having a small box
of Timbits. The woman behind the counter asks author here if she wants her steep tea with sugar
and milk, no black, she sits down at one of the red and green tables. There is a map of the village
on the wall, the whole place is nice, inviting, airy. And somehow removed from the outside. The
windows should be bigger. This is the second, no wait the third time that author is in this place.
The donut is very gooey, too sugary, way too rich, they were outta jelly donuts which was
actually why author came here, she was not quite sure if she wanted to come here instead of
having a wafel in Starbucks, this is way too rich but in the end there is some decadent streak that
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has to be satisfied. Author is dressed pretty warm for a sunny day, but it is kind of cold despite
the sun shining so brightly. That is why she is still wearing her touque. There is not much to see
here, not much to write about. The story of the non-story, the descript of an afternoon stroll
around the neighborhood. When the day is letting out silently. Her days are filled with typing up
her book, her novel, the one that is kind of coming together but not quite not quite. Her life is
filled up with typing, constructing the plot, counting the words that rain down onto the keyboard.
FIVE a.
Bankastrati, the round cake with the chocolate glaze, music on the overhead. The feel of
dislocation is grapping her by the throat but there is no use in fighting it. You have to go with the
flow. She will book a tour to see geysers, after all this is what Reykjavik is famous for, this is
what put Iceland on the map. Not the round cake in the bakery in bankastrati.
SEVEN b.
43 504 words. 10:17 PM. May 12, 2016. 14 degrees Celsius.
EIGHT b.
At seven in the morning she once more rolls out of bed because that is what one does at
seven. She is back inside her place at seven and thirty-four in front of the typing machine, she
will produce at least 5000 words and they should all be about what happened in those thirty
minutes or so when she got out of the house to get some java. That is what writers do, apparently
they soak up what is around them, distill it into sentences, retell the personal in a way that is
interesting for the whole of humanity. Some grand wish. She watched a documentary on John
Denver the night before where he describes how he wrote one of his famous melodies, famed
lyrics in just about ten minutes, he just soaked up his environment in some oversensitive way and
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then replicated it, spat it out onto a sheet of paper, notes and all, it became one of his most
enduring songs. Apparently that is how creativity works, not so much visual arts but more so
literary art. There are theorists who write big long wordy tomes about that, what makes for a
story, a narrative, how is it a documentation of what really happens, how is it merely a reflection
of the person who tells the story. If you send ten different persons to the same coffee house in the
morning they each will bring back a different version of what happened, you will have ten
different versions, different accounts, different retellings of reality. And even one person can tell
the same thing in different versions, if you retell a story ten times it will be different each and
every time. It is the time-element that makes for the change, the slightly different position, the
slightly obscured dimension, perspective, whatever. And the listener will be at a different point in
time. Anyhow, be that as it may, author here was admiring the map on the wall of the coffee
house, this coffee house has a 3-meter-long map on the wall, just like the coffee house on 41st
has, the one that sells donuts and belongs to another company. This one shows the whole world,
the other one on 41st, showed merely the neighborhood of this part of town. But both are
oversized, well, one is undersized because it is the whole world. Maps are always different from
reality anyways; you depict something three dimensional on a flat surface. You mush 3D into 2D
or something like that. The women in the coffee place knew each other, they were talking about
classes, that they registered in, 21 credits, wow, how can you do that if you sling drinks at the
local coffee joint. People are streaming into the coffee place, it is after all seven in the morn, up
and atom everyone. Author here ponders if she should go down or up to the gym, there are two
gyms, one near Langara, one on Burrard, they have both totally differing clienteles, the Y on
Burrard seems to cater to movie stars and the y on 41st to movie stars sixty years later. What a

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difference some years make. In behavior, stature, everything. And lest we forget, we will all die
here.
Author types away, tries to find ways how to stretch her morning experience, how many
sentences can you use to describe thirty or so minutes of your life? There are of course the colors
to describe, red blooms that are so clearly depicting this time of the year, early to mid-may, it is
Friday the thirteenth, not a good date, one should just huddle under the sheets and not get out
from under them, what if you run into a black cat to top this passage into the land of the
unknown, where witches live, where zombies live? Author ponders if she should really write
about superstition, she is hardly superstitious at all, but there is something about the number 13
that seems to make sense in a so very illogical way here. Once, a long long time ago she used to
live in a house that had the number 12 + 1 on its door, the number 13 was not mentioned, bad
luck is bad luck and who can rationally argue with that. Everyone has their own superstitions;
even rational people are like that. Rational individuals. We tend to divide persons into rational
and irrational ones, as if we are all different kinds of animals. And we have 44 thou or so here,
she has to wax for about 6000 words more, she wants to reach the coveted 50 000 by the end of
this day, the nanowrimo wordcount, the amount of words that a regular novella consists of. There
are novellas, novels, mega novels, short stories, tweets. The time it takes to pass on a message. A
movie does that in a chunk of two hours, a sitcom episode takes 30 minutes to watch. Author
here has a coffee and a piece of cake in the coffee house, she sits down near the window and
looks out at what arbutus has to offer this morn. In the back, the woman behind the counter and
the woman in front of the counter are still talking about school, the 21 credits, how long it takes
to finish a certain program, to get thru it. Chunks of education, pared down for the people. In
overseeable chunks of time, episodes of knowledge. Which is kind of weird, that is not how
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knowledge is accumulated, it is totally nonlinear, it comes at you from everywhere. If you want
to know about a subject, than you are suddenly hyposensitized and get your info from
everywhere in your surroundings. Stuff reminds you of other stuff. Free associations. That is why
when you watch Colombo, he suddenly looks at something, pauses and you can see that he is
deducing the answer of a riddle, in his case who the murderer is or how the murdering was done.
Author here ponders, she is still regurgitating the documentary she saw on the telly in the
evening before going to sleep, the one about John Denver, the one that was slightly dated. Or
maybe just the film clips were dated because they showed things that happened in the seventies,
late sixties, the persons who talked about those clips were actually in newer times, they were
interpreting what happened back then. There was this one person who posited that John Denver
did not write his songs in a Tin Pan Alley fashion, whatever that means, he did not have an office
to go to to write his lyrics and his songs, he roamed around and then wrote his songs whenever
the mood striked him, basically what the guy was saying that a writing that is done inside the
walls of an office is different from a text that is written in the open air, but if push comes to
shove that is like saying studio painting is different from en plein air painting is different, there is
a difference but the process of writing is very much about concentrating on the piece of paper in
front of you, even if there are no real walls around you as there are in a room, you are definitely
constrained by the physicality of concentrating on that piece of paper in front of you and putting
little letters on it. Writing is about abstracting, translating some chunks of the real world into a
distilled version, something that one can come to at a later point and time and relive the
experience of the writer and sometimes that is more accurately done and at other times it is all
wishy washy and that is when we call it bad writing. And author here seems to be the queen of
run-on sentences, she is like the German writer Heinrich Kleist who would write sentences that
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were each some pages long, that was his style, to write extra-long sentences. Author here likes to
do that too, she emulates his style. Anyhoo, still typing, still typing. It is now eight and twenty,
she is typing for quite a while, she could go to the gym, she could go to the computer lab in the
library of the community college, she could just sit here and finish this, in between just going out
for a burger and a peanut marshmallow slice. The theme of this book is still the struggle with the
words, the life of a writer. The life of different writers. But the only real writer is yours truly, all
the other ones are fictional figments of her imagination. She actually reads a lot about writers
these days, hemingway, the woman who wrote the gin cabinet or closet, nowadays you can watch
all those you tube videos that show interviews with writers, she loves to watch the interviews
with max Frisch, she has watched them before, after all he was the author she was tackling some
fifty years ago when she was getting her abitur. Everybody had to have one author, one writer to
concentrate on. Hers was Max Frisch, a Swiss author who wrote in German. That is why she
cannot fathom why they teach American Lit and Canadian Lit and British Lit, the language is
always the same, one does not really differentiate in German lit if Frisch is Swiss or Handke is
Austrian or Grass is German, but we digress here, digress. She has 45 000 words or so, it is eight
27 in the morn on May 13, 2016. Ooh, what a date here.
SEVENTY-ONE
It is eight forty-seven, she has to produce 5000 words by the end of the day. Just to say
that this is what I did with my time. The machines on 35th. Street, those concrete machines. The
construction cars, vehicles, the ones that look like over-sized toy trucks. all in yellow, they look
like a weirdly oversized version of miniature toy trucks. Just because they are so cartoony and so
extremely oversized. Out of place in a residential neighborhood. Vehicles as tall as a building.
That is how it looked in Berlin when she visited some twenty years ago, it just looked surreal, the
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whole city like a big construction site. Well, the neighborhood of Alexander Platz, next to the
Gedaechtniskirche, or maybe the names of the locales were different. What author here is getting
at, is the comparison between constructing a text and constructing a real, well, something, the
writing of a text reminds her of a construction site where something is built, concrete is like
letters on a page, the laptop is like the truck that shovels sand around. The manufacturing of
something where there was nothing before, words where there were none before, a new text.
Same in the street, obviously, 35th was there before but it is renovated now, apparently they want
to put new pipes in, pipes that separate the sewer system from the water system or something, the
whole street is filled with turquoise pipes, that will eventually go into the ground once the
cement of the ground is shattered. Author here is not good at describing building, construction,
seems, nobody is, that is why people draw diagrams and roll them up in those rolls that engineers
and architects lug around. How do you draw a map of an intended novel, how do you diagram
that? On a wall, with index cards? She watched this episode of modern family where the fat guy
and the thin realtor help a famous British mystery writer to write a story about a murder on a
train and they totally destroy the premise because they say that there are cameras on top of the
trains and the writer wants to throw out all the 500 pages of his book, out the window. Because it
does not reflect reality. Then the glitch is swapped over only to be redestroyed by Haley.
Apparently narratives are not supposed to have holes, they are supposed to be air tight just like
the sewer and the fresh water pipe underneath a street should be tightly sealed from each other.
But apparently this street has somehow functioned for a hundred years or so, it is merely now
that it is updated and it will be updated again. Construction in urban design is constantly
changing, you cannot really do that in writing a book, though the persons who teach storytelling
in videogames would argue otherwise. The ones who would say that there are different outcomes

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for Romeo and Juliet, there could be a storyline where Romeo gets the girl and everybody lives
happily ever after, well, until death parts them, but death actually does part them in the story.
Wow, this is so annoying, her writing just sucks, she has to go out and get a peanut butter
marshmallow slice in the bakery opposite of the dentist and the little preschool. Outside, the sun
is reflected in the too bright white flowers on the bush in the garden. It is nine oh six on a sunny
morning in May, she has 45 700 words here, she will go down to the village too, she still has 21
liters in her gas tank here. Her right shoulder is acting up, writing is so bad for your health.
Sitting hunched over in one corner that cannot be good, cannot be good. How do speechwriters
do it? They have to produce tons of words that will make or break a presidency. She should look
into that. look into that. But first things first, first we have to get the peanut butter marshmallow
slice, that is paramount, paramount. She might walk by the construction site on 35th too, there is
something to write about, write about. It will be too sandy though. You need goggles and hard
hats to move around there. And work boots so that nothing crushes your toesies. Only people in
work gear should congregate to that place. Construction in progress, construction in progress.
FIFTY-NINE
It is 9:21 AM, maybe too soon for the sugar rush of mid-morning. If she was a regular
nine-to-fiver she would have her morning fix at ten. That is how people did it in the art school,
they all lined up at exactly ten in the morn in the caf in order to get some food, some drink. Like
clockwork. Maybe that is why that place destroyed all the art making abilities of its patrons. That
was at least the consensus of the students. Not the official party-line. But the ability to produce
great works of art was systematically destroyed. That is how art education seems to work in
north America, suppress the competition or something, make sure there are merely a selected few
who make it in the art world. Even though everybody can hold a brush in her hand and smush it
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into a pot of paint and yield it over a surface. Housepainters do it every day, look at all the
houses here, they are painted. Anyhoo, her beef with art skools has to wait. First she has to go
out and get a peanut butter marshmallow piece, slice. The equivalent of a stroopwafel. Seems,
that her novel does not have a plot but it sure likes to talk about sugary snacks that are not good
for yer. Tell me more about food, that should be her narrative. And every reader can relate to it
this is what we do, we eat, we breathe, we sleep, we die. Ah, insights, insights. And we have 46
116 words here. Time to rest those fingers, time to regather our faculties here.
FIFTY.
Apparently the oldest person in the world has died in a Brooklyn senior living house. She
was 116 years old. It was on the news. Wow, quite an age.
SIXTY.
46 162 words. 9:38 AM. May 13, 2016. 17 degrees Celsius in Vancouver, British
Columbia, Canada.
SEVENTY-ONE.
She is now awake for three hours or so and she produced quite a lot of words here. She
has lost count. What are numbers anyways? You cannot really measure the quantity of words.
You can measure the quality. Her words are kind of good, well, more like good enough. Maybe
one should write a text as a group. By bouncing words, sentences off each other. Maybe one
single voice is not good. One single version. The view of one single-minded person. One Orwell,
one Mr. Hemingway. One Tolstoy. Everything will change anyways because the copywriter or
the editor is having his or her input, Jack Kerouac famously complained about how his writing
was totally changed, he showed his original version of a sentence and the way that it was
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published in the book version of his original text. There were more words, lesser words, morphed
words. And each word counts, each word more or less will change the text. This is especially
crucial in poems, not so much in 300 page long stories. But if you tell a story in three words as in
boy meets girl, girl meets boy, boy meets world, everything changes. There is a different one, a
different perspective, a different emphasis to each version. Anyhoo, still typing still typing, while
the computer is repeating the same news clip over and over again. Which is slightly confusing
for the writer of these words. 46 243 words, for now, for now here.
NINETY-ONE
She was perusing Facebook, chatting, did a very witty repartee to some question on
Facebook chat that was full of the right kind of linguistic cadence and pauses, apparently you get
good at that the more you do it and given that she is writing all the time these days her ability to
mold words into good enough sentences increases, it is like playing an instrument or dancing,
you choreograph words in a very virtuoso way, that is why teachers are good at what they do,
they talk all day and thus they are articulate even if you wake them up in the middle of the night,
they know exactly which words to use to express what they think and do it in a very removed,
very scientific way because they trained themselves to do so. And author here has still some
more words, the butter place has to wait, apparently she will skip her mid-morning snack here
mainly because it is not mid-morning anymore, it is now, late midmorning leaning towards noon,
she will drive thru in McDonalds, it is interesting to meet up with those people who stick their
heads out of that little room in the drive-thru and process her payment and the subsequent
delivery of food. Author ponders, maybe she should work in McDonalds, she will have a lot to
write about, after all, everybody frequents McDonalds and there are volumes of descriptions of
the behavior of the human animal there, it will be an ethnographic adventure, an anthropological
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research project, she will write amazing books about that, she will be world famous, she will
teach at Columbia University in the heart of New York City. Author here came upon this descript
of Columbia in somebodys resume, technically Columbia is everything but in the heart of New
York City, it is in the upper quadrant of Manhattan, next to Harlem, and when you look at this
shoe-like subway map, all the boroughs do not exist in the main pic, the main focus is on
Manhattan with Central Park, with the East Village at the bottom, Central Park in the middle and
Columbia at the top, so technically one cannot call Columbia being in the heart of nyc, it is more
at the upper valve of the heart of New York City, where the blood goes into the aorta. These are
authors thoughts on Columbia. Edward Said taught there, his thoughts on orientalism still
resonate in academia, anyhoo, typing and typing and typing here. Columbia is pretty big on
architecture, too. Well, basically it is one of the ivies, so everything having to do with Columbia
must be good. Oxford is good, all these hi-caliber skools are good. They are so very selective and
that is what makes them good. Though one might argue that the students are merely good at the
time of entrance and everything is downhill from there on. How do you even measure accuracy
of findings in research? You cannot definitely do it when pertaining to literature because in
literature everything and anything goes. And it is always very political. There is a reason why
one writer is lauded and another one is not. It is how you positon yourself as a writer in the
pantheon of world lit. yup, that must be it, that must be it. Let us go with that here. It is ten fortyone, her right shoulder hurts, the part between where the humerus starts up and the neck,
somewhere on the blade, whatever a blade in a shoulder is, her upper back maybe, on the right
side, it is because all her typing is done with her right middle finger here. The top of the finger
does not hurt, which would make more sense, nope, it is the right shoulder blade that seems to be
overused, or the nerve cells next to it, the synapses work overtime, ganglions, the neurons fire at

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too much speed. The whole body is against this overuse of its capacities, her lower back hurts
too, on the left side. Her lower torso. Which supports her hunched-overness. Maybe she should
walk around and dictate into a machine, speak into a microphone and then have the machine
transcribe her words. There are apps for that, softwares to install. You do not need a stenographer
anymore. Things are definitely changing for writers here. In the old times there were no national
novel writing contests, nope, authors would just hammer away at their type writers while
consuming hard liquor and while living in Paris. 47 000 words here, yay and yay and yay and
yay. This is another one of her linguistic tools, she just repeats a word for emphasis. Makes
infuse the hi-brow with the lo-brow or something like that, something of that kind here. Stop and
spellcheck spell check, her right arm has to pause anyways, writing is like running a triathlon.
Yeah. That is how it is, how it is here.
NINE.
All bodily functions are kind of on hold here.
She is now in the coffee house on Arbutus. Has another cake piece and a citrus jade mint
tea, peppermint tea, whatever. She wanted to do her writing at home, but some gardening
company person was doing the mowing and it was loud and uncomfortable, if you do not want
privacy then you might as well linger around in the coffee house. She changed her seat three
times in here, this place her has a view of Arbutus, the other one had a view of the world map on
the wall, which might be better because you can watch people in that place. But this place here
has more space for a hot tea and a piece of cake. Another person with a hardhat and a cheese
sandwich, very young, sat at the place where she had put down her computer, he left though. so
she has this place here all to herself. One of the baristas is firing up her laptop, apparently she
does her school work in between spurts of slinging coffee, she is the one who is registered in 21
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credits. Authors arm really is acting up here. She has to stop and watch the green leaves
swinging in the wind. The truck on Arbutus, the bus stop station and the yellow poster on the
outside of the station. The Starbucks sign that is hanging overhead. The red and blue sign on the
Chevron gas station. 47 501 words in one whoosh. At eleven she wrote for four hours straight.
From seven to eleven.
She is sitting and looking out at the street. There is just so much to see, even though it
hurts her fingers and her posture, she just has to record what she sees in this place. A woman
with a suitcase, with a blue bandana like thing sticking out of it. The dark voice of the police
officer at the coffee station. The music that serenades on the overhead. Articulating words that
nobody here can decipher. The so very old man in grey who leaves this place. He must be next to
a hundred years old, from a different era. The noise of the machine that crumbles coffee beans
into pulp, into sand, meal, into coffee flour. Into ground coffee beans. The reflection of the way
too white car that is parked, into the window. And once more a very big batch of coffee beans is
put into the machine. How much coffee do they really grind up here? Maybe it is just a
marketing gimmick by the Howard something guy who made starbucks from that small lil shop
in Seattle to that big worldwide corporation that is on all 5 continents, even on an outpost in
Antarctica. South pole, north pole, starbucks has been here before u. 47 225 words, still typing
feverishly, feverishly. The police man came in and is now talking in the back, crime fighting,
methinks. Police 911, beyond the call, that is what it says on the police car. Well, she had a
burglary in 2009, she called 911, nobody came, they were of the opinion that they will not catch
the muggers anyways and there are more pressing crimes on a Friday evening. Ok, whatever.
Maybe that is what they mean by beyond the call, we just do not answer your call, we dismiss it.
Ah, vpd.ca. author ponders, maybe she should not have written this, it is funny but you dont
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really joke about stuff like that. A brown dog outside makes a lotta noise. A construction worker
with a jesus beard, talks down to him. Make up your mind, you cannot be a hipster and a
construction worker, make up your mind, make up your mind. But, hey, this is west coast
country, pot country, here everything goes. And male sensibilities apparently are transforming
anywhere and everywhere. Then again, the more things change the more they stay the same.
Clever insights, true words. From the wise one. And everyone with a laptop becomes a wise on,
automatically, comes with the territory. If she just can finish 50 thou by the end of the day here.
Quantity will beget quality, it has to has to, we will will coherence into this text, come rain or
high water. And Arbutus is happening, the chevron station is happening, the singer on the
overhead is happening. It is now a lady singer a la Tammy Wynette. And the leaves are swerving
on the trees outside. Majestically, stoically or something.
EIGHT.
This.
This is so annoying. Apparently her Wi-Fi connection here does not work, she has to ask
ppl. for help and that is not how author here rolls. Thus she will just pen the rest of her amazing
novel until she disintegrates, here. Nice, all the kids from the local hi-skool are now coming in,
which kind of diffuses everything and anything. And this being Vancouver, everybody is
speaking some kind of chineseish language. Or Punjabi. Or English. In vancity there are three
main immigrant groups. Or not, who knows and who cares here. She here has to type up 2000
words, that might or might not make the cut. Her life as a novel writer. The only reason she
really wanted to get online was in order to send a shout-out to somebody in Berlin about his
amazing food truck app. Which she is always following, but he himself is now in Croatia. Author
ponders, the world has become smaller because of the web, but it has become more removed too,
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you do not really make real facetime anymore. The only people you tend to communicate with
are the local baristas and the people who peek out at yer from the drive-thru window. A very
strange reality. A bus is making its way up arbutus, an old man in blue striped polo shirt, shorts
and a baseball cap is walking by, hunched-overish. The people from the high skool are all
congregating behind her and talking, one of them says bullshit twice. The other one says she
always does this, the other one with the deeper voice once more says bullshit. Apparently
expletives is what the youth nowadays learns. Ah, in my time. They talk while chewing. I know,
right, says one of them while leaving this place and smiling, smirking. Ah, to be young again.
Not to have all those aches that bother author here with her 61-years-old body that never seems
to be able to do what it is supposed to. She still needs 1700 words. Good luck good luck good
luck here.
ONCE MORE SEVENTY-SEVENTY.
She is now sitting in the senior center on 41st and tries to feverishly type up the rest of her
masterpiece while trying to avoid bumping into the flowerpot with water that is standing on this
table right behind the monitor of the laptop. This is so very fishy, what if someone just bumps
into the table, her laptop will be ruined. She should take this down to the library downstairs or
she should scoot over to the table with the cactus on it. A woman in red and a big white hat is at
the other table, she had food out of a plastic bag and now is finished. Author here has a tummy
ache. A man with a jesus beard is sitting at the reception desk of the senior center. Too many
persons with jesus-beards. There are flowerpics hanging on the wall of the senior centre, they are
part of the art show and, boy, do they all suck. Seems, if you are a senior you have to produce
really really bad art here. Or you are not a certified senior. She still needs 1500 words more, she
ponders if she wants to be part of the writers group at the other community center on the island.
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Maybe not, the writing seems to be just as bad as the paintings in this senior centre, seems there
is a certain kind of art making by seniors, it all smells of crocheting, problems with bowel
movements etcetera. Ah, how to be a senior. There is a subject matter for her writings. She
watched this woman who used to play in cheers on a show in the evening, she sure does not look
like a senior citizen, some people die as teenagers. Though the idea is that all baby boomers die
as teenagers, not author here, she is definitely born old. Never to be young to start with, that is
how you age gracefully. And who wants to go out gracefully. You want to die kicking and
screaming. She has to lose weight and weight and weight here. The woman who sells pastries
smiles at her, apparently that is because author here smiles to herself while typing which is really
weird and strange. The woman has white frames on her glasses, which looks kind of Elton John
like. The other woman is dressed all in pink. author has to leave this place because she does not
feel like small-talk here.
NINE-f.c.
Apparently she has finally found the perfect space to pen her masterpiece. In the lobby of
the community center on 41st. It is cold though, there is a never-changing or ever-changing
breeze because the door is open, there is a small kiddie pen where toddlers play. There is a place
where the nannies sit. Or the moms. Nannies or/and moms. There is the reception behind her but
hopefully the lady whom she knows does not work there anymore. She too must have retired and
is now penning one of her masterpieces. This is the right age to pen a masterpiece, a resolute
woman with a resolute gait and a resolute expression is coming in with a guitar or a harp or some
other string instrument in a black container. If you play the harp then that is the face you have,
you know where you have to be, you know how to play the harp. Or the guitar or whatever. You
know how to read notes, how to carry a tune. Apparently, maestros are even more resolute, have
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you ever seen the one where Elaine is dating the maestro. The one who talked about Gershwin or
Leonard Bernstein or whatever. The one whose name was bob but he made sure that everybody
called him maestro. And we need 1300 words more and then we are outta here and outta here.
She could write on the bus, on the train, this is just going on here. The writing the typing the
typing here. She is on page 150. Not bad for a story that lacks the main component of a story, a
story. A woman reads thru the brochure of the community center here. This place is senior center,
community center, local swimming pool. It has it all. Day camps, where your kids go to day
camps and then later, once they are older, they become, day camp leaders, that is how you teach
your kids how to live, well, mainly you delegate and chauffeur your kids to places where total
strangers take care of them, mainly because they are much better at that than any parent on the
planet can ever be. That is how it is that is how it is. Wise insights by writer here. Author here
was part of a theater group in this very community center, that was about six years ago. Her
acting career stopped there, right there and then, one of her fellow actors though is now in New
York. A professional actor. Author here just wrote a play after that, that never got published, so it
is back to writing up novels. Non-novels, whatever. A man walks by, grumbling to himself. Nice,
we really like strange potentially violent creatures in our next vicinity. And we need 100 words
more and then we have 50 thou. It is seventeen minutes to one, author here is typing since seven
in the morn. Since rolling outta bed.
NINE c.
People keep looking at her, the reason though is that author looks up and starts staring at
people which makes them stare back. You have to be inconspicuous when you are basically a
reporter, a journalist that takes notes of the everyday. The sounds of badminton playing in the
gymnasium interrupts her thoughts. It is eleven to one, it is still may 13, still Friday the
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thirteenth. The pops of the badminton balls on the rackets, every now and then, every now and
then. Later on she will go down to the village and devour a jelly-donut here. Well, in the coffee
house on 41st, the donut space that wants to sell itself as a coffee house in this neighborhood.
Everybody knows it as the quintessential Canadian donut place, where double double lives.
Renaming it coffee house is kind of weird and might hurt their bottom-line here. She still needs
fifty words or so here. A man in blue-striped polo shirt and jeans, white sneakers with red and
black thereon, a woman in a red and white checkered shirt, a woman in something long and
flowy and red with lil flowers thereon. Something is wrong with authors laptop here.
Ok. Apparently this is still saving her words, but the machine does not do the word count
in the right way. She has to pick at a different button to look at the wordcount. The woman in the
flowy dress has shiny painted toe nails, but not all in the same colour, some are shiny metallic
green and some are shiny metallic blue. But all are shiny and pastel. A little kid comes by and
says hi to the woman with the flowy dress. Big smile kid. An ugly woman who should not wear a
flowy dress comes in. Not everybody can sport flowy, sorry. And after all these deep thoughts
here we should really have 50 000 words, enough for a novella. Time to have a powdery jelly
donut at timmys. Ok, sorry, seven words more, stroopwafel, donut, latte et.al. Sorry, apparently
we need 400 words. Ah, what to write about, what to write about? At one oh two, she could go
down to the library but her place here is so comfy. This place has a stroller parking. That is what
it says there.
400 words, fast, fast, fast, fast.
She will edit this later. Her right arm, she can hardly feel it. This is how athletes feel.
Writing as sport, as athletic endeavor. It has nothing to do with poetry and everything to do with
physical endurance. After all, even when you talk, you are doing something physical, the vocal
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chords slither, glitter, tremble, that is how sounds are uttered. We are all animals, animals and
this animal here still needs some more words in order to run over the goal of 50 000 words.
Tomorrow she will start the ascent to the 100 000-mark but at this time she has to reach 50 thou.
SEVENTY.
A woman takes all the kids to the bathroom, a woman comes in all dressed up elegantly
and she is making her way to the senior center. Apparently there are certain attires for a senior
center place. Who would have known? The receptionist at the senior center definitely is not
fashionable, his t-shirt is just barely missing the mark of his sweats, he has not tucked it in and
not really having it out. He reminds one of the episode in Seinfeld where Jerry reprimands the
Costanza guy about wearing sweats, You know what you are announcing to the world when you
wear sweats? I have given up. Which is not really true, a writer can comfortably live in her pjs.,
be unkempt. Actually it seems, the world somehow expects that from is bards. The woman in
white, the woman in Amherst, that is how she became Emily Dickinson, renowned poet. On the
board to the left of author it says spring. She will leave now, trying to avoid a person she knew
and did not get along with. Social lives are complicated, (the fabric of society is very
complicated- to quote `Jerry once more), yup, so it seems it seems it seems it seems here. 50
words here, she cannot really write this while feeling kind of haunted. Fifty words about
anything. Stroopwafels, donuts, women (woman) in flip-flops coming in. Author here is wearing
a toque, not summery at all, but who cares, gotta be comfy if you (yup, we have our) want to
write the right words. In the old times, reporters were shouting the news into the phones of the
editors and newspaper agencies that then printed those very news. That is how Hollywood
depicts newspaper writing. Newsies. And they seemed to all be guys. With hats and wrinkled
raincoats. In black and white. In the forties, fifties, A la gumshoe. Ah, the persona of the writer,
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the poet, the bard. In different parts of the world, all thru the ages. Yup, we have our fifty thou,
were outta here, outta here. Jelly donut, here we come. (With powder sugar on top, btw.)
SEVEN SEVEN SEVEN SEVEN
Indent: yup, we have our want note: this is a passage that
kind of got lost by the machine. I personally think that it happened when I was writing about the
actress of cheers and how all baby boomers die as teenagers, which is said lots of times and then
I said, that the author here does defy that specific stereotype because she is the kind of person
who was born old. End of indent
SHE or seven seven
She phantoms herself as an interviewee on Paris Review. It does not really go with this
too sunny, too sugary half-lazy Saturday in what tries to be suburbia but really does not muster
the litmus test. She gets her reddish glasses out of the car, where it is tucked in to the little place
near the drivers seat, the one down to the left, the one that is part of the door. One of the knobs
on the glasses is loose, it is a generic pair of glasses, specs, the one you get in the supermarket
for ten bucks. She loves it, it does the job much better than the glasses that cost her 500 bucks,
for some reason it is lighter and it does not screw up her field of vision. Just makes her able to
read which is what it is supposed o do. It is utilitarian.
She starts typing, thinks about her day so far. The mall, a coffee and a piece of cake, she
shoved the recycling paper into the slot in the paperbasketty silvery thingie in the mall, which
you are not supposed to do. No domestic refuse apparently. Well, you are not to do it with public
paper baskets, the mall does not really have signs that prohibit that. After the mall it was the
gym, she actually lost weight by writing and typing all day. And now we are back home, with
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aforementioned glasses. She could get a peanut marshmallow slice from butter, she has Heinz
Baked Beans English Style for lunch. She is after all living in the trenches, the trenches of
writerdom. Which brings her to her interview with Paris Review. The so very fictional one about
the art of fiction. What is your day like, who inspires you? The like. She gives some generic
answers that are slightly convoluted, and nobody really understands what she is talking about.
Which is fine, because nobody reads it anyways and if they do, it will be after she is dead and
cold. They have a really good digitizing department; you can read all the interviews since 1951.
Or something like that. The Paris Review, it never talks to people who write pulp fiction, purple
prose. Only the artsy stuff is revered, though nobody really claims to know what artsy really is. It
has something to do with New York, Bloomsbury, Paris, Zurich, cities. With reluctant enclaves of
urbanity. Where hard boozing men throw their words against a typewriter. Where Mandel writes
about people who pen their masterpieces in restaurants. It is not a performance art. Of course it
is.
Author ponders, who would be the person who interviews. Is it the guy who produced
tales of two cities. He was editor-in chief or something. If you can google, you can pathos who
knows who in the publishing biz. Gossipy research. She ponders if the paris review interviews in
person. Do you have to sport a new haircut, fashionably shortened locks? How does this work,
how does this work? She watched steven king give a lecture in u-mass-lowry, it was on you tube.
Would steven king be interviewed for paris review? Or is he too much of a populist. What about
dashieel hammett, he who wrote the detective stories of the thin man. The script for the movie
with Humphrey Bogart? Hard-boiled detective stories. What exactly is hard-boiled anyways. A
term when men wore chapeaus, when the music was different, when life was easier, calmer or
something? A time when writers managed to get published. When they used type writers and ink
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bands. When everything had an aura of straight being out of Hollywood. Even the writers
depicted in movies. Author found this list online which is about the ten best movies that depict
writers. Apparently there is some merit in watching people who do exactly what you do. She will
get a peanut butter slice, marshmallowy. She might not wear a bra. And outside the greenery
roars away here.
NINE.
She placed a phone call thru to New York, messaging, hi, it is 12:07 our time, 3:07 your
time. Calling via a satellite to the east coast. She remembers the times of telegraphs. And now,
you are only a phone call away. Yup, nostalgia et. al. she has laundry waiting to be folded.
Domesticity in all its glory. She had her peanut butter something slice and it just does not taste
that good anymore. Somehow it has lost its cache. There is no novelty in having it before typing
up words that may or may not go anywhere. She has no plot and does not know how she will
manage to complain for 50 000 words about not having a plot. An exercise in futility. Like the
running on a treadmill when you will not go anywhere. The hamster on a wheel. The caged bird
singing. There are romantic airs to this, but it is more like a man in a shirt hoisting up weights.
She is not quite sure where the difference of the weightlifter and the hamster lies, there is no
difference apparently. Sisyphean. To describe the everyday by talking about some Greek
mythical figures as if that will give weight to your argument, that life is repetitive. And maybe
that is good so. Yu need structure to function. Everything that will interfere with the equilibrium
is frowned upon. Will jar the wheels of your life. You have to have smooth sailing somehow. She
feels like having a glass of wine. Sipping wine goes with everything. She is a strong boozehound
at heart. It is good that she comes from a culture where boozing is frowned upon. Pot, booze,
opiates, stick to red and golden lindor chocolates, they are bad enough for you. She could go
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down to the village, where the donut shop is open 24 hours just next door to the fruit stand. Take
your pick, long life or short life? Sweet melting jelly donuts or disgusting fiber that dislodges in
your throat and makes you cough. She has 51 214 words here, no plot, no way how to figure out
how to write a good novel, she should enlist in a writing class. How to construct a believable
plot. A readable plot. A plot fit for consumption. Well, life does not have a plot, you have no clue
what is around the corner. You cannot really post it all in a nice chunk of words, her stories do
not go anywhere and that is the way it is. She can quote norman mailer and steven king, and
david something, every writer has something to say. She liked the writing of Michael le in
geekworld or about k-town. She reads a lot about writers and what they have to say about their
craft. Outside, the too white flowers glare at her on the bush. She will have baked beans English
style, apparently apparently here. It is May 14, 2016, in Vancouver, British Columbia. She has
exactly 51 370 words here, it is 15 degrees Celsius outside. The day marches forward solemnly.
TWENTY.
At the supermarket to pick up beans in the beans aisle. Canned beans. Walking by all the
food items, that are stashed in rows. Thinking about writing something about order, structure,
cans in rows. Cheese near the yoghurt. Ah, how to pen poetry about that. Supermarket poetry.
Ginsberg had a poem titled SUPERMARKET IN CALIFORNIA. Playing up the regional angle.
The difference between west coast and east coast markets. Yup, and then there are all the
supermarkets in Europe. The ones near her apartment on egeware street. The one in the city of
Asti at x-mas time. Malls, supermarkets, drugstores. Trains. These are her subject matter for
writing. All while the telly is singing up its songs.
THIRTY

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51 507 words here. 3:26 PM. May 14, 2016. 21 degrees Celsius outside.
THIRTY-ONE d.
The meeting up with her editor. In the Algonquin hotel. She has finally arrived. Well, it is
all a fictional meeting, but there is nothing lost pretending that you have a real meeting with a
real editor. She sits in one of the chairs, so far away from the busyness of the street outside. It is
cool in here, too sunny outside, yup, it is fictional and she is a fictional fiction writer. This how
you get committed. Better to use the bathroom and skoot out to grab a coffee in the nearest donut
place. Not even a coffee house, donuts will take her right back to reality. Her writings will be
published, once she is dead, her paintings will hang in museums once her life is over. That is how
art works. You live your life in obscurity and then, voila you are a celebrity. And dead. And she
still does not have a plot. Merely a descript of her daydreamings. She s late for her job in the fast
food joint. Everything to adhere to the stereotype of the struggling artiste.
173.
51 705 words. 3:39 PM. Still May 14, 2016. Still too hot outside.
121.ef.
The words are kind of stalling. She should walk the city with her laptop in her hand.
Opened. Registering, describing the stuff that people will say to her. Maybe not. Reading should
help. Or watching film-clips on you tube. This woman and all her short movies about German
dialects, German curse words, German anythings. Author ponders, she could find the same for
Icelandic, Norwegian, everybody nowadays has a you-tube channel. Perusing the internet should
give her fodder for her amazingish novel. The whole world in a laptop.

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She had enough of this. Time to go for a walk. By Centraal. Get a stroopwafel from the
vending machine. Look at the trains that go to Leiden, to Rotterdam. To Bruges. Watching trains
leave, airplanes fly away, ships sail away. Write about how you are staying and others do not. It
is slightly on the pathetic side but that is how the life of a writer is anyways. She is not into
murder mysteries and not into describing romance. Which basically merely leaves the descript of
different streets, different buildings and trains that motion through the landscape. She crosses the
street making sure to not be overrun by one of the ubiquitous bicycles. She will walk by the
bookstores, the bookstores in this city are amazing. Each of them specializes on one subject. It is
late afternoon, in june. Her coming to Amsterdam to be a famous writer did not really work out.
Ah, gotta have a beer and stroll thru the city before it falls asleep. She might have some French
fries, too, the ones with mayo in a red and white paperbag with a tip. One of the diagonal ones.
She blasted her last pennies on this trip but who gives, what gives. 52 012 words, May 14, 2016,
type on type on describing the stroll through Amsterdam. Where reality meets fiction is a weird
and ah so strange place here.
NINE-ONE.
She soaks up everything that is there to be soaked up on a Saturday afternoon in
Kerrisdale village. People moving around, her powdery jelly donut with raspberry jelly inside
which actually has little raspberry dots in it which aggravate her teeth. Outside sunniness,
different shops, differing vehicles. Not exactly what petula clark sings about, this is not city-ish
enough to muster up associations to the song. It is a more provincial setting, a village and that is
why it is referred to as the village. Though that is actually a new term, before it was just the
shops on 41st. the ones that would close and open at random. Author ponders if she should go
into the bookstore, there is always something to see. Maybe not, just rush back to the typing
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machine. A man in beige that holds himself very badly and his dog. He walks much faster than
author here. She ponders, the day before was much better for writing, she went to so many
different places, the coffee house the senior center, the lobby of the community center the Y, so
writing went much better, was much more fruitful. Today, it is all sluggish, sleepily typing, while
big bang is happening on the telly. 52 149 words, she merely has 2000 new words, whereas the
day before she had 5000 already by five in the afternoon. Writing for the wordcount, weird, ah,
strange here.
TWENTY-ONE AND A HALF
On the telly, a movie with Owen Wilson and Jennifer Anniston, Marley and molly. It is
five oh six in the afternoon. She wonders who sang the theme song. Ok, the movies name is
marley and me, and the song is by R.E.M. shiny happy people or something. Apparently the dog
is important in the movie and it had a lot of good reviews, the film that is. How can one pen the
great American novel while watching a movie? She feels like popcorn but she had a piece of
cake and a can of beans and a jelly donut already, not to count the peanut marshmallow slice. She
definitely stays away from fruit and veggies these days, with a vengeance. The vitamins of a jelly
donut, the happiness that a jelly donut builds in yer. The endorphin overload, serotonin, it keeps
you going. Sugar as opiate. 52 430 words, still typing typing.
SIXTY
The rain outside the train window, passing all these places on the way from Hamburg to
Itzehoe. Pinneberg, Elmshorn, Glueckstadt and the two cities that start with k. Kempe and
something else. There still is another small station on the way. She took the slow train, the one
that stops in each little place. She has time to kill, how much more can one write about the

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crumbly cake and the bored waitress. One can watch the people who go from Elmshorn to
Itzehoe. There are always business travelers in suits, young and eager ones. She ponders if she
can get a business ticket thingie, a discount. Writers r us or something. The business of writing a
novel. You have to be published to do that, if you are just a hobbyist, a dilettante, that will not
really fly. And your stories are all about how you ride the train, how you have hot beverages in
different rooms the world over. The life of a writer, if you chose just to write about the everyday
you are not in luck. People want to read about stuff that is extraordinary, that does not mirror a
regular life. She has 52 634 words here, typing ah still typing this up.
SEVENTY
On the telly Owen Wilson, the movie is about a writer. Pretty good treatment of regular
life, writers block et.al. Author watches it, you cannot really replicate the movie in writing. The
fast descripts, in short sentences, one after the other, fast, against the backdrop of rhythmic
music. Author here ponders if she should go down to the coffee house on arbutus, before they
close their place up at half past six. A stroopwafel and mint tea, the citrusy one, she will gain
weight, writing makes her fat. Because of her high consumption of sugary snacks.
EIGHTY
Outside the greenery, on the telly Jennifer Anniston and Owen Wilson in Ireland, there is
still an hour left of the movie, she could go down and have the tea, watch the chevron gas station
and the cars and buses on arbutus and let it somehow flow into her writing. Or she could just
keep on sitting here at the typing machine trying to get this done in one big whoosh. Who says
that a stroopwafel and a jade mint tea will be good for writing? How much more can you write
about having a tea anyways? There are not enough words to describe the same thing over and

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over again. She has to go to other places, newer places and describe them. Scour the world. Meet
new people. There are rights and wrongs for a writer. The language, she does not know enough
words in this language. She has to read more, war and peace et. al., all the classics. All the great
stuff. She watches the telly, whatever there is on the screen. She pushes the buttons on the remote
which is kind of not that good for a writer. To consume the competition, the visual. You have to
juggle words, learn that, do that. Just like the construction crew on 35th, that will smush holes
into the asphalt and put all those turquoise colored pipes into the ground. Building a street,
building a novel, should be all the same should be all the same. 5:59, still time to have that
stroopwafel. Five more words and she will have penned 3000 words today.
#001.
The story on the telly is about the person played by Owen Wilson wanting to be a
reporter and not a columnist. Well, writing is writing. The greenery outside is swaying. Still gotta
throw some 2000 words into the machine.
))@.
Bankastrati in July. It is still cooler than in most places on this planet at this time, it is
Iceland after all. But it is summery, pleasant, she listens in to the lilt of the people that pass her
on the street in downtown Reykjavik. This is a small country, but there is definitely a downtownvibe about it, this is what Ms. Clark means. Everything is urbane, fast-paced, it could be times
square, there is the whiff of unrestricted aspirations. So many people, so many faces. She opens
the door to the bakery, there is a tiny red bell on the door that bimmels every time it is opened.
The door is half glass, half wood. Inside the bakery it is cooler than outside, not that many
persons are in here, for an afternoon in July. Author here has the round cake with the chocolate

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gloss, the one with the mushy sweet paste inside. She asks for mint tea. Watches the whiffs
coming out of the cup, the meticulously choreographed dance of the steam, hovering over the red
cup. She takes out her writing pad, puts blue letters on the yellow paper. This is her last pad she
brought from the states, she will have to buy a new note book once this is filled up to the brim.
There is no plot, the plot is the descript of a writers life. Any writers life. Not much going on
except for punching in and punching out the clock, a certain amount of words each and every
day, the feel of accomplishment that will propel her forward. In September she will fly back to
JFK, but until then it is Bankastrati country, geyser world here. The lilt, the tone of a language
she does not understand, the acoustics, the sing-song that leaves her blissfully ignorant. She
could visit friends in berlin, in croatia, she could explore Dublin or Helsinki. But maybe staying
put is the best, she sure writes a lot each and every day, she found a nice laundromat place which
is so difficult in Europe, laundry is always the biggest problem when travelling. The 53 442
words, writing aah writing here.
471.
She gets up to street level, it is as if she is coming up for air after being under water. Well,
obviously you can breathe in the subway, but just the sudden onset of the streetscape, the
brightness, the different nature of the openness, the sky, so very different from the confinement
of the tunnels of the L-train. Union square is happening, she makes her way up 14th., by dunkins
and Cookies by Melissa, she goes up to the writing studio on the third floor. Up the steps. There
is one of the other writers there already, a man from Maine who used to teach physics and is now
retired. He is writing some historic treatise, something that is happening some 400 years ago in
Europe. He is very meticulous and does a lot of research, online and at NYU, he hardly ever
smiles.
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There is this other woman too, the one that is from Denmark, she is always cheery, all
locks and youth. Her accent is very severe; one cannot really make out what she is talking about
here.
Author makes her way to her cubby, shoves her purse in there, puts down her paper cup
with the foamy latte onto the desk. Fires up her laptop, today seems to be a laptop day. She does
not really interact with the other writers; it is more friendly nodding. There is a lobby place
where one can sit down, exchange gossip, talk shop and throw pleasantries at each other. The
writers studio is this communal office space, where everybody knows each other, where people
huff and puff when they reach the top of the steps, where the elevator does not work. Like in big
bang, people like to mention that, joke about it.
She is working on her novel about novelists, each and every day she discovers a new
angle to describe, she positions the writers in different parts of the world, she tries to weave in
some discourse of comparative literature. Not that she knows much about it, she makes it up
while she goes. It sounds pretty good though, once her words hit the paper, the screen. Her
sentences march forward, the letters in unison, yup, the writing goes pretty well, she is happy
happy. Content would be a better description. She is pretty positive that she will be able to sell
this once she will start shopping it round.
She types some 1300 words, then it is time to get cookies by Melissa, but not yet time for
the vodka pizza at artichoke. Once she starts writing, she mentally plans her next meal. It is
either typing, going to the laundromat or eating. And using the Citi bike, though mostly on the
pedestrian ways near to the galleries down near eighth and tenth, where the highline meets 14th
up to 23rd. she has 53 887, she will type up 1200 words later on. New York outside is happening

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happening. She will go down to dunkins, she feels like a jelly donut, writing is some kind of
exercise too. Her body should be able to wither the influx of extra sugar.
941.
She has reached Itzehoe, automatically she turns left and up the street to the little bakery.
Her steps are so very automatic; it is nice that the rain has subsided. She is late, the fashionin/fashion-out store is already opened. This is because she took the train that makes six stops, she
wants to do things differently, play it up a tad, change her routine just so, apparently it will make
for better words. Structure is good, but too much of it will be stifling.
The bakery, the waitress, the crumbly cake. Tea and 3 women chattering. Author takes out
her sheets of paper, starts inscribing them with passages of her masterpiece. She is on page 231
or so, it will change when typing this up, transcribing. She prefers to do it herself, she is used to
the stalling typing, the pick and choose, the pecking at the keyboard. She has her phone with her,
looks at Instagram pics, apparently technology is not good for writers, you have to have your eye
on the ball, type and write and write. No perusing Instagram pics for you.
939.
Zurich, there is a new place to do writing. She takes up lodging in the hotel behind the
Hauptbahnhof, she has not been here in ages. She is still jetlagged, but it is better to go into
town, up to have some food at Jelmoli. While looking down at the city. Zurich should be good
for writers; it always has been. The mantel of respectability and the subtle tornado that is broiling
underneath, there is a reason that Lenin, Joyce, dada, all started from here. But she loves to read
Max Frisch, that is what this is really about. She likes to go up the stairs to the eth., look at the
maquettes in the architecture department. The grad show is fantastico.
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She walks through the station, has fish at Nordsee. Has a sausage outside of the sttion.
This is way too much food; she has some Luxemburgli from Sprungli. A chocolate piece from
the kiosk. Binge eating disorder, it is hitting her pretty badly. Ok, no more no more. She will do
some writing; the best place will be the deli near the art school. Or where the art school used to
be. Apparently everything here has changed since she was here the last time. That is how it is
how it is here.
5733.
Once more a stroll down to the village. It is later in the day, cooler. Not dark yet, so there
are a lot of people out for walking. It is a sleepy place, and the houses are not really interesting.
This is not the right environment for a writer, this is not a place that makes you choose good
words automatically.
She walks by the secret garden place, the British-inspired interior, the daintiness that is
actually done more forcefully by the new bakery on Mackenzie. Cars are going by, pretty fast,
she is not the only one out for a last stroll before night sets in.
72.
The right upper arm, on the inner side is sore. The muscle is acting up after four days of
typing up 5000 words each and every day. Author here ponders if weightlifting would make the
same muscle hurt, this is the muscle that somehow controls her right middle finger. She is getting
a small box of Pringles, a small red tube. The cashier does not give her a bag, apparently he is of
the opinion that she does not need one. He is talking to some person named James. In the end he
asks do you want a bag? author here says no, you did not give me one, apparently there is a

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time and place for passive aggressiveness, sore muscles from too much typing does that to yer.
She still need 500 words or so.
On the telly, a soccer game, nobody knows who is playing against whom, just some
players running, two British guys talking, and a lot of audience claps and roaring. Apparently it
is FC Dallas against Fribourg, kind of a weird combination for soccer players. Yup, an American
guy is talking to the reporter, so, yup, it was an American team. Anyhoo, still typing typing here.
The coach is American, the team is American.
573.
350 words. About the telly, the day that is mushing into the night, a life lived by talking
to a screen. Reading, writing. An ad for a car, Audi. A man waking up, putting his clothes on, his
wristwatch and then he stops and looks at his car as if he suddenly sees a long-lost lover.
Everything suddenly stops, he sits still, he interrupts his routine, he is sitting in the driver seat
and just opens his arms forward, as if he is embracing the car. He is leaning in. yup, that is how
you feel about an Audi. It is kind of another version of the Miata ad, the one where Rosemary
Clooney sings the song back in babys arms. And all the lovers are guys who are in love with
their cars. Cars as objects of affection, well, they do not complain, they are the perfect partner,
submissive, doing exactly as told.
Author here needs 200 words more and then she can call it a day, the station on the telly
is a station in Seattle just like the station on her car radio. This is after all a city near to
Washington State, it is just over the border. 150 words and then we have all the 5000 words that
we are supposed to type up here.

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Now on the telly, Seinfeld, the one with the bbq sauce. With the dolly that looks just like
Georges mother. 105 words. 103.
The maestro. They all play billiard. Elaine, jerry.
How can you pen a masterpiece while the telly is singing its songs. Laugh tracks, laugh
tracks here. Kramer, once more billiard. The same scene. 70 more words.
573.
The train ride back from Itzehoe. She will do some window shopping, will transcribe her
writings, sleep, only to get back to the bakery in Itzehoe the next day. Her writing is coming
along, kind of.
732.
30 more words. It is 8:22 pm. May 14, 2016. Still pretty pleasant outside. So near to
getting really dark. And the laugh tracks are singing their songs. 55 000 words, ah, outta here,
outta here. The hurting muscle in her right upper arm can relax now.
573.
What a weird time of the day. Or night. It is 1:53 AM, on May 16, 2016, which is the
worst time to be awake. Sleep does you good and insomnia be damned. She is wide awake,
mainly because she was still doing dishes. Dishes should be done the next day, you go to sleep
and then do them the next day. The telly suddenly gave out and just as sudden came on again.
Pure magic. The eeriness that technology provides. Now it is cnn once again in full force, the
British guy whose name she does not know but whose face she has seen lots of times, he who
talks forcefully and convinced as if he dispenses absolute truths. You cannot really argue with
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anything he posits, any opinion he so readily shares with the whole world. He has the
straightforwardness of a football coach, yes and he will not allow you to call football soccer. He
has a no-nonsense demeanor and maybe that is good for a media guy. They are usually much
more flexible, but not this one, this one says something and makes a face as if he forcefully
expects you to listen and agree. And now it is an American guy who is the complete opposite of
the UK-guy, it is basically blue collar sensibility versus white collar sensibility. Author ponders if
writing in the middle of the night is any good, besides, her arm still hurts from overuse, she
typed a lot in the last days and maybe she should just pause for some days. Besides, there is no
plot whatsoever on the horizon, no thriller, no love story, no nothing. Merely the musings of a
beleaguered writer that is modestly confused. She feels a cold coming on.
57.
In the library of the community college again. She is hungry and exhausted. All day long
she edited her work. Tried to figure out the correct spelling. Punctuation. The correct
orthography. How do yer spell? It is all a mystery a mystery a mystery. She needs food,
sustenance. Her car is parked at the Y, she has to pick it up.
57.c.
55 381 words. May 17, 2016. The library @ the community college. She was in
Metrotown. She does not know what the temperature is outside.
57.f.
IN LANGARA

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You cannot really be your own copy-editor. It does not work. She did this, the editing
process over the last, well, if push comes to shove, she does not even know over what timespan
she did this but basically it all went south, it was a total disaster. Nothing went with nothing, she
could not figure out how to do this, it ended up being so very very chaotic and the system she
devised did not make sense whatsoever. Some words got lost in the cloud, she deleted stuff that
should not have deleted, she did this all over town, at her own place, in the Y, in the bookstore in
Metrotown, in a Starbucks in new west, in the mall sitting while looking out at the cars. The
whole thing was an excursion into futility, interesting but way too experimental. She cut the
papers into smaller portions, used the different staplers at different copy stations, in Staples, in
Kinkos and in different parts of the library in the community college. This was a voyage thru the
city, from computer to computer, from copy station to copy station, she held the papers that she
copied together by rubber band, by scotch tape, she let them bind it so that it would be like a
book, though it was the second cheapest binding and not the very cheapest one, she hardly
combed her hair and hardly took a shower, became all mothy so that her mental confusion was
mirrored by her outer appearance, she experimented with her looks, wanted to reflect that she is
struggling with the words, struggling with the task pf mushing all these words together into one
coherent entity, where everything is written up chronologically nonewhithstanding that she
copied and pasted it kind of at random and the same passage appeared several times in the text.
There are mistakes that you make when overhauling a text that will throw out the logical
sequence of the sentences, you have to go to and fro, you are overwhelmed by the task to juggle
all of these text pieces. Writing is physical, and in the old times you had to physically have
papers and put your pencil marks on them. Which is actually what she did too, she printed it all
out and then went marking the mistakes by highlighting them with yellow or with pink or with

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the purple pen that did not work, the writing part slid out and then slid back in when you put it to
paper. She is using different pairs of glasses, in short, her way of doing this is way too
unorganized here. And she is not sure about the punctuation, there were not many books on
punctuation in the book store. But this is the most important tool for a writer, a manual about
how to put the words into the right visual form, the one, that is organized and facilitates the
reading, the retrieving of the info at a later time, way into the future. How do you describe what
you mean and can you ever be clear enough without being redundant? Anyhoo, typing here and
typing here, in the computer lab in the library of the community college, on Wednesday, May 18,
2016 in Vancouver, BC, she has 600 words or so at nine or ten in the morning, the weather
outside is colder again as if May has made up its mind to look like February again, the year does
not evolve but chooses to devolve here, people are talking in the lab, especially near and around
the printing place in front of this room. How much writing do these people have to do, how much
printing-out of essays, of mini dissertations? And who will mark all this, grade it? Anyhoo,
typing and typing and typing and typing here.
THIS PLACE
This place is full of books like ballet technique for the male dancer or plays for
trainers or different books about brands, there are so many shelves here and so many many
obscure books that nobody ever looks into. They are all nicely shelved, on three storeys, you like
to live here as a bookworm and never ever leave. There are even oversized books in one corner,
like really oversized ones, Alice in Wonderland, a book sculpture, books ah books ah books. She
has to leave, her car should not be towed from in front of the Y, time to go home and watch
matlock or diagnosis murder, time to get a marble loaf, a chocolate one, time to have pizza pops,
de-luxe ones. Life as a writer is ah so prosaic, maybe there is space now on, room now on the
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stationary bikes on the second floor of the Y on 41st. here. Time to leave this place for now, all
these books will still be here years from now. We can leave, sail the world, once we are back
here, everything will be just so just so here. Tomorrow her passport will be ready ready. With a
stress on the last syllable of ready. Yeah ah yeah and yeah here.
EVENING IN MAY
EVENING IN MAY
By the cheeses, by the pastas, by the donuts and the different ice cream flavors. She can
write about that, once she is at home, the array of products neatly arranged. In all colors, in all
shapes. The persons in this place with all their little baskets. The woman who looks like a circus
clown and who walks very straightforward. The too thin woman in light blue, who smells the
light pink carnations. The man which is all dark grey and sports too much poundage. The
afternoon evening in the market. Ten to eight, on a weekday. The coffee place is closed up, the
baristas left for the day. A child at the window of the market, the other side near the ballet place
which is closed at this time and you cannot get in. The market is fresh, it is chilled, everyone is in
summer garb. Well, except for the woman in the clown costume, she is sporting a knit hat with a
pompom thereon. You really feel poetic when you march thru the aisles on a summer afternoon.
Make that a spring afternoon but it feels like a summer eve. Back to the car, shed rather walk
some more instead of burning off some gasoline. She goes to the coffee house up on Arbutus,
they are cleaning out the pastry aisle, there are merely stroopwafels in beige and dark brown left.
And the cookie straws with lines on them. Author here just marches in and marches out. Time to
go back to sit in front of the typing machine, listen in to the songs out of the telly, time to type
some words up while the day lets slowly out here.

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713.
Quotidian.
Apparently
Apparently her art education did not bring her anywhere, the only thing that she now
does, is that she plants herself in front of one of the computers in the library in the art skool and
she starts typing diverse words. This is her life as a writer who was educated in a visual arts
background, maybe this place was way too academic but then again not academic enough. In
other words, you forget how to make stuff but you are not quite good enough as to eke out a
career in talking about what others, other people make. Your aRT HISTORICAL
BACKGROUND IS NOT STRONG ENOUGH AND YOUR QUALITIES OF MAKING STUff
ARE NON-EXISTANT, YOU WROTE WAY TOO MANY ESSAYS TO REMEMBER HOW
TO DRAW SMILY FACES. YOUR STATUS AS SMILY FACE DOODLER HAS WEANED,
HAS WITTERED AWAY, THEY DESTROyeD THAT AT THIS PLACE BY CRITIQUING
EVERYTHING YOU DID BUT THEY DID NOT TEACH YOU SOME NEW SKILLS AND
YOUR QUALIFICATIONS AS A WRITER ARE NOT THERE YET. BESIDES, THE
MARKET IS BASICALLY GEARED TOWARDS PERSONS WHO KNOW HOW TO WRITE
A GLORIFIED SOAP OPERA, THE LITERATURE CLASS THAT AUTHOR HERE TOOK AT
THE COMMUNITY CLASS COLLEGE WAS BASICALLY A DISCUSSSION OF 4 NOVELS
WHICH AT THEIR PURE ESSENCE were SOAP OPERAS, LOVE INTEREST ONE
FALLING FOR LOVE INTEREST TWO, TWO PERSONS, ONE MALE AND ONE FEMALE,
DOING THE NASTY. THAT IS WHAT WAS CALLED NOVELWRITING AND THERE ARE

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MORE GENRES THAN LOVE NOVELS BUT IT SEEMS THAT THE MAIN ONES ARE
NOVELS ABOUT PEOPLE FALLING FOR EACH OTHER. APPARENTLY THE SUMMER
CLASS IN THE COMMUNITY COLLEGE IS DIFFERENT, DIFFERENT. IT IS ALL TOM
SAWYER ET. AL., NOVELS WITH SUBJECT MATTERS THAT MATTER. THAT ARE
MORE UNIVERSAL, THAT ARE CRITIQUES OF THE STATE Of THE UNION OR
SOMETHING LIKE THAT, NOVELS THAT TALK ABOUT POLITICS ABOUT WHAT IT
MEANS TO BE HUMAN. NOVELS THAT ARE NOT THAT NARROW, BECAUSE
ANYBODY CAN WRITE ABOUT BOY MEETS GIRL, THERE IS NOT MUCH TO SAY
EXCEPT FOR THEY LIVE HAPPILY EVER AFTER OR THEY DO NOT. ONLY TWO
OUTCOMES. BINARY OUTOMES, YES OR NO. THEY LIVE HAPPILY EVER AFTER OR
THEY DO NOT. PLUS-MINUS. THAT IS A WAY TOO NARROW SUBJECTMATTER TO
FILL A WHOLE BOOK.
AUTHOT HERE IS still sitting and typing, for some reason she wrote everything in caps.
She got her passport today, and it is usable for ten years. Wow, ten years from now she will be 71
years old. Or dead. With her diet, all sugar and all grease, her aversion to movement and motion,
71 seems not that doable, doable, there has to be a major overhaul, more vitamins et. Al. yoga.
Protein. Milk. A meticulously arranged assortment of foods that will make her healthier. Make
America great again. Make your figure great again. It is in utter disarray as it stands now. She
lost twenty pounds only to put them right back where they belong. That cannot be good, weight
fluctuations should be one pound up and one pound down, not twenty pounds up and twenty
pounds down. In a short time. That is too much for the system here. She is no doctor, but it is
only common sense here. She has 536 words here, on a Thursday in May, in the library of the
artskool. She will now go and explore the art, isnt that why she is here. She has found a parking
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space, and she has 2 hours left. And stop and spellcheck spellcheck. Save save save save and
save here.
OLD STORIES:
2.
He is into typing. He used to write everything longhand than transcribe it. Later on, he
had a transcriptionist. That was a long time ago. Now he just types all his stuff. Never ever writes
longhand. His books sell well. Are translated into French, German, Italian. Not into Portuguese,
not into Spanish. Some of them are translated into Dutch. He churns out one book per year. He
gives interviews. Gives talks on university campuses. He is a published writer. It is a dull
existence. You just sit and write. Booooring. Must be nice to have colleagues. The social aspect.
He just slings words together. In a vacuum, in isolation. Sometimes he goes to a coffee shop. But
not that much anymore. He is sixty-one now. Pretty successful. His books sell well. He was
nominated for the Man Booker Prize. The life of a writer, the life of a writer.
3.
She moved to Amsterdam to become a writer. It is not the place one moves to in order to
write. She feels homesick. She goes for long long walks. Tries not to get run over by bikes. The
city is owned by all these bikes. Bikes rule, everything else is secondary. She misses New York
City.
4.
So this is her plot. She looks at the breadmaker and the green white plant. Rules of
Engagement is on the telly, she can hear the laughtracks. In the room with the telly. She herself is

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sitting once more at the kitchen table. Her novel at the kitchen table. So now she has a male
writer and a female writer. These are the main characters. One lives in Amsterdam. The female
one. This is getting a tad too complicated. She has to name these people. That is how writing a
novel works. Characters have names. She is not writing longhand anymore.
5.
He hates success. It is not good to have success. It inhibits creativity. He now lives in this small
town near Hamburg. Itzehoe. That is the name of the city.
6.
She is now sitting in the room with the telly. A sitcom, laughtracks. Her book is so very
weird. Two writers. There is not much to describe. Characters have to be multidimensional. They
cannot just be wooden caricatures. Seems there is more to this writing biz than she originally
thought.
7.
Change of course. This plot is not going anywhere. She cannot describe a woman who
lives in Amsterdam and a man who lives in Itzehoe. There is no connection between the two.
They might be in the same profession, writing, but that is about it. One, the aspiring writer, goes
about her life in Amsterdam, the other, the sixty-one-year-old successful writer lives in Itzehoe
and does whatever a writer does. These are parallel lives that do not connect. One cannot really
spin a yarn out of this subject matter. At least she is not able to do that. She will take the bus
downtown. Go to the Y. Let the busyness of downtown wash over her. Observe the hecticness.
City life will inspire her. The book will write itself. Without even trying. She will have a smoked

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butter scotch latte with chocolate madeleines. The right food for the right book. Forget about
dieting, forget about weight loss.
8.
New book:
The title of the book is work in progress or better yet working title. For some reason the
formatting is so very off here. Anyhoo, I am starting this up now. Even though it is extremely
weird and strange.
Start of the greatest novel eva:
Ina is sitting in her apartment.
Pooh, she has her first sentence, thus it should not be that different to pen a 1001 page
long novel. The first step sets the tone. The first sentence takes the unsuspecting reader into the
fictional world of the novel. So, what does the equally fictional reader deduce from this first
sentence? Author here ponders if she should use lowercase, uppercase writing or just merely a
very conventional punctuation with the capitalization of the first letter of the first word of the
sentence and a full stop at the end of the sentence. Given that this is not a twitter feed, at least not
yet, it might be one in the rewrite, but let us for now pretend that this is a very conventional
sentence in a very conventional story and thus we are better off to write this sentence just like so,
as she did at the beginning of this paragraph: Ina is sitting in her apartment. Note, it is an
apartment and not a flat, so we kind of give away the locale, this is a place anywhere but the UK.
In London people live in flats, even if those flats are two-story townhouses. Maybe other cities
have flats too, do you speak of flats in Glasgow, Manchester, Oxfordshire. And what is it now, is
it still the UK, or is Scotland its own state? There was a referendum or something, author here
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should really be on top of things instead of living in her own little igloo, her own little bubble.
Writers have to be knowledgeable, even if they merely pen novels. Because, hey, let us face it,
novels are not that high on the food scale, try finding a publisher for a novel. You will much
easier find a publisher for a diet book or a cook book. If you write a novel, your words have to be
extremely good. Or controversial. Take your pick. The subject matter has to be either on love or
on death and the voice has to be masculine. Nobody wants to read about a woman walking
through the mall. Yep, this is how writing is these days, author here should know. She has penned
about ten books or so and nobody, nobody wanted to take her on. No agent, no publisher. Some
young intern from NYU who was interning in a lit agency near eataly invited her on linkedin, he
had about 87 connections, and two days later he had the obligatory 500+, so it was pretty
obvious that he had filled his connection pool from anyone and everyone he had ever met in his
young life. He was nineteen, maybe twenty and he had written a short story which was ok-ish, it
had a beginning and an end, an exotic locale, somewhere in Kazakhstan, it was a straightforward,
very linear story, some unrequited love, some, longing, young straight love a la Romeo and
Juliet. That should always work.
But we digress.
Ina, huh?
Who the f. is called Ina? Author ponders, this is not nice, she will not be able to market
her words to somebody named Ina and at this point she cannot lose any potential readers. She is
no Donald Trump. He managed to shoot to the top of the charts even though either Jeb Bush or
Rand Paul predicted the opposite. Well, he is not president yet, but he sure managed to stay in the
race even though he did the insulting thingie. You will not insult your way to the presidency.
That will not happen, that is what rand paul said or jeb bush, it must have been in the first gop
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debate. There are so many debates these days, debate overload. Author here really likes the way
that Bernie Sanders waves his index finger at the camera or at the MC, it looks very much like
Seinfelds baboo batt.
It is now 2:47, the young student next to her left, he had slightly colored hair, reluctantly
dyed, spiked but not really spiked, hipsterish but conservative enough. If you are young and
employable you have to make sure to walk the line, people like author here are old, they can look
anyway they want and authors are unkempt and strange creatures anyways. Dirtiness as career
move. Extra poundage, I do not care how I look, I am a person of the mind. Yup, an intellectual,
then again, these are still so very sexist times, can you even be a published writer if you are
female? If you have a name like author here. A non-english name? You are no Barak Obama,
lady.
So, Ina and her apartment, she is sitting, not lounging, not lying, not standing. She is still,
though, static, non-moving. Sitting in short. HER apartment. Apartment ownership. It might
berented. She is at an age where she does not have roommates anymore. Post college. Is an Ina
college educated, maybe she is working on her PHD. An ina seems to be that kind of person,
somebody with a non-religious name. parents who name their offspring INA want their daughter
to go to college, they want somebody studious and they will make sure that she has an SAT
number of 1500 and above. Author ponders, if what she just wrote is utter bullshit, well, the BS
factor of any writing is utterly debatable. Author is taking American Lit, a second year college
class. She read 200 pages of DeLillo in one big swoop. Started at night, woke up, went to the
gym and then sequestered herself at the kitchen table, while Matlock was on in the other room.
She went out for a tea and 3 madeleines, the tea was peppermint and the woman behind the
counter said mint majestic or mint citrus, and when author was not quite sure, went on to explain
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what mint citrus is, which is kind of strange because the name mint citrus is kind of selfexplanatory, anyhoo, back to DeLillo, yup, that went pretty fast, in one big swoop. The book
merely had 310 pages, he has books that are 900 pages or so long. The American lit class is soso. The prof does not jump up and down in sheer ecstasy when author here makes a remark, and
that is all what we want from profs, sheer admiration of our superb intellect. I never ever came
upon a student this astute in forty years of teaching, well, nah, this guy manages to curl his nose
every time that she says something. And there is a ten per cent mark for student participation.
Maybe she should say something anyways, stare down on her paper, not look up to see his nose
curl in utter dismay. She is older than him, that sure does not help. The old ones are always the
potential troublemakers. In a classroom, being old is like having been in juvi. What the fuck did
you do all your life that made you land in my classroom at age sixty, you must be really really
dumb. Except if you are a guy, then the prof thinks that you are here after a stellar career as a
ceo, something for the golden years. After you have paid your dues to society, after you paid the
taxes that make academia possible. Maybe a fellow college prof, from another state, another
field, a different province. Anyhoo, ina, her apartment, her sitting. One sentence, not enough for
a story arc. A person sitting, that is not a plot. As of yet. We need more here.
Author reads a lot about writing and writers these days. DeLillo wrote about writing in the
epilogue of UNDERWORLD, hemingway told the interviewer about the tendinitis in his hand,
the hand that holds the pen. Norman mailer stabbed his wife, Edith Wharton got the Pulitzer after
three persons left the jury in protest. Or something like that. These days all this info merges
together, just like the trivia bits in the national enquirer. And, btw., tomorrow is Oscar nite, the
whitest Oscar ever. Author here picked this book up that said how to write a novel in 90 days,

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apparently these people have never heard of national novel writing month, a woman in Iceland
managed to write 100 000 words in the first 17 hours.
INA SITS IN HER APARTEMENT. And now we need Kramer to enter. Ina, huh. A kind of
Nordic hanseatic name, very clearly a womans name, there is IRA, too, very definitely a male
name. but INA, the a in the end is so clearly showing the gender of the person. A slight italianish
influence, maybe. IRA is totally different. An Ina is nonreligious, somehow that is implied. It is a
European name or South American. Australian. Russian. Not Chinese, not Japanese. Author here
is taking American lit, and there is a lot of talk about how American lit differs from other
countries lit. Is the locale even important in a story? Is it not the story itself that should be
interesting? We want to write universal stories here, a narrative, a plot that translates easily from
Afrikaans to Swahili. A story that is so universal a story that will still hold true, long after we
here are gone. We gotta write world lit. not grocery lists, not entries on yelp. World lit, stuff that
will be taught in classrooms 300 year from now. Posterity is so very important. Statues in the
middle of the marketplace. On a horse. The bard of the country. For some reason her prof wanted
the American bard to be male, not female. Not the statue of a suburban housewife, disheveled
and overweight. Author should have dropped the class, right then and there.
INA SITS IN HER APARTEMENT. We still have merely one sentence here. Where lies the
difference between rambling, waxing incoherently and stream of consciousness?
She hates this interface, it is so very weird and strange. People are talking, the sing sang
of this computer lab, male, voices, female voices, the AC, overwhelming everything. A Saturday
in Vancouver, in langara, her words ah her words here. And the word count stands at 2281 here.
It will change when she rewrites this, though she is not that great at rewriting, she loves each and
every word that she pens, they are all her children, she does not discriminate. Even her lesser
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words are still good enough, this is why each publisher rejects her stuff, you have to be able to
cut out the rubbish, you cannot stare with utter fascination, utter glee at the monitor, drunken by
your own words,. Smelling the perfume of the utter eloquence, you have to be able to be your
worst critic. You cannot be an always happy cheerleader, you have to be able to not shriek rarara
for once in a while. Ah, writing, ah, writing. How is it different from plumbing, from surgery,
from construction work. Well with construction you will notice if something does not work, if
something does not hold up, with words it is weirdly different, any yarn you spin might be
publishable. Mein kampf was published.
Ina sits on her couch, no, sorry, she sits in her apartment. She is sitting, to be precise. The
implied meaning changes ever so slightly if you change the wording. Which city is the apartment
in? What year is it? What time of the year? It seems like summer, but not a too hot summer, the
weather is still fresh. The time is maybe 2007 or 8, Obama is not yet president. The last gasps of
George doubleU. The place is nyc, Chelsea. On 23rd street. A high-rise. Author ponders, maybe
21st off eighth avenue goes better with ina. April 2007, in an apartment on the third floor, in one
of the side streets off eighth. Opposite of a school,, PS-something. There is a school that is big
into arts and creativity, author ponders if all the locales have to be right, after all this is a fictional
account of reality. It is reality subversed, there is no real ina who sits in her apartment. Ina is
non-existent. Oh, and btw, ina has to be thin and young, protagonists better be thin and young,
they have to be limber on their feet, they have to be able to move around, they have to have a
spring in their gait. Author here is very biased towards weight, she just gained 15 lbs which
definitely have to come down. Everything is pudgy and her belt is in its last hole. We cannot
have that here. Pudginess is so out, we need perfectly functioning knees, knees that bend. And
they bend better if you weigh less. That is just a fact, mere physiology. Well, if push comes to
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shove, she has knee problems at any weight but she tries to convince herself that she will have
better knees if she weighs less. And ina, the fictional ina, has no knee pains whatsoever. Wow.
2000 words or so and not the best ones as of yet. Save, save, spellcheck has to wait for later, she
does not have her glasses with her and this interface is slightly off, so weird, so strange. A man
with a professorial beard is staring at his monitor, she has parked her car in the parking lot of the
Y, her three hours might be up, time to leave this place, time to leave the land of the novel writer,
authordom has to wait, tomorrow is still another day and another day here. Take it outside
recycle, she swivels around reads the signs on the wall. A man walks by with a coffee cup in his
hand.
9.
How nice, it is Oscar night. Well, not yet, but sometime in the eve. Afternoon. Now it is
ted cruz on the telly, in the other room. Author here is back at the typing machine feeding it her
words as fast as she can, the word count is so very paramount. Apparently, it is Marco Rubio,
Mario Rubio, not Ted Cruz. They all sound so very much alike. All these politicos, who splatter
the tv-landscape. Ah, so much more fun to watch Seinfeld. So, how was the opening sentence to
her great American novel? Something about a woman named INA. The story has to find its
writer, the plot has to gel out magically. Well, it does not as of yet. At this point it is merely a
woman sitting in a place, her place, there is great potential for an exciting story, but equally great
potential for stagnation, for a non-story, a story on nothing. Where nothing ever happens. Time
passes her by. Author, well, she ponders. She might book a flight to New York City, where the
minutes are New York Minutes, where the city apparently never sleeps where more stuff is
happening than here in the sticks. Nah, she has been to New York, nothing ever changes. The
woman who sits in her apartment. Waiting for Godot. 3102 words.
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10.
Ah, a plotline. Where will it come from, while Anderson Cooper chats up the mike, while
the bread maker says hi to the yellow and green plant. This year a leap year, that is how 2016 arolls. The bottom of page 9. She is slightly hungry, tiramisu ice cream would be nice. There is
this gelato in a black case, the one with the pseudo Dutch name. or wannabe-Danish. These days,
she searches online forever, reads yelp reviews about small places in Iceland. Coffeeshops in the
middle of nowhere. Slight locales, exotic spaces she will never see. She watches you-tube videos
of newly opened spaces in Amrum and Foehr, everything on Friesland and Jutland. Travelling to
the end of the world, where people speak in lingos that no one will ever understand. No stranger
will go to school to learn obscure words that only half a dozen persons know. And Anderson
Cooper still talks and a-talks. In the room with the telly. 3269 words, now, what about the Inacharacter. Is there a murder happening, some blood that is worth the investigations of an
inspector Colombo. Make that detective Colombo. It is more like inspector gadget, what is the
difference between an inspector and a detective? How do you detectivize? How to inspect. This
is what writing is for, the play with the words. And the words creep onto the page ever so
smoothly, ever so silently. She should drive down to the coffee shop near to the car dealership, sit
there and look at the people that move in and out on an Oscar night. A Sunday, a reluctant one,
on a reluctantly dreary, ah so grey Sunday in February. In a leap year to boot. One more day, one
that is not there in the other years. Trump, super Tuesday ah gimmme a break. Trailing trump not
trailing trump, who cares who cares here. 3420 words, 3421. Top and spellcheck spellcheck.
Ina could have red hair, blue hair, grey hair. Short hair, long hair, curly or straight. Green
eyes, blue eyes brown eyes, a lilt in her voice, a lisp, no voice. A tilt in her step, she could have
painted nails or non-painted ones. A happy laugh, a grotesque laugh. Crooked teeth, straight
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teeth. Too much fat or too little. Tall, short. High heeled shoes, platforms, flats. A skirt, trousers.
Who uses the word trousers? Ina. Author here knew a girl named ina relling. She was in her
kindergarden class. She might even be on a black and white picture in her album, somewhere in
1963. One of many inas. Not the one who is the protagonist of this book. Of this story that is still
standing still in its first sentence, how to write a novel about not writing a novel, the fight and the
struggle with all of these words. The isolation of the woman who wants to be a writer, but who
lacks talent, who is a non-storyteller. You have to be born as a storyteller, if you manage to
slither away from the main point, the main story arc then you are just an author who bores all her
readers. Anyreader. Ah, to be a failure as a writer. It does not really matter, in the end, lincoln
park An uninspired aspiring writer. They are a dime a dozen, in this city, in anycity. Like the
individuals who participate in national novel writing month, in November. 3680 words,
reluctantly, reluctantly.
11.
Somewhere near union square, near the cookies by melissa place. The young writer runs
thru the rain. Very new York minute like. She should take manhattan, eventually.
12.
Again, the hapless writer on Oscar nite. She is raggedly tired of trying to fashion a plot.
So much more fun to watch the Oscars. Hollywoods biggest nite. Yup, whatever. Don lemon
chatting up whoopy Goldberg. Laughing. Now they are chatting about diversity in Hollywood.
About Asian Americans, underrepresentation. And everybody is dressed ah so nicely. There is
something funny, something comical about sitting on the couch in your old peejays, the ones
with the holes on the right side and watching people all dressed up gliding over the red carpet.

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This is more interesting than making up stories about a fictional character. Why are there no
award shows about plumbers, plumber of the year awards, I thank all those who made this
possible. Shed tears, applause. This show on the telly is so inviting for being satirized. Awards
are nice if you get them. Clutching some small statuette, talking into a mike. Bowing to applause,
thundering or otherwise. And now a commercial, check your brakes. Drink milk, lose weight,
buy a car. The usual, the usual. 3880 words, yay and yay here.
13.
And the Oscar goes towell, not yours truly. Meh, there have been better Oscar nites.
Back to the writing here, lets face it this is an utterly plotless story that just meanders along.
Yelp reviews are more interesting. 3935 words of whining about writers block. On the telly, the
dragons and a product for tendinitis. A repetitive stress injury glove.
14.
So writing here in this place is quite a chore. Apparently, the monitor is way too far away
for her so she has to peek over her glasses. Maybe using the generic drugstore glasses is better
for this; her so very very expensive prescription glasses are just not doing the trick. Something is
wrong with her communication with her eye doctor and that is the reason why her prescribed
glasses are off. And they sure were super expensive, 500 bucks what with ophthalmologist fee,
maybe she should have shopped around for lesser priced frames. Anyhoo, the drugstore frames
were 10 bucks. Just saying here. Anyhoo, she has class a tad later but there is still time 2 kill, she
might just as well pen some words for her amazing masterpiece, the book that will change the
world as we know it. Well, @ least it will change her world once it is published, ah, all those
book tours, her interviews with the New Yorker, paris review, her photo shoots for vogue italia

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and harpers bazaar, her Nobel acceptance speech in Stockholm, dear distinguished academy.
Well, yesterday it was Oscar nite, a reminder of the line in that movie with bette midler and that
other woman the one from cactus flower and the one from baby boom, where the cactus flower
lady says to the bette midler character, well, what did you ever win? A pie-eating contest? Author
here noticed that seems the majority of us are pie eating contest winners. Or maybe not, we walk
over a stage when we get our various diplomas, author here had a thundering applause for a
thirty-seven minutes long animation, so there ah so there. A woman talks talks at the other
computer, people are hanging out in this lab in the community college, chairs roll over the floor,
the cushion of chairs make noise, a tick here a tuck there, the leaning of a body into a chair,
mouse clicks, tapping of the same key, a man talking, short, the woman does not let him talk,
something about they and pay and publishing, the song of the computer, the rolling of the mouse
to her left, the voice of the printer. The woman sings ahem, anyhoo, somebody claps a book, she
has to run to class maybe so very very maybe here. 4334 words, stop and spellcheck spellcheck
here.
LATER.
In front of the telly, rehashes of the Oscar nite on e-talk. Oscar mega Monday, apparently
there is something called Oscar Monday, when pundits gossip about Oscar Sunday. There is one
Oscar night but if you have a mike or a tv station you can make a mere award show into lots of
mini satellite shows. The award that keeps on giving. As if after parties are not enough. Well,
given that we mere mortals are not invited A vanity fair party. Which reminds me WHITE
NOISE started out in vanity fair. Yup, that is what we chatted about in lit class, white noise.
There are definite DeLillo nay-sayers, her prof sure is not one of them. Ah, btw. Today is a leap
year 29th February. Leap, leap, leap, did u see the google doodle? 4489 words here. Back 2 the
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parade of stars. Gowns et.al. and tuxes, all the guys look like waiters in a pompous cheesy
restaurant, huh.
STILL LATER LATER
5317.
WHAT WAS THE NUMBER?
She has to get back to the construct of a good enough storyline. Even if she wants to
describe various writers she has to carve out the sculpture of a person. This is just like visual art.
You cannot jump around and you have to commit to one main subject matter. You cannot get
away with a collage in 3-dimensional art or in film. There has to be coherence in order to not
lose the viewer. Nobody wants to be confused. We need lucid writing. Straightforward messages.
Clear plots. Open to interpretation, well, that maxim does merely work to a certain extent. You
cannot pen rubbish and call it experimental. The landscape of literature is littered with bad
writings that try to pass muster by calling themselves experimental. All the experiments have
been done already. Besides you experiment in baking a cake by putting together unrelated
ingredients, but if the recipe makes for a disgusting concoction you have to throw it out. You
cannot reinvent the wheel, sorry.
Author here ponders, the INA-story did not go anywhere, she still just sits in her
apartment, nothing is happening. The other writers described are abandoned somewhere in
potential-story-land. The young woman near union square seemed interesting, she is young, just
like the ina-person, but she is somehow better than the ina-person in that she does not sit still, she
is not stagnant. She is moving in the city, in a quintessential city, nyc, in between the proverbial 8
million. Author ponders, are those eight million all the inhabitants of the five boroughs? All these
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questions kind of halt the construct of the plot here. On the telly, once more the rehashing of the
Oscars, lady gaga, and now the descript of the movie spotlight. The boston globe, the catholic
priests. Author here ponders, that particular movie does not really say something new, that is how
clergy works, anyclergy. They are littered with bad apples, it seems. More so than other
professions, it seems.
99.
Her numbers are not good, she has to part her words in the right chronological order,
book 1, book 2, book 3 , chapter 1, 2, 3, 4 etcetera. She might rewrite this and make it look like
diary entries, so there will be a date at the beginning of each passage. Kind of like journal
entries. The journal entries of a struggling writer.
ENTER
Maybe each passage should have a nonsensical title like this, maybe coherence is
overrated. It is art after all. Maybe the wheel should be reinvented. Maybe one should put
opposing statements into one text. Because in the real world, there are dichotomies everywhere.
This does not go with that. That is how reality works.
LE SOLEIL
Back to the woman near union square, the one near the Melissa cookie place. She walks
by the square, passes the row of city bikes, moves towards THE STRAND. This is good, it
frames the story time-wise, if you know the city you know when this happened. When the bike
program started, anytime after 2010, that is for sure. Author here should do some more research
in order to flesh out the exact timeframe. On the telly, a home improvement show. So, the woman
is an aspiring writer. There is a writers studio on 14th., so if we describe the woman coming out
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of that place, which is on the third floor in a building near the Melissa cookie space, then
everything will fall into place. Then again, maybe this is overkill, after all there is no real coffee
shop called central perk, no real monks caf. But Seinfeld and friends still are going strong in
rerunland.
On the telly, Donald Trump. Which begs the question, when is he not on tv? How long
does it take to churn out a book about the presidential race? Non-fiction seems to be more
seductive than fiction at tis point.
7.
Back to numbers, each passage should have a number as title. And anynumber will do,
should do here. 5192 words, a weight loss commercial on the telly.
8.
5202.
9.
March number one. In the rain soaked city at the computer. To make herself write a book.
Her musings about writing, on other things. While the bread maker and the plant sit on the
kitchen counter. Short hiccups of the fridge. Dotdotting of a raindrop. Like a faulty faucet. She is
shooting up her writing career. This is not what she set out to do. The isolation of a writers
studio is way too deafening. People who need people these are the right kind of people. A writer
is a person with her words, all alone with all those words to choose from. There is no right and
no wrong in writing, nah, that is not how it is, there certainly are better ways to arrange and
rearrange words, there is superiority and inferiority, there are clear hierarchies. There is lucid

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prose and then there is gibberish. Your reader has to clearly deduce what you are saying, there
are straightforward sentences, the meaning that the reader gets should be the same as the
meaning that the writer wanted to convey, meaning A and meaning B have to be carbon copies of
each other, your stumblings have to throw out coherence to the reader, that is how it is that is
how it is. Her American lit class managed to utterly confuse her, the readings that different
individuals have are, well, different. Everyone in that class of 21 has a different viewpoint, the
vantage points are, well, different. Author here overuses the word DIFFERENT, different is not
good, our readings have to match up, we need community in readership. The world makes more
sense if we see things the same, then we can function better. Conformity is king, individualism
sucks. We are animals that want to exist as a herd, in herds, nobody wants to be a recluse.
Robinson Crusoe was forced into robinson-crusoedom, we have to recite words in unison, there
has to be a sense of belonging. Words have to be shared, we need a common language. Author
here ponders, should she not write about this particular morning in the rain soaked city, this
particular march first, one of many march firsts, when she rolled outta bed, reached for the first
layers she could see, put them on, made her way to the car, drove down to the little coffee shop,
and suddenly was surrounded by the big city. That is how it always is, you break out of the
isolation of your car and into the one banana loaf, one tall pike place, the people with their
earnest work faces, dressed up, ready to face the world. It is a Tuesday, second day of the work
week in these locales here, the rain is coming down, but in here in the coffee shop, there are
lights, there are green signs, there are drinks and baked goods. This here says morning, the young
men with their green aprons give you food and you give them shiny coins or sweep your card on
the machine. The rituals of life in late capitalism, she heard this weird and strange expression ah
so many times, she does not know what it means but that is ok, as a writer you do not have to

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have all the answers, you have to state facts, the fact of the lights in the coffee shop, the fact of
the rain that is overpouring the city. The coffee shop exists on this weird street, next to a gas
station, next to a subway sandwich shop, next to a barber, people here are all nicely dressed, or
they are in construction worker attire, all of these persons are gainfully employed. Except for
author here, she has to fashion her words and then bring them to market, she has to produce stuff
and then sell it later, it is very different from being hired, where you have the contract already
that you will be reimbursed for your time. Her words have to be fed to the machine, then shot
thru the cloud to some place in nyc, some words might be rejected and some might be sold. Write
something that makes me miss my train stop, and usually it is a subway stop somewhere between
Williamsburg and Manhattan, the L-train, first avenue, the words have to be stronger than the
sounds of the underground, this is how it is this is how it is. Author here ponders, the scene that
she sets is not clear enough, there are so many ambiguities in her text, but she herself can feel the
smell of 14th. Street, the sight of Artichoke Pizza, the looks of the ear and eye hospital, the sitting
in the lobby at that place, the looks of the doctors in their scrubs, their white and off-white
uniforms. One of these days author here will book an overnite flight on Philippine airlines, she
has to reconnect with that town, the one that is so ingrained in her veins. New York City does
that to yer. It never really leaves you, once you have been there you too become a boring New
Yorker. The quintessential metropolis, the one that everyone is emulating. There are other places,
Shanghai, Rio, Moscow, places she has never been, Zurich, Helsinki, Oslo, too many cities on
this planet, so little little time. Bremen, Itzehoe, a small village named Maienfeld. Author here is
sixty years old, how many places will she see b4 she bites the grass?
6100 words, sometimes philosophical, sometimes really bull shitty, her middle finger
hurts from typing, she has to once more come back to the persona of the writer, her main
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character, the protagonist that hops around near Baked by Melissa, and it is baked by Melissa not
cookies by Melissa, somewhere near union square, somewhere near the writing studio the one on
the third floor, para-something. The woman who wants to be a writer. An aspiring author with a
long career in front of her, if you start young, you will eventually amass enough works to call
your stuff an oeuvre, somebody will be nice enough to award you a tiny little goldenish statuette.
And the Oscar goes to
The bread maker is solidly standing in its place, next to the yellow and green plant, the
rain is coming down and coming down here, nyc is so very far far away.
71.
Her coffee is too hot and not sweet enough. It is one of those seasonal coffee drinks,
something with a smoked flavor, she had it before, it tasted like heaven last time and it tastes just
bla this time. In the other room some news about Donald Trump, discussion about who will be
the president, predictions that seem to be newsworthy, opinions that are deemed good enough to
be broadcast to the public. The fridge starts its sing song, it is not quite nite outside, she was
outside at the coffee shop, ordering stuff, baked goods with chocolate on it, the smoked
something milk coffee drink. She tried to get just enough inspiration for her writing, for her
coming back here and hammering away at the typing machine. She did some reading, some
required text for her lit class, the book is as forgettable as the other ones, these are all authors that
she has never heard of and nobody really has and there is a reason why, their stuff is subpar but
nonetheless the books have to be read, she cannot get her five hundred bucks of tuition back, she
has to write certain essays about the books, th novels, even though they are all shitty writings.
Writing is tough, to make up a story, she is definitely not able to do that, her novel is just a roman
a clef about a writer who struggles with her words. Or more so a description of the worlds of the
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writer, the bread maker, the yellow and green plant. Hillary in the other room, applause,
something about America. About patriotism. What possesses people to run for the presidency, a
presidency, anypresidency? Her place here is way too messy, do you write better words or worse
words in a total mess. The baked goods are formidable, the coffee now tastes so much better, her
getting full makes her sleepy, non-alert, you need alertness for penning a novel. She has little
notes lying around, ideas for sentences, jotted down on pages from an old calendar, Hillary on
the telly in the other room talking about flint Michigan, the polluted water, not columbine that
was a long time ago. Then again, that was some guy from flint who made a movie about
columbine. Michael Moore that is. She ponders, her writing should be paramount, the here and
now, she does not like the novels that she reads in school, in the lit class, all the characters are
like caricatures, there are no individual traits in all those personas. She ponders if she is like all
the other aspiring writers, does she differ, is her kitchen counter different, her breadmaker and
her plant, her words have to be new and fresh, little originals, original ideas and original
thoughts. The ones that make a reader miss her subway stop. Finding a line is quite difficult,
there is a lot of moping around the house. Well, she usually goes out to the coffee shop, looks at
the lights above the counter, at the tiles behind the woman who makes her drink, at the cars on
the street and the night that is coming in. She thinks about the writers that she describes in this
her text, the woman who is running over the street, somewhere near union square, the one who is
not as of yet fleshed out, her appearance will be described later. The fictional character, a figure,
a non-real person. The woman INA who sits in her apartment, somehow, the interior of that
apartment has to be in different shades of blue, a modern ikea type interior, strong lines, straight
lines, nothing ornamental, that is what goes with the name INA. There was a male writer too that
she described in this text, a successful one, sixty, ah, at this point all these writers merge into one,

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what kind of job is writing anyways, who does that, writing for a living, without any luck.
luckless writing, ah, hapless writing. Failed writers, those are the ones that you have to describe,
artists that demise in the gutter, the bohemian romance, that comes with pursuing an unthankful
field. She has 6952 words here, wow this is coming along quite nicely. Now it is marco rubio, we
are a nation of underdogs, this is not a sentence that will garner votes. Nosirree.
97.
Next to 7000 words, a fast jotted down text. Later we can go back in there and rework
this. 7000, ah, 7000.
100.
These days she does not write that much mainly because she had to write an essay for
school. A glorified book report. Apparently it is not called a book report because this is a second
year college course but it is still a book report. Even a lit dissertation is a book report in authors
eyes. Her prof might not agree then again he never agrees with anything she says. He is good at
curling his nose whenever she says anything. Tough to make the participation mark, the trick is
to look down on your notes when you say something, make sure to avoid eye contact. Mumble
something to yourself, throw it out there, if he likes it he will respond. A very tough class, he has
such a fragile mental make-up. They all do. Especially the men. She ponders, do female profs
react more favorably to female students? Nah, it does not really make any dif. All the profs are
equally biased if the student is older than they are. Well, maybe if you are female they are even
more pissed, you do not want to teach granny here. Anyhoo, she has her essay ready already, it is
soso, lukewarm, but she does not feel like redoing it, she just will put the quotations in, and do

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the WORKS CITED page, that should all be enough here. And we type and type and type and
type. The rain is coming down on this citay.
101.
First thing in the morn in the Y, then a train ride downtown to go to the other Y. there still
is another Y out in the boonies, but maybe 2 Ys is enough per day. She had a blueberry muffin
with yoghurt and honey in it and streusels on it, a rice dish in a diet package, and a banana bread.
And the cream in the coffee. So now it is time to not eat anything anymore until six the next
morning. She has to lose ten pounds at least; those are the ten pounds that she gained since
December. And she has gained fifteen pounds since October. Her class sure made her gain, five
pounds to be precise. Anyways, all of this has to come down somehow. There are tricks. She is
not very good with those tricks. Her will power is nonexistent. She has to somehow fool herself
into dieting. Usually she reads up a lot about fitness. The mental makeup has to be there. You
have to be obsessed with dieting and fitness, otherwise you will not lose it. You have to go
utterly crazy. Yup, that is the trick, insanity makes you thin. Sanity will make you stay fat. She
should really write an op-ed piece for the times. (to quote Elaine, Benes that is). and we type
here and type here and type here and type here. She has little pieces of paper with notes on them,
she will incorporate them into her text. A book about the process of writing. That works only if
you are the author of Moby Dick or war and peace not if you are some insignificant nobody.
Well, the main thing is that you make the reader miss her stop. Somebody will miss her stop, you
just keep on writing and sending your texts out. 7569 words, time to watch one of her favorite
shows. Dick van dike in diagnosis something. A murder mystery paired with a medical drama.
Something like Quincy M.E. apparently this eleven in the morning timeslot is reserved for this

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kind of shows. She has 2611 words, she does not like this interface of this laptop, she prefers
mice for editing. Not the rodent, the plural of a computer mouse.
102.a.
On the telly, something about the OJ case, which is strange isnt this a twenty-year-old
case.
103.
Writing in a small enclosure where typing, creativity erupts. The prosaicness of laundry.
Studio. Finding a line is quite difficult. There is a lot of moping around the house. So, these are
her notes that she has lying near to the laptop. She is not quite sure how she will build them into
her text. The line with the moping around she actually has used up already. And it is not that
great to repeat a sentence. Maybe she should take one of those online Gotham writing courses.
The main problem is that you actually learn by doing. Some things are unteachable. And you
might overteach them and destroy the ability to build something new by giving out too many
rules. You cannot really be dogmatic with creativity. Anyhoo, on the telly, CNN and a discussion
of TRUMP. Donald trump is definitely good for ratings and actually everybody has something to
say about him. People either adore him or despise him. Anyhoo, the microwave beeps, we have
7821 words here, the writing goes on and on and on here.
111.
The minutia of watching the coffee house unfold. Registering it, internalizing it. Taking it
with you thru the pouring rain, striding forward to the kitchen table and firing up the machine
and spewing the remnances of what you ever so slightly remember onto the page. Documenting
the coffee place on a Monday morn. The man with the ambiguous face says to the woman who
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changes the trash bag in the coffee station something about this being a slow Monday morning,
slow for a Monday or something like that. The woman repeats that yes, it is slow. Author now
notices it is a Monday, this was not what she here was thinking about, she more was noticing
different stuff, the repetitiveness of her life, she had been in this exact spot, the afternoon before,
near the window, there was the tutor with his tutee, this time another one, the coffee house
remains the same, the actors change, like a stage that has a different show each and every eve.
Once an suv mowed into the window of the place, it was on the news, there was police and
banners that kept the public out. She ponders, banners is not the right word, those stripes of
plastic or fabric or paper that show that this is an area that you should not go into, a restricted
area. Outside tee rain is staccatoing the place up, she has to feed some words to the machine until
her lit. class, today it is Robert frost, poetry at ninth grade level. But back to the coffee place,
there is a whole dissertation in there, the music the drama of the prosaic, the moms with their
school aged kids. Well, the dads too, maybe more dads. Why is she so preoccupied with the ratio
of dads versus moms, does it matter? Her writings should be more universal, instead of gaging
how many members of this group or that group do this or that, the world is not about football
teams. It is all about a solitary writer, the lone poet who stumbles upon registering what is going
on, who labors at her master piece. Who wants to grip immortality, whose words have to be
discussed in class rooms the world over long after she is gone. This is what language is for, not
to write grocery lists but to pen immortal songs. Illiads, odyssees, far far away places on paper.
Or a screen. Well, the Starbucks next door is as far as we go here. The prosaic as story. My, retell
please what happened on your way to safeway. In the mall that was left behind. Godforsakenness
next to the gas station. Where coyotes hurl. Where you notice how so very alone we are in the
world. The fridge starts up, that is the exact music you want to hear when you think grave

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thoughts. The philosopher queen next to the dirty dishes. Domesticity bread maker et. al. we
have to get ready for school, a shower, etcetera, sitting in your little bench and taking notes about
some poet that has died so many years before. 8351 words, of wisdom, of bullshit, either way,
the plot thickens here.
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There is a ps. in there, something about watching life unfold and then editing out parts
and leaving stuff in. which are the main characters in a plot. Is a plot the same as a narrative?
What occurrences do you mention which one do you let go of? Ah, the choices a writer makes,
which road do you take, does it even matter in the end?
176.
In between stints with the laundry the gym and the coffee shop she works on her fitness
blog which should be aptly named a portion control blog. Because that is what it is all about, to
sit and stare @ the double chocolate Milano bag and to just take one and leave it. For the day.
She has to take a shower and make her way to the dentist appointment, and before she
rescheduled her eye-appointment. All her maintenance jobs here. The dryer upstairs is still
singing its songs. The weather is so very dreary on this international womens day and the doodle
google is horrific. Yup, these are her words of wisdom 4 today and 4 today here.
177.
There are problems with the text. She saves it under different filenames and thus
everything manages to slither off-kilter. It is eight and eight-twenty-seven in the morning, on a

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dreary Saturday in march. She went through the motions, coffee in the place where the woman
asks her questions that she does not know how to answer, then the gym, then back home. Then
some dishes, then the struggle with the words begins. She ponders, maybe that is not the right
order, maybe she was at the gym before coffee. There is a right way to do things and a wrong
way to do it, there are rules and regulations, everything has to be scheduled just so. Militaristic
obsession, that is what will make you write the right book, the one that will be published. The
one that makes the lit agency intern miss her stop. On the L-line, coming from Williamsburg. She
will miss the stop at union square after coming from Bedford, first street and third street. Or
maybe she will go all the way to eighth avenue. Author here used the L-train a lot but she is not
quite sure about the chronology of the stations. Nothing sticks anymore. A memory like a sieve.
She can research it, google the subway map of nyc. It is easy but maybe non-accuracy is better
for writing. Flaws, failures. Inaccuracy. Logical distortions. After all this is an artsy text,
literature. Quasi-reality, but not quite. You construct a new reality, a fictional world. With
fictional characters. All her stories are roman a clefs. She hates writing, struggles even with the
so very short term essay that she has to give in on march twenty-eight. There are always
problems with writing a text. The weather outside is still dreary. She will go back to doing the
dishes. She will listen to the song from mash.
199.
She did some dishes, washed them and they are now drying. She washes them by hand
because the dish washer does not work. Besides she prefers to wash dishes by hand. One person
does not need a dishwasher. You have to not let them accumulate that is the trick. Or eat out,
doughnuts, muffins. Pastry. In different coffee houses all over town. They are always open. The
burger joints. This is what she should write about. Something like the piano man by billy joel.
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Like closing time by leonard cohen. All these videos. That describe the debauchery of
failure. Failed lives that do not even have the romantic tinges of booze. The coffee houses around
town. The malls. The weird and strange community on buses. On trains. Where people are
together. She watches music videos, a lot of early billy joel. Somehow he romanticizes lives that
went wrong, araygh, that did not make it quite. College, school, the quest for greatness that did
not quite happen. She should really watch hoarders, the biggest loser, quests that go nowhere.
The romanticizing of failure. The going nowhere. The waiting for godot. She has written a term
paper that sucks. You cannot write a dissertation in 1000 words. One thousand words is bound to
be rubbish. It is basically a yelp review, one for books. The paper is a glorified book report. She
hates that class, there are so many things wrong with that class. But it makes her write again.
Read again. Vent her frustrations to the typing machine. The bread maker and the green and
yellow plant are in the other room now. This happens when you have a laptop. In the old times
writers used to be in one place, in one study. The typewriter cannot be moved. That is why
hemingway stays static. Now you are nomadic, you move from coffee house to coffee house.
Though technically she does not do that, because she is afraid of the rain to go down on her
precious machine. she just moves from kitchen table to room with telly and writes about that.
What a narrative. What a plot. One that will shoot up the charts. Right into book review heaven.
Her writing is shitty, it truly is it truly is.
223.
She still feels chilly, she should find her jacket, the one that she threw somewhere when
she came thru the door. It is the day that time has changed, it is now eleven four but it is really
ten four. Somehow, an hour is lost. Or maybe this is how it should be anyways. The logistics of
telling time, arbitrary. In Canada it is not even the same all over the country. She had a coffee
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and a piece of cake, in the strip mall near her house. Then the gym, wow, we are gaining weight
here. Some pedaling on the stationary bike, some weights, outta here and outta here. Consistency
is what counts, not sudden ironman spurts. Slow and steady does it. She is the queen of
platitudes, she is not thin though. And utter thinness is the ultimate goal. We live to be twiggy,
we strive 2 be twiggy. Our goals are modest to the nth degree. The superlative of banality or
something like that something like that. In the distance the roar of an ambulance and still its
aftershocks lingering in the air. The kitchen table where it all happens. The plants that are thirsty,
the bread maker that does not function, the yellow and green plant that is standing in the wrong
place, on the counter, away from spittle rays of sunshine. A Sunday in march, yellow flowers on
bushes outside. Spring awakenings. A city in north America, could be anycity. Well, technically,
it is Vancouver, but that is not what matters. It is your lifestyle that defines you. Utter suburbia
slithering towards utter city life, in the same day. You do it all, take transit, ride ur SUV. We
adopt differing personas all thru the day, from first blink of morning down to bitter nite. She
writes a a tad, draws a tad, goes to art shows a tad, hangs around the art skool. And around the
community college. Those whiffs of academia keep her alive, the concerns with questioning,
with reasoning, with logic. Not so much creativity, her aptness 4 creativity is limited. She is an
animal of habit, of comfort, no slithering outside of the comfort zone 4 her. You need that, you
need to be at ur typer each and every morning, you need structure, the nose to the grindstone in
order to go from ay to zee. Constant stamina, the turtle beats the hare every time. These are age
old rules, tried and true. Her mint tea is getting cold here. She will still have another muffin and
then nothing for the rest of the day. 9670, wow, near to ten thou, a book about writing, about
formulating texts. And just one protagonist as of yet. She drew some fictional characters in the
beginning of this quasi-novel, the old writer, the male one, the young writer, female. She painted

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the looks of the writers city, new York, a writers city if there ever was one. Where aspiring
scribners hull around in the street, you can throw a rock into the subway, it will land on a bunch
of scibes anytime. Eight million who are trying to take the city, so little success, so much
abandon of failure. These days she listens into Piano Man and the theme song of Mash, they
confirm what we already know, lifes a bitch and then you die. And on that note, spellcheck,
spellcheck here, the fridge starts up its songs.
321.
CHAPTER SIX.
To sling all of this together seems to turn out to be quite a b.., what rhymes with witch.
Especially, because she chose to stitch together texts from different months. Mixing up the
chronological order. Chaotic anarchy. The letters at the beginnings of the musings are not in
linear order. Everything is jarring. Confusion rules. While the night has set in, while darkness has
taken over. On the telly, the news of the missing EgyptAir plane.
55.
An ad for Joseph Aboud. The telly is singing its songs. The writer here has no clue how
to stitch all of this together. Everything is still as plotless as it was before. The struggles with the
words. The experimenting with constructing a cohesive unit of text. Ah, it is as good a subject
matter as any.
57.
67 105 words. May 19, 2016. 13 degrees Celsius. Vancouver, British Columbia.
59.
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nanowrimo.
1.
SELF-GUIDED ART RESIDENCIES IN DIVERSE ART SCHOOLS AROUND NEW YORK
CITY- she looked down at her laptop, she pondered if this was a good enough title for her
project. Maybe it should sound more like a proposal than like a project. Everything is in a name.
maybe she overused the word art, using it twice in the same sentence, which technically was
not a sentence. Maybe she should stress the fact that this was a proposal for a not-yet-established
endeavor, this is what I intend to do, not what I have done yet. She was utterly confused, looked
out at the passers-by on Eighth. She liked this coffee shop on Eighth, it was unpretentious and
not a real coffee house. A deli slash tea house slash everything else. It was open 24 hours, at least
it used to be. Before it changed hands. If it closes she can go up 23rd to the Dunkin Donuts near
Fifth. Every time she comes to New York, she gets lost and it takes some time to get
reacquainted. She likes getting lost, she remembers her stay in Amsterdam, the original
Amsterdam, not New Amsterdam here. Every morning it seemed as if the whole neighborhood
had changed, she used to go to the street where she was the day before and there were totally
new shops there, totally new restaurants. Obviously, the buildings had not changed, it was her
touristy lack of orientation that caused all these mirages. Dislocation does that to yer, you are in
a happily pleasant state of transience, you cannot really function and you seem to get aquanted to
this new reality of constantly being lost. Anyhoo, be that as it may, she should once more
concentrate on her proposal for the art residency. The self-guided, self-initiated art residency. She
does not want to go through the bureaucratic channels to be either approved or rejected, she will
start this all on her own and then document it in book form and then find a publisher who will
then print her book and distribute it in bookshops and find translators for her amazing book. She
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will need an agent. She will need an airline ticket to go to Stockholm to accept her Nobel Prize
for literature, because this her book about art residencies is only her first book in a line of equally
illustrious books that will sell like hell. Think big, think big. Outside the rain is coming down, on
this November day in nyc. It is around two in the afternoon on a Wednesday, it is rainy, though it
is a pretty mild November this year. Then again, she never was in this city in November, she just
quotes Tamsen Fadal. She came here on November first, slept in a different hotel each and every
day. She has to look for an apartment, a sublet, something. Hotels are too expensive, though they
are fun, of course, somebody cleans up after your mess.
2.
She now is in the Starbucks on Eighth, not far from her first place. The Starbucks next to the
corner of 23rd. she has thrown her laundry into the washer, she loves doing laundry in New York
City. It kind of makes her feel like a non-tourist, besides, she loves to pack light and when you
do that you have to do laundry all the time. You cannot really afford to let your dirty socks
accumulate, you will start stinking up the place, anyplace, after all you need to wear fresh clothes
every day. Maybe she should write a book about how to travel instead of a book about art. After
all, she fell into the art world strictly by accident, she holds an art degree from some school back
west, she wanted to be an animator bit that did not really work out. She now tries to reinvent
herself as a conceptual artist, whatever that means. And New York City is the perfect place to do
that, this is where it all happens, apparently. London would be good, too, but this is nearer to
home. A New York-based artistic practice, sure sounds good on your resume. If you are based in
New York City, chances are you are smack in the midst of where it is all happening. It is a stamp
of approval, though a pretty flimsy one. After all, you are one of 8 million who try to make it in
this city. Maybe, it is nine by now. The eight million are always quoted, in movies, in Broadway
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musicals. 8 mil, huh and huh. She eats a banana, that should be enough carbs for now. The
banana in this place is more expensive, she should have gone to the Gristedes some doors down
from here.
3.
So, the art residency, huh. She will stand in the midst of n exhibition space and have her artwork
lie at her feet. Drawings on letter-sized paper. Performative art meets visual art. A live
performative art installation. Art is so very very weird and strange these days.
4.
She will question the conventions of art making, then again she is not the first one to do that.
Everybody does that nowadays, everybody participates in the discourse of art making. The art
world, huh, the art world. With its own technical terms, its own hierarchies. Its art stars and its
art starlets. Its wanna-be stars, its stars-in-the making.
5.
Art School, as if you can teach how to make art.
6.
She has 915 words, that should do it for today. Time to wrap this up, time to explore the city.
7.
She now walks through the city. She has her place, a sublet on 23rd, street, make that 21st. and it is
not really a sublet, it is a place that belongs to this German guy who is back in Germany and is
renting it out for a month. Maybe that is what a sublet is. The weather is really nice for
November, it is 22 grade Celsius, beautiful, beautiful for a November day in this city.
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8.
She is in the Public Library. Still working on her art residency proposal. It is definitely getting
better the more she works on it. More contained, more precise. The wording is everything. She
irons out all the glitches. It should be a nice manual that makes her start her art project in a
professional manner. She will engage the public which in this case means other artists. After all
she will do this artsy fartsy thing inside an art school. Maybe not such a good idea, inside an art
school everyone has an opinion about what constitutes art. The general public is more lenient,
less critical, more accepting. Maybe she should not do this, maybe she should just play tourist for
a month and then go back home. Nothing ventured, nothing lost. Play it safe.
9.
On the shoe floor at Macys. She is shooting pics with her i-phone. Wow, so many people, such a
hustle and bustle. So many many shoes. All colors, all sizes, all kinds of heels. All kind of
languages. Six in the afternoon, the department store is at its best, at its worst.
10.
Out on the street, on one of those green chairs on Herald Square. She could use a city-bike but
maybe this too much city here. She prefers city-biking in Chelsea, not that many cars. The best is
the Meatpacking district in the morning, you can even use the side-walks. Nobody seems to
mind.
11.
She feels slightly gloomy, her art career is so not going anywhere. She owns a piece of paper that
certifies her artistdom, but that is about it. And she is certifiably gloomy and blue, so maybe that

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is where her artistdom is exactly where it should be. She is not starving though, she had one too
many Halloween candies, she definitely has to get back on track with her diet.
12.
She feels lonely in the big city, she likes that though. If you want to be by yourself and listen to
your own voice talking to yourself, then this is the city to be.
13.
She hammers away at her masterpiece, in this coffee shop on fourteenth. Still writing a book
about her endeavor of starting an art project, a self-initiated art residency. Maybe in the end this
will never crystallize, maybe it will just be stuck in the planning stage. Like all those
architectural models that will never be built. Dream big, but not everything will become reality,
you might as well die planning the future. There is something utterly poetic about failure, a
certain romance, a certain poetic romance. That goes well with the steam from her peppermint
tea, that wafts romantically from side to side, when she blows on the side of the ash-grey -beige
paper cup with the funky swirls on it. The place here is full of students, washed-up housewives,
all kinds of lost souls that this city is so good at producing. New York City is where its at, it has
this inexplicable odor of success and failure, all wrapped together, it has the whiff of never-met
expectations and every day is a new day to make it or to fail big and disastrously. It is a place to
dream big and to fail big, and maybe each and every city on this planet is like that. Outside night
has set in, maybe it is time to go to that small apartment, to the third floor on the sublet like
place, she has her stuff in her black shiny bag, the laundry she washed, she is tired and washedup, tomorrow is still another day, another November day here in New York City. Her art career
will take off, eventually, eventually.

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14.
Ooah, such a rainy day. She hangs out at the TOMS on Elizabeth Street, a nice cup of
chamomile tea, a nice orange-pecan muffin. Later on she will go to the Y on Boundary, two
blocks down, in order to weigh herself and assess the damage done. But at this time it is all about
feeding the words to the machine. Today, SPECTRE is starting up, she saw the inte4rview with
Daniel Craig on Charlie Rose. And the 007 director with the Spanish name, who claimed that
now that the movie is done he is unemployed. Guess that is what happens to actors and directors,
they are merely seasonal workers. Author here ponders, so are writers. And they are usually of
the non-remunerated kind, lost souls in search of words and hand-outs. Poets and their blue-ness,
the happy melancholy of fartists. She ponders if she can really fill page after page with waxing
about the state of writers, who would read this, who will be nice enough to read this even though
we consequently stay away from S-E-X and violence. Everything is g-rated here, decidedly so.
Which equals boredom, apparently, in this society. Besides, there are no antagonists battling
protagonists, this is a mere description of the rain that is coming down on new york city. An
account for national geograPHICS without the racial overtones. Or maybe THERE is racism, of
the reverse-racism kind. Reverse-racism, reverse-sexism, reverse-ageism. Dont trust anyone
under sixty, yup, that should be her mantra. The rain is coming down, forcefully, hardly anyone
is in the streets here. This place, so near to little Italy, to nolita, to whatever acronyms are en
vogue by real-estate agents these days. There was this episode of Friends that made fun of that,
but we digress here, digress here.
15,
at this point it seems that she is the performative artist just by merely being here, yup, the whole
world is a stage, if you manage to roll out of bed and position yourself in public where others
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might watch you, then you might as well call it a performance. And if you describe it in words,
then you are documenting your performance. Might be kind of bla, but who cares? We will all be
dead in a hundred years from now. Make that ten or so good years in her case
16.
we have 2022 words here, time to be outta here and outta here for now.
17.
on November sixth all the nanowrimo writers are invited to meet up at paragraph on fourteenth
street at six in the afternoon for a write-in. well, technically, author here is not participating in
nanowrimo this year or is she? It is November and if you call it a novel, then it is one.
Nanowrimo is of course national novel writing month, you are expected to produce 50 000 words
over the course of one month, November. Paragraph will provide tea and coffee, author here is
not quite sure if she is into socializing, being antisocial is good for the wordcount. After all, you
have to feed your words to the machine, there are enough distractions anyways, stalking people
on facebook, instagram, twitter, diverse blogs is a fulltime job after all. Watching reruns of
Seinfeld takes up all of her time these days. Going to the gym and weighing oneself, another
meaningful occupation. She could listen in to the talk by the nyu prof about virtual reality but
apparently it is sold-out. Sold-out even though it is free, you had to rvsp in time. Author here is
cold, she is now in the art school library, typing away, typing away. She is kind of hungry, she
has a banana in her bag. An organic one, which means it was more expensive and it is shrivelly.
34 cents instead of twenty cents, and, well, the aforementioned state of shrivelry. She does not
really feel like having a banana here in the library, apparently food and beverages are not allowed
near the computers. Though there is no sign here. It is chilly cold, outside the rain is still coming

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down. The printer starts up growling, librarians are hissing, author here is listening in to her own
typing, a symphony in the making and the printer growls some more growls some more here.
Still no protagonists and no antagonists. She was supposed to write about a self-arranged art
residency, something like performing in art schools, giving out drawings, to passers-by, she has
ton formulate her modus operandi so very precise, vague artists suck, they stagnate, they do not
have a career. They have to become hapless writers who complain all day long. Ah well, ah well,
ah well. We have 2418 words, that sounds good enough, for now, 4 now here.
18.
the organic banana tasted disgusting, it is a dole banana, apparently dole sells its bad bananas at a
higher price point simply by sticking a dole organic label on the banana. Everything is in a name.
19.
it is pretty chilly in here. And we have to somehow make our way home. Through the rain, the
cold, the dark. Easier to just sit here and type this up. The library will close at five, so not that
much time for writing, for musing away. She could pass time by once more describing what is
happening here in this place, the woman in black walking by, the man with the blue baseball cap
staring at the monitor. The sounds of the library, its sights, its utter chilliness. The one thing that
is the main characteristic of this place is that they somehow try to freeze everybody to death,
geez, how can you read or write in this big igloo?
20.
a Sunday in the art school. She is not using the studio space as of yet, her art making is writing,
thus she ended up in the library at the computer. To pen her masterpiece. To reincarnate
tschechov. Who was a playwright. Shows how much you know about literature. Maybe that is
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good. An advantage. After all she is not a literature historian, not a connoisseur of other peoples
writings. She is a content provider, what ever that is. A formulator of words. Alas, an
unpublished one of sorts. Putting your stuff online does not count. Or does it? Besides, she could
self publish her words in bookform. Mark twain did it. You just have to be able to market ur
stuff, store ur inventory, be good with numbers. Be a superb businessperson. Ah, how tough can
that be? You sell something and take a percentage of that. Publishing, huh. Well, first u gotta
have some words to be published. At this point she has a mere 2000 or so words, she needs 100
000 more. Intelligent ones, not so intelligent ones. Apparently they should all be English words.
It helps to write a book in one language with the occasional foreignish word sprinkled in. But
writing something in two languages, only a Samuel Beckett can pull that off. She is not quite
sure if he even did that, she remembers something from high school lit, many moons ago.
Outside the weather is nicer. No storm, no rain. She now is sitting on the second floor in the
whole foods near the Y in Chinatown. A woman with orangeish curls at the other table. Nothing
special, nothing worth describing. She is wearing a green sweater. Still nothing special, nothing
out of the ordinary. Author is not very good at observing people, she is more interested in
watching her own fingers tap at all the buttons of the keyboard. There is a subject matter that will
bore yer to death. She should write about art, because that is what she intended to do when she
started this up. You have to stick to the theme, you cannot suddenly veer off the chosen path. Art
residencies, that was her theme. Doing an art residency in an art school. She had applied for a
residency at the New Museum, it started in September, well, September 28 to be exact. It was
three months long, well, technically four months, because it started at the end of September. She
did not get in, they did not want her. They wanted 15 others, who now will meet up once a week,
for two and a half hours each. You can start up your own residency, call it an art project instead

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of a residency. Maybe write a blog about it. Document it. But it will not really fly, if you just
plan it and never really do anything. Then it merely exists in the planning stage. That is what this
book is, an unfulfilled plan. Like a proposal for a building that never gets built. She saw a movie
about 4 or 5 architectural firms who worked on a proposal for an art museum in Andorra that in
the end was not built, because the government changed and the new government did not want to
build that particular museum. It was a very entertaining film, though. The person who made it
was an architect turned filmmaker and he teaches at Princeton. Lots of architects do that, they
write or make films, because it is so tough to secure a building commission. Kohlhaas wrote a
book, so did another starchitect whose name she does not remember at this time. There was a
time she knew whos who in architectureland, not any more, not anymore. A woman with a
purple toque walks in, struts by her loudly. We have 3219 words here, in November, on a Sunday,
she ponders, what else to do. She has to go home, she was at the gym, trying to get rid of the
mountains of Halloween candy that she consumed. Had consumed. It is funny, no real mountain
bulged off in her body, the body absorbs all that sugar and fat, and then makes it stick. But she
distinctly remembers all the Halloween candy, bunched up in a beige plastic shopping bag, it
sure had a lot of volume aND THAT WAS JUST LAST YEARS CANDY. She had that and then
she had this years candy to top. Suddenly there were 5 pounds more. On her bodyweight.
Though now she rigorously goes to the gym, she exercises at home, three pounds are off again.
She found this German website, you tube videos for your living room, they are very good and
rigorous without killing yer. Boot camp for lazies, she did it yesterday, now she can feel her
tummy muscles, yep, you can feel the muscles but it is not killing yer. Anyhoo, you still have
enough energy to feed all these words to this machine. She had a clifbar, for the first time in her
life. She ponders if she should write about that, is that really what potential readers want to read

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about? Regular stuff? A show about nothing, that only worked once. Ah, Seinfeld, Seinfeld.
Jason Alexander once said that Seinfeld aficionados are like trekkies and they really are. Author
here sure is one. Anyhoo, we have 3473 words here, time to be outta here and outta here. Time to
get a life, a life far away from the typing machine. Though, technically, it is November and
National Novel Writing Month, so chances are that a lot of words are written these days all over
this town and all over the world. In different languages to boot. 5 languages or so, at least that is
how author here remembers it. The main language though is English, mainly because this nano
thingie originated in Berkeley or some other place in the Bay Area. And we type here and type
here and type here and type here.
21.
she is in the library of the art school, not many people here, today it is much nicer in here, nonchilly like the last time she was in here.
22.
she walks by Strands, she does not feel like going in, she makes her way down to Union Square.
She loves New York, then again, who would not love New York? It is the quintessential city.
23.
She ponders what to write about, her story needs a story, not just one person wandering the
streets searching for words. A poet without a subject matter, a dramaturge without a play. A
filmmaker without a film, a flaneur. When the word flaneur became en vogue, in Haussmanns
times, nobody talked about flaneuses. How times have changed? Or have they. The more things
change the more they stay the same. So it seems so it seems so it seems here. Platitudes rock. On
this round rock twirling thru space, we mean earth, of course. Writing is not good enough if you
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feel the urge to explain your connotations. She needs a coffee a donut, Dunkin Donuts is as good
a place as any. Cronuts might come and go but donuts are forever. These are her insights and she
shares them freely with anybody who is willing to listen to her. 7786 words, make THAT 3786.
She is not good at reading the little number at the bottom of the page on the screen.
24.
So this is part of her book. She plants herself once more in front of the computer in the library in
the art school in Vancouver, she starts typing typing. It is balmy outside, so very novemberish.
She has to feed her words to this machine, because she wants to finish fifty thou at the end of this
month. That is the very bare minimum for a novel that is part of nanowrimo, that is why we are
here. It is November ten. We have 3000 or so, we still need so much more. 47 thousand to be
precise. Author here was downtown, in the gym, in the shopping mall, she is still wide awake,
still has enough energy to start this typingish sprint. A woman slurs by, to the printer, she has
short hair, a weird face expression, she is kind of dressed in olive, like a soldier that wants to
blend into the background, camouflage gear. Her face has the same expression you do not really
know what to make of that expression. Maybe it is the expression of an observer, a journalist,
somenbody who wants to blend into the background and write about what she sees. Without
having all the attention on herself. She squints, looks at the printer, tries to fathom what is going
on there, which button to press, she tries to decipher what is going on on the screen. Author here
ponders, this is her job now, to describe others, to describe the personas of the people that gather
in the art school library. Next to author, well, two seats next to her, there is a seat where nobody
is sitting, there is a woman sitting who is a different kind of creature, more the rich housewife
who has raised her family and is now up to a new adventure in her life. Lots of women look like
that, usually they are the ones who have not raised a family but who like to give out that aura of
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retired person, . anyhoo, somebody sneezes, now a woman in green sits next to author here. We
have 351 words for today, is that enough, nah, not if you want to make it to 50 000 come
December. A woman with a cute haircut, why is author describing all these people in the library.
There are more interesting things in this world than the going ons in this particular library. Which
is more a typing space than a library, all the books are on the shelves, but nobody really reads
them. The computers are the new books, you can surf the web, it is more entertaining than a
book. There are images, little movies, you do not get that from a text. Anyhoo, still typing ah
typing here.
25.
walking on 14th, near cupcakes by Melissa. Or cookies by Melissa, or baked by Melissa. Who is
this Melissa person anyways. And why does she bake? Why is it not called BAKED BY JOHN?
Are the johns of this planet worse cooks? Author ponders, her philosophical waxings are off. But
she can still walk this city, it will feed her writings. Her texts. Her as of yet unpublished texts.
Everything sucks. And now it is starting to rain, rain down on new york city.
26.
back in vancitay. Only in writing you can do that, describe differing locales and pretend that you
are there. It is weird, but who cares after all. It is artistic or it tries tp be. She sucks as an artiste.
27.
she will take the tube to central park. Sorry, the subway, at this point she should stick to two
locales, Vancouver and new york city.
28.

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she needs other persons in this story, male ones, maybe.


29.
writing is boring, utterly so.
30.
it is 10:17. Just saying.
31.
apparently, there is a transit-write-in, the participants will meet up in waterfront station on
Saturday at noon and then take the skytrain and do their writing on the moving train.
32.
she has next to 5000 words here. 45 000 words left to pen. In twenty days. Easy peasy.
33.
more coherence, less coherence.
34.
A so very rainy day in Vancouver. The art school library on a Monday. Her shoes are soaked but
not that soaked. She will be able to write her daily portion of words with slightly wettish toesies.
It is doable. Because at home she does not have Microsoft Word, she has Notebook and it is kind
of weird, because the first word of each sentence does not automatically capitalize as it does in
this software here in the art school. It is rainy outside, but nice in here. The person with the beard
who sold her the vanilla macaron at whole foods said have a great day, how can you possibly
have a great day when the skies are crying like this?. Such a crappy weather, you feel that
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something is wrong. Well, maybe her words will be exquisite without even trying. Maybe they
will all fall in place. Maybe she will pen a seminal text. She tries to remember she started this out
as a book about art residencies. Maybe she could call this her art residency. I walk through the
rain and then I end up in front of a computer and type whatever I feel like. The woman in plaid at
the end of the computer station is leafing thru a book, loudly. Author here can see it out of the
edge of her eyes. Somewhere still in her visual field. The computers here are all on a very long
table, many computers, and you hear everyone type something up. The woman once more leafs
thru the book, now she takes the book up and turns it around. The book is pretty massive. Some
woman is printing something out, the printer starts up its sing-songs. Somebody walks around
while talking to a person who is seated. Ah, the happenings in the library of the art school on a
rainy Monday in November. A woman takes off her coat. So much to see, so much to describe.
She is lagging behind in her novel for November, she has to come here more often and feed her
words to the machine.
ANOTHER PART
Author here is not quite sure at what number she is in the book. Which mini-chapter? She
looks outside, down on Union Square. Rain, huh. Rain in New York City. Not much to describe.
Rain is rain, wherever you are. Glistening streets, the reflections of the streetlights in the puddles
on the pavement. Her art career is going nowhere, welcome to New York. She ponders how
many pages can she fill up with whining about her lot. Is failure romantic? Does it go with the
melancholy of the weather outside? Maybe success will kill the spirit, choke the urge to be
creative. You write better when nobody will read this. You might try harder. Author ponders, for
her writing is hit and miss. Some days are just better than others. It is a craft, not an art. It is a
very mechanical, very physical process. You walk thru the rain and then you plant yourself in
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front of a typing machine and start typing. Capote might frown but who cares. Typing and
writing are cousins, first cousins. So there.
IN THE ARTSCHOOL AGAIN
IT IS UTTERLY RAINY OUTSIDE, HER SHOES ARE HALF SOAKED, WHICH
MEANS THAT THE front part is wet and it is totally visible because of the pink material, the
front part of the shoe is now a dark pink, whereas the back part is light, anyhoo, maybe that is
not what she should describe here, this book is a book about art or a book that is mainly written
inside of the library in the art school thus it will be by default informed by whatever passes as art
these days. Author has put an issue of VOLUME next to her wallet on the table that is supporting
the weight of the computer. The layout in this place is that there is a very long table and there are
different computers on the table kind of like the beads on a necklace, all in nice increments, the
ducks are in order, kind of like soldiers neatly arraigned and standing there ready to be fed with
words. Today is day 16 in November, the month when 50 000 long novels are written the world
over, author ponders, does it not sound nicer to say that the novels are penned. There is a
difference between a text that is merely written and a text that is penned, one is pedestrian,
utilitarian, one is artsy-fartsy, one wants to be immortal. Author ponders, she definitely pens
stuff, because it is all so wishy washy, thus it is poetic, artsy fartsy, wishy washy, ready to be
adored by millions. Ready to stand smack in the pantheon of world lit. Her words will be
glorified, critics will either rave or dis her words, that is how it is how it is. People next to her
talk in a language that author here does not understand, Japanese, maybe, Korean, maybe,
mandarin, Cantonese. Swahili it aint, Norwegian it aint. So many lingos and we chose to write
in English. Linga franqua, my

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Anyhoo, she is still shooting for a subject matter for this piece of writing, what exactly
constitutes a novel? How is it different from a dissertation? Well, hers is a novel dissertation, it is
five years, maybe six since she walked over the stage in Chan Hall and got her certificate that
certifies her status as an artist. Nobody knows what that means but, hey, it is a piece of paper.
And pieces of paper seem to be important, though you cannot really barter them for smaller
pieces of paper, the kinds with dollar signs on them. Anyhoo, we digress here. The word count
for today is at 429, she has to type so much more, she is way behind in her writing. By the end of
this month she has to have 50 000 words, she has 4000 already, wow, she is way behind, she
might have 5000 words in total by the end of the day, she will have to write 45 000 words in 15
days, 3000 per day if her math is correct. So that on November 30 she will have 50 000 words.
This is totally insane here, this whole contest just sucks. And outside, the rain is coming down
and coming down on this city.
TRYING TO REINVENT THE WHEEL - UNSUCCESSFULLY
Sitting in the studio space on the second floor in the north building of the art school,
listening in to people talking, trying to reinvent the wheel collage-wise which is basically a
failure as of yet. Some paper wasted, some tape, some ink from the magic marker that author
here found on the shelf. Studio space, huh, a shared one to boot. The conversations here are
pretty loud, all the persons talking are female, loud, this computer is so very strange and weird,
not like the one in the library where writing seems to come so much easier. The studio artists are
way too quiet which is eerie, you have a feel of uneasiness which does not really readily translate
into better artistic output, it kind of stifles her image making, her readiness to experiment with
the materials. Furthermore she uses what is available here in this room on the shelves, and room
271 does not really stock the materials that she needs, the stuff is so sparsely sourced, there are
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sporadic materials that she can use but not many. A catalogue for fall is lying next to her, she
could cut it up and glue it on the strange collage that she already started. Her tea is getting chilly,
she feels a cold coming on. She has 223 words. It is two oh one here, she feels sick to her
stomach. Negativity is stifling, whining will not drive the novel forward. It is hot in here, stuffy.
BACK IN THE LIBRARY
Outside, the rain is still coming down. Really hard. So, nothing left to do but typing up
some more words and waiting for the rain to halt. It is nice in here, cushy. Upstairs in the north
building she has her jacket and her art work and her food in her locker, some tv-dinner that is by
now thawed and hopefully not seeping all over the place. It is in a plastic bag, so hopefully all
the water will be contained. She should check it out but she really feels more like writing her
amazing masterpiece here. Her shitty novel. Yep, that one. The as of yet unpublished one. One of
many. Ah, failure sucks. We want to read to people and bow to the applause, we want to be
wined and dined. By kings and queens. By Nobel prize committees. By pritzker prize
committees. Giller prize ppl. Ah, any kind of award will do. Applause in itself is good enough
too. Publishing contracts are good, representation by an agent in nyc. Author here does not feel
like writing. She can see the HIMALAYA book from where she is sitting. Well actually the
vertical H and I and M. him and Himalayas if she tilts her head back. A woman at the printer,
in a thick headgear, all woolen, knitted, all Laplandic, arctic, wow, author here sure has problems
with describing stuff accurately. Too many episodes of FRIENDS will do that to you. And we
type and type and type and type here. 257 words, a chunk of 257, awaiting to be copied and
pasted into the main body of the most amazing novel of the year. No need to be modest.
Bragging rocks, just ask The Donald.
AND ONCE MORE IN THE LIBRARY
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She is waiting out the rain, it is still afternoonish, five and fifteen, though it is pitch-dark
outside. There will be an artist talk at six, so maybe that is worth waiting for. Until then she
might as well feed some more words to the machine. Because, you know, quantity rules. Let go
of quality. Today she talked to a published author who was apparently of the opinion that being
published is a stamp of approval which it is not. Just because somebody liked your text enough
to fork over a certain amount of money to have it published, that does not mean anything. You
might own a publishing house and publish your own words, distribute them, market them, the
whole shebang. Which is really what author here should do because it seems that nobody will
publish her words. There is self publishing and then there is self publishing. If I own a major
publishing house I can publish whatever I feel like. Ergo, we just have to acquire one of the big
five. How tough can that be?
And the rain is coming down and coming down on this city.
LIBRARY LIBRARY
It is definitely more fun to write in the library here. More fun than home. There is more to
see, more to hear. Hopefully not more to smell. The downside is the commute, especially if you
forgot your umbrella. These days she is only using public transport, she lives in a city, so this is
doable. Her tea is getting cold, her second mint tea today. The person behind the counter was of
the opinion that for some weird reason mint tea seemed to be everybodys favorite drink today,
maybe it just goes good with the weather. International peppermint tea day, let us declare it. And
we type here type here type here type here. 6467 words, yay and yay and yay and yay here.
Maybe we should not self publish this drivel, huh.
a day

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So the weather is nice and it is noonish. The author somehow found her way into the art
school library ready to feed some words to the machine. She has some frozen tv-dinner in her
bag but hey what is a tv dinner without a tv to watch. Frozen tv dinners need a telly, need some
crime movie, some who dunnit. You can not really have a tv dinner outside of its natural habitat.
These are her philosophical thoughts these days, very deep, very significant. This is the computer
so near to all the books, nice biggish books that are waiting on the shelves to be taken out. These
are the reference books, you can only take them out in here, leaf thru them and put them back.
Author here comes to this place and writes about inconsequential stuff, she has to fill up the
word count and she is way behind. 50 000 she needs in ten days, she merely has 5000 at this
time. Well, it is better than last year at this time when she had a mere 75 words. Anyhoo, typing
here and typing here.
55.e
- INDENT: nanowrimo was from last December, December of 2015. The other part was
from February 2016. Both parts were earler than the beginning of the book which was
finished may 20, near to it.55-f
73 831 words-10:41 PM. May 19, 2016.
55.e.
1.
So, maybe it is time to do this. To write on art. You do not write about art, you write on
art. It sounds better, as if you have to say something substantial. Something worth reading. Her

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writing sucks, but then everybodys writing sucks sometimes. She wants to write about artstars.
There is no real reason why she wants to do that, it just seems to be a marketable subject matter.
She is sitting once again in her old school, the place that buried her dreams. Five years
ago she got her degree but her art career is non-existent, even though she is a certified artist and
she has the document to prove it. A piece of paper, all official with the right kind of stamps on it.
Yep, this is to certify that so-and-so is an artist. They give those out each and every year, those
papers, 300 of them. Artskool, huh, not the same as med school. Nobody will hire you with those
kind of credentials. An artist with a degree, the same as a poet with a degree a musician with a
degree. Some things you cannot learn in a classroom. You have to learn by doing. Writing is like
that. You have to sit in front of some typing machine and feed your words to the machine.
Sometimes it works and sometimes it does not. Yup, that is how the cookie crumbles. She is
hungry, cookies would be nice, but she is on a strict diet, at least she should look like a starving
artist. All clad in black, with a pissed-off expression. Outside the weather is gloomy. The pope is
in nyc, the news is gloomy. On September 25, 2015. She will write two pages per day. About art
et. al.. Yup, why not, ah, why not? Better than watching Mike and Molly. Somebody will read
this. Yup, why not, ah, why not, why not? She fills up the page with repetitions. She feels sick.
Someone coughs and the librarians talk, loudly.
(338 words)
2.
Maybe storylines are useful. This is the theme that she wants to discuss today. It is a
random sentence that popped into her head while she was on the bus bumping over the Granville
bridge. Seems as good a title as any. For a short essay or a long essay. For a movie. For a

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dissertation. Maybe storylines are useful. Sounds profound. It has a nominative and a verb. A full
sentence. The MAYBE reflects the uncertainty of our times. Or at least the uncertainty of that
strange statement. One could use the word narrative instead of storyline but that sounds too
much like insider-talk. Only appealing to film students. We want to reach the whole world here.
She is once more sitting in the art school library. A woman in curls is using the printer. A
woman in purple walks by. People whisper. Yup, maybe storylines are useful, maybe they are
not. Who cares. She is hungry, she always is. Her grammar is off, her SHE does refer to the
writer of these lines and not to the woman in purple who walks by. Simple grammatical glitches.
You have to write logical stuffi-muffi. Or else. Nobody will publish this. If it is bad. Or if it is
good. Publishers are tres picky these days. You can always self-publish. But, hey, what about
distribution? Ah, her writing sucks. A woman in brown walks by, forcefully. Author here ponders
if she should catch the six-thirty movie in the theatre downtown, the one near STADIUM station.
Six-thirty, kind of an annoying time for a movie. Not yet night and not night enough. Somehow
outta whack. Just like her sentences here. Ah, her writing is so very off. She feels sick to her
stomach, like barfing, puking, the like and the like here. Time to wrap this up, time to have tea.
There is this place off the island that has all kinds of overpriced designer teas. The person behind
the counter is very nice though. But is it worth the extra price? The tea has ginger in it, they have
one with vanilla too. Hmm, choices, choices. First world probs, a weird term, as if ppl. only
drink tea in the first world. What the fuck is a first world anyways? Author here has to stop
hanging out with hipsters, you cannot be a writer if you dabble in hipster slang. Anyhoo. Time to
stop, time to stop. Storylines, huh. We veered away from that theme, so, the verdict is clear.
Storylines are either useful or they are not. That is as good a statement as any.
And the word count stands at 771 here.
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3.
some more words. That is the title of this chapter. Author here is not very good at
ordering her thoughts into nice little bits, it is always nice, so nice, if a piece of writing has this
sweet deceptive look of orderliness. Because if the words are neatly ordered into chapters then
the line of thought must be logical too. Her thoughts are anything but, confusion rules. Her
thoughts meander a tad too much. And stream of consciousness, yup, that is so last century,
everything worth doing has been done before. Her writing sucks and self-doubt rules.
4.
887 words so far.
5.
creativity is 4 da birds. Or creativiti is for the birds. She ponders how to play with the
orthography in order to make the sentence hip. Outside the weather is grey. In here it is pretty
cosy. An octoberday in the art skool library. At the computer with the stalling keyboard. A bird
flies by. Now a bunch of birds. She is a listless writer, bored to death by her own words. There is
no fun in writing. It is a hapless undertaking, a step to nowhere. Words that do not go with each
other, words that hardly make sense. That merely scratch the surface of reality, words that have
nothing to do with reality. In another life she was saddling towards artstardom, well, those days
are long gone. Lost glory, those days when she was a quasi-rembrandt. This school wants to
make people who write out of people who draw. Maybe all educational institutions are like that,
they want to mold the student like a hump of clay. You can sing, nah, you should learn how to
add, long division is where its at. She really should write an op-ed piece for the times. She stole
this sentence from Seinfeld. Too much telly does that to yer. It only makes sense in a city where
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the local rag is the times, thus either nyc or London. Anyhoo, she might make it in time to the
movie on Ingrid Bergman, the one in the playhouse at one fifteen. But first her writing, first you
have be a content provider before consuming content. The ocean factory is as always, there is
nothing left to describe. Her right shoulder is acting up, that happens if you crack your humerus
while walking. Anyhoo, we have 1178 words here, the beginning of a masterpiece. One that will
be discussed in school like moby dick. One that will make it into the pantheon. Yuyp, that one,
world lit et. al. schoolkids in Mogadishu and Reykjavik will cite her words, long long after she
has left this world. Kind of a weird and strange ambition, maybe cooking a good dinner is better,
instant gratification, instant applause. Who needs the delayed gratification that writing supplies.
Then again, even cooking renders delayed gratification, nobody cheers while you are boiling
water. Anyhoo, time to wrap this up, time to wrap this up here.
6.
Yes, so maybe writing some stuff is good. If you do it every day, you have a book after
some time. If you produce two pages per day, for 100 days, then, voila, you have a book of two
hundred pages. And then you can hunt for a publisher. Or just self publish. Then you have to
distribute it yourself. Or maybe give your books out for free at the street corner, somewhere on a
street corner in downtown. There is always enough pedestrian traffic, give out your words for
free. Share them with this world. She is annoyed, something sticky was on this keyboard here in
the art school, the one in the last row in the library. Yuck, people are animals, they have to have
their Danishes at the keyboard, yuck and yuck. There is a book about the Himalayas, on a shelf,
she can see it hovering in the distance, above her screen. Well, not literally above, when she tilts
her head, she can deduce the letters H I M A L A Y A S, in black on white, very bold, on the back
of a thick book. It must be an exhibition catalogue, all the exhibition catalogues are gathering
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together on that particular shelf. Ah, the art school, the place where her dreams of becoming a
visual artist died. So now she writes, every now and then, a dissertation, a journal, a grocery list,
it is all the same all the same. And we will all die eventually. Negativity rules in this place, her
shoulder is acting up, she bought a pedometer, 4475 steps since dusk, ah well ah well, librarians
laugh, two women whisper in the back. And stop and spell check spell check here.
201 words so far today.
7.
once more in the art school library. Another day, still another day. There are places she
could be, events that she could follow. But somehow she is drawn to this computer, drawn to
write and write. Well, more writing than typing. Capote would characterize her workings as
typing, but then again he is dead. Critics from another time do not count. We are writing in the
here and now. In the era of selfies. Everybod is a star. Everybod is a Kardashian. The era of
omnikardashianism. Author here is pooped, she always is. She was @ the gym, @ the mall, had a
tea @ nordstroms. Ah, a boring life. And now we create content, boring content.
Contentprovider. What does that even mean? It means, apparently, that you either dribble some
words onto a page or that you shoot some pics with ur phone. And, voila, you are a
contentprovider. You either produce content or you consume content. Sometimes you do both
simultaneously. You listen to music while you type an essay. You eat your muffin while you pen
a dissertation. Yup, something like that, something of that kind, writers tend to have hunched
backs, she should really check her posture. While typing. Some people stand while they type.
Well, she does not type that much, a mere 2 pages per day. Ah, the days of a writer. She will now
go to the writers fest, some brouhaha that is happening till October 25 right here on the island.
Granville Island to be precise and it is not really an island. Or maybe it is. Anyhoo, we have near
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to 2000 words here, in Vancouver, British Columbia. Spellcheck spell check spellcheck, save,
save, save. Push the buttons on the typing machine, this bloody keyboard.
8.
she will not go to the writers fest. Mainly, because it is too expensive. Seventeen bucks a
pop. You can see a movie with that, for much less, especially with the senior discount. Seventeen
bucks to listen to someone talk about her writing. Nah, there are cheaper things to do with that
kind of money, stuff that is much more entertaining. A poetry reading for that steep a price,
outrageous. The library is happening sleepily. All the art students checking their e-mails. Author
here is falling asleep. Her pedometer reads 4672, her weight is 167.8. all these numbers that
measure her well-being. Well, aspite from the numbers, she feels pretty lousy. And there is no
word ASPITE, she just makes up words left and right and center. Neologisms rule, apparently,
apparently.
9.
For some weird reason this computer has a mind of its own. Seems each and every one of
these machines marches to its own drummer. It is three and a half in the art school library on a
Friday which means that this place will close at five. Gotta feed your words to the machine very
hastily. Author here went to this event in the waterfront theatre next to the kids market at the
entrance of the island, she got a senior discount. The woman at the entrance volunteered to give
her a discount, how nice, those strands of grey really pay off. Literally. Fifteen bucks instead of
seventeen. Are you by any chance insulted by the suggestion that you are a senior, nope, not
bloody likely. Gimme all the discounts youve got, I did not gather all of these lines in my face
for nothing. Anyhoo, the event was really great, it was called page and stage and apparently it

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was about plays that turn into novels and/or vice versa. Though in the end, each of the four
panelists and the MC and the people who asked questions seemed to talk about something
completely different. Which might as well. It was all just interesting, initially author here wanted
to use this to write about an aspiring writer who wants to have her stuff turned into a play. Maybe
she lives in a walk-up in Brooklyn and tries to make it in the big city. Author ponders if the term
WALKUP is right when used in the context of Brooklyn. Who knows? Anyhoo, while watching
the panel discussion and the various readings by the various authors, she just delved into
daydreaming and watching the interior of the Waterfront. Her seat was at the very top of the
auditorium, maybe even swindle-inducingly so. After it was all over, there were book signings,
you could purchase a book and have it signed by the author. The writer of these pages chose to
simply pick up a button that said Vancouver Writers Fest. That should suffice for today. And we
have more words here, though weirdly enough she cannot really make out her word count on this
interface, oh, there it is, 2373, yay, yay. First she thought it said 1373, but when she looked more
closely, she noticed that it said 2373. Time to have champagne, pop the corks, the way to yet
another masterpiece that nobody will publish is cleared. And we type on and type on and type on
and type on here. On October twenty-three, in Vancouver, Canada.
10.
Indent-there was more of this but it is in a pdf and it was before November 1, 2015 and
called dissertation or artstar.
88.
76 298 words. Next to eleven. Next to may 20. 2016.
89.
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(quantum 7)
IN THE MIDST
In the midst of a writerly colony. Well, it is merely her living room, but it somehow
morphed into a designated writers colony. There is a carton of Timbits on the coffee table, an
empty one though you would not know if it is filled with little donut holes or not, it is quite intact
except for the light diagonally intent on the left top, one can see the tim hortons log in
handwritten script across the top, one can see the images of different donut balls on the outside
of the box, in all kind of colors, variations of beige and ocher, chocolate in a subdued tone, and
white as in powdery dusted, jelly oozing in red, in raspberry red, darker in small spots. Timbits is
written diagonally on one side. Anyhoo, this is what writers do, they describe stuff and in this
case it is a box of donut holes on a brown table. Author listened in to the car radio on her way
back home from the Y, they talked a lot about having had ice cream from a creamery, berry
bourbon pint that was pinted in the creamery, they had it for breakfast. The whole talk made you
want to go out and buy ice cream and dig in, author here did a bee-turn into the parking lot of the
market but looking out at the very thin woman bobbing out of aan SUV towards the market made
her stop, you cannot really resist ice cream once it is in the house, let it stay in the freezer section
at the market where it belongs, where it should be stored, not in your personal fridge, no one can
resist the temptation so let them stor it for future use, for others, for the communal use of all the
people who live in the neighborhood. Author here needs to lose weight, or at the very least stay
the way she is by now, her knees will thank her thank her. Well, not literally though.
Anyhoo, typing, typing here. Against the mushy weather outside, the slight raindrops that
are in the foggy air, the month of May that smells just like February does. The right world for a
writer, reminiscent of geysers or what Iceland would feel like, the freshness of cooler weathers,
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cooler places, where words can flow from the feather ah so easily so easily. Her writing is
slightly onto the bullshitty side, she is patching passages together, kind of like a visual collage.
She copied and pasted stuff that she wrote beforehand into her current text which might or might
not fly, she will revise it all eventually in one big whoosh. Print it out, let the sheets of paper fly
all over her place, make notes on it, somehow stitch it all together. It is all writing about writing,
the subject matter is the fight against the language, the stitching together of words, quite
viscerally quite viscerally. The putting of little units together like bricks out of a Lego box,
constructing a new and cohesive unit that will hold still until you destroy it again which is what
is done when reading it, when disseminating it. Her bits and pieces from nanowrimo in
November of 2015, her stabs at writing in the months leading up to nanowrimo. Her writings in
February of 2016, while taking the American lit class at the community college, before her
tackling of roger and the stroopwafel. There is no plot ah there is no plot, the battle cry that
permeates the whole text. Yup, that has to hold its place as subject matter here, as subject matter
here.
She was in the grad show of the art skool, there was this one movie in time-lapses, it
showed parts of the art school, the north building, the south building, the walk-thru of this place
where art is happening, where studios lie that are the locales of artwork to be produced,
constructed. An affirmation of the journey to the creation of unities, units of smaller elements,
patched together, formed. This is how author here sees her text, she scours the world in order to
reach her words in her text, the goal being a certain wordcount to cement her place in time. It is
nine oh one in the morning in May in Vancouver, this text here is 7129 words long and she will
save it, copy it and later on patch it into the bigger, the longer text here. But for now, stop this
ssnd stop this, stop this madness of feverishly tapping away at this very keyboard. Oin this so
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very enclosed room with the telly that does not work at this time, and the remnances of a timbit
box purchased the night before, the one that is hovering on the low brown table in the corner.
Writing should be about describing bigger issues not the immediate surroundings of the writer, it
should be like that but it is hard to accomplish. So until then this kind of writing has to suffice.
Author here will go out into the world, to the Y in downtown, the one on Burrard, the one where
everybody looks like a movie star, unobtrusively, in quiet youth, in quiet bloom, in silent beauty.
Outside there are red flowers in full bloom all over mushes of green.
909.
77 207 words. May 20, 2016. Vancouver, bc. 9:14 PM. 12 or 13 degrees Celsius, maybe
15 but not quite.
Spellcheck and spell check and spellcheck, then save this here.
909.a.
Before some writing it might be better to get out of the room with the telly. Just for a
change of environment. For a walk by the aisles in the local market. For a walk by houses that
are waiting for the night. By the ideal oversized buiding site on 35th. The fresh air will make you
into a better writer, automatically, sheer automatically.
73.c.
Author here has a novel sway of fashioning an idea. She scours the yelp-entries from
coffee shops and ice cream stands the world over, it is a gastronomic journey and you get the feel
of that coffee shop in downtown Hamburg where the nanowrimo crew meets once per month at
six on a Thursday eve. You cannot be there but you can be there in spirit. There is no plot in this

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her text but maybe that is good the way it is. Her words accumulate nonetheless, let movies have
plots, this her story is a nonstory just like life itself. Why should she be forced to constantly
apologize for the lack of story, her text just meanders along, meanders forward just like a
neverending road to some place that will just surprise you, some places on the way, some coffee
houses that never ever seem to close. Mainly because they are all fictional or some fictional
version of the real thing. The coffee house on arbutus will close up, it is after all seven and fortythree on a Friday nite, they are taking the pastries out of the display case and put them into the
fridge in the back. Yup, it became suddenly Friday, the telly is still singing its songs just as it is
doing all day long. We are typing here, forming words automatically here.
SEVEN-NINE
On the telly, Charlie rose. Authore here ponders, if this is what Charlie does all day. First
thing in the morning, he practices sitting and holding himself in his signature slightly hunched0ver listening position?
53.n.
77 571 words. 7:53 PM. May 20, 2016. 17 degrees Celsius outside.
53.f.
Going backwards in the numberings of this text.
54.
Serious writing means serious drinking. Means male drinking. Not the effeminate kind
you do over a dainty cup of tea. And if it is coffee, it has to be a cuppa joe. Anything that smacks
of blue-collar work, mainly because writing is as masculine an endeavor as embroidery is. As
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knitting lace is. As weaving is. So you have to assert yourself as a male even if you happen to be
female. Your words cannot smack of being worried about picking kids up in time, about the PTA.
You are not supposed to hang out in malls if you have something grave to say. Your words have
to smack of insight, philosophical or otherwise. You cannot write about your gallbladder
operation. In short, you have to accommodate the stereo type not defy it. Whatever the fuckin,
stereotype is. Whatever your target audience is. If you are a woman and you want to sell your
words you have to write soft porn for the soccer mom crowd. The suburban one that sports
SUVs. apparently they have to consume harlequin novels and watch the bold and the beautiful.
If their tastes differ then there is something wrog and they have to consume anti-depressants.
Pfizer depends on it. Anyhoo, writing here typing here. It is a not so sunny Saturday afternoon in
may, author was @ the gym, she had food, she was at the bookstore in the mall, she vowed to
live clean in oder to become lean, salad, sushi, peach-chamomile tea. In the evening one of those
frozen entrees, roasted vegetable lasagna from superstore in Burnaby. She is hungry and could
eat a horse, but she has to will herself thru this life of hunger. Apparently she will then become
healthier. Less fat polstering around the belly is apparently healthier than more polstering. Lean
and mean. Apparently all the girls have to look like boys. No upholsterings around your waste.
You are not a sofa cushion. Author is no doctor and she is not quite sure if dieting is good 4 yer.
Semistarvaation or in her case here real starvation. Sushi and salad do not cut it. Her tummy is
growling. She will lose her hair, she always does when she restricts her calorie intake. Besides
she looks haggard aand wrinkly when she gets this and her hair goes grey. Doctors do not know
anything. The medical profession is just a business. Even thor in Seinfeld said so. Listen to thor.
In chapters she took out two books to peruse, that and one of those glasses that they have
there. On book was about favourite watering holes for writers, the other one was called beatle
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bone. 64 favourite watering holes. Bars for serious writers. Because only serious liquor goews
with serious writing. If you are a teetotaler you cannot write. Or can you? Ms. Dickinson could
pen poetry sans boozing. And author hre hs 78 075 words already, all penned since last
September. 78 thou in lesss than a year. And hardly any booze. No signicficant booze intake that
is. Som sils every now nd then, but that is about it. Nothing to tell the kids about. Some dainty
vine a la elegant lady. Not that she is elegant, elegance does not live here anymore. And the
fridge is starting up its somngs, its neverending songs here. No plot as of yet, we could once
more write about roger and the stroopwafel. At least mention him. He somehow is the red thread
that binds her words together somehow, runs thru the whole book, stitches the passages together
into one cohesive unit. roger, yep, and the stroopwafel. there are plots more nonsensical than
this, who has ever met a guy named darth vader after all? If he has a place on bookshelves that so
does roger and his stroopwafel.
Author sat for a long time in the coffee place in the bookshop in the mall, having a peach
chamomile tea and watching people. She did not look at her phone, she does not even have a
functioning phone. Her phoneless existence in 2016. An anomaly. Shmeh, there are things worse
than that. 78 282 words, at 2:04 PM, on May 21, 2016, in Vancouver Canada. It is 18 degrees
Celsius, maybe 14. Who knows who knows, who knows. The coffee house down on arbutus haad
a parking lot that was spilling over, author jere had to come home and sit next to the fridge, her
work that springs from the edge of the kitchen table, reluctantly reluctantly. Kitchen table prose.
Now let us get one thing straight, are those booze houlnds in their watering holes while writing
or after their days work is done? Questions, ah questions and no answers whatsoever.
73.
Maybe she will reach 80 000 by the end of this day.
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76.
She is now sitting in the offee place on arbutus, having an Americano and a stroop wafwel or as
they call it here, Amsterdam style wafel, gaufrette style Amsterdam. It is the honey and oats kind,
miel & avoine. It has 130 calories and is made in Mississauga, Ontario. Read into that what you
want. A durtch waffle made on the eastcoast of north America and then shipped to the west coast.
Uthor ponders what to write about this while trying to type whith the fingers that are not all
gooey because of the sticky filling inside of the waffle. She could go and wash her hands but the
washroom in this place was yucky which is not how this place usually is. Everything is going to
the dogs, everything is deteriorating, everything is in a state of decline. Except for her
wwordcount here, that ascends. The longer she is on this planet, the more words she will
accumulate. So what if nobody publishes it? Who needs to be published? She just writes for the
fun of it, it is the journey that counts. Apparently, how else can you take failure as an artist, you
just have to become philosophical, nonmelodranmatic. You have to sit in coffee houses on a
Saturday afternoon and wonder why there is a united rental sign on the other side of the street,
one that was not there beforeunited rentals-s-65-whatever that means. What is rented?
Apparently it is some blue car that is rented, one of those trucks that shovel stuff around. There is
a name for that snd she the writer does not know the name here. A bus is waiting at the
busstation, there are too many cars on the street. Too hectic for the weekend. She cannot use the
wifi in here, she can just type up her amazingish novel. No, not -ish, it is amazing. The problem
is that everybody is typing up an amazing novel these days. Nanowrimo has 222 000 winners
worldwide, each and every year. Obviously, not all of them will be published. With so many
writers, publishesrs can be as chosy as they feel like. Whih will make author here finish her days
in unpublishedland and maybe that is good. She will not be able to fend off bad critiques, bad
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reviews in the village voice. Apparently steven king had bad reviews, he still sold a lot of books
and nobody knows what the village voice is. Was it not founded by norman mailer? Author here
does not really know much about the literary scene of, well, anywhere. Her schooling was in
german, so, yup, she knows atad about the german lit scene, but her knowledge is totally dated.
She finished hi-skool in 1974, so that is when her lit sceneknowledge was up to date, wow, eons
of years in the past. Anyhoo, typing and typing and typing here. 78 876 words, 4 now nd 4 now
and 4 now and 4 now here. A morgan furniture inc. truck on the other side of the street, making
its way down south.
92.
A man on a blue motorcycle or maybe it was a woman. You cannot really figure out what the
gender is what with glasses and helmet. The baristas make the noise with the coffee, the beans,
the shoveling of the beans, some singer sings her or his songs. The voice is equally unisex as is
the motor cyclist. Cars go up arbutus and down arbutus, blue ones, red ones. A man is jogging
by, in a too white t-shirt, too long t-shirt and too blue shorts. There is a right tone of blue and a
right tone of white, a right length for t-shirts. Author ere is losing it, slightly, slightly. A too big
bee is flying by. And the singer whines her or his songs on the over head. The chevron statio
outside is happening, happening here.
97.
The greenery is moving in the wind, author ponders if anybody will ever read this. If she has to
wrewrite and rewrite. And if rewriting will make this text better or worse. She should tale writing
lessons but she is not good with critiquing. Cannot handle it. Lauding is equally poisonous.
Either way, she will not be able to fend for her words. You cannot defend the words which wyou

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wrote and which seemed to be right at the time of writing. All the dediting in the world cannot
help. Readers will always misconstrue what you wrote. And it does not help that English is not
her first language. She was ten when she learned it. Was frau kruses best student, well, until
monika bischoff went to England and came back and suddenly dethroned author here as rge
English language-whiz. In frau kruses English class in 5b.
Anyhoo, typing here, still typing. Sans plot still, sans plot. A man with a beard and a woman with
a pink Mohawk. Come out of a grey pick-up. Why does everybody look so stereotypical? Once
they get into adulthood. Only middle school and high school kids look all alike, a back pack,
some kind of t-shirt and you are done. Nd still typing here still typing here.
75.b.
Apparently it is not a bee, it is a fly, but boy is it humungous. The whining on the overhead, a
black miniminer outside. A man with a blue and white design on his t-shirt, in a black baseball
hat. The coffee tastes great, Americano is the nes pike place for her. And still typing here still
typing typing. She could go down to the island, the problem is tht there is never parking on
Saturdays. The grad exhibit will be on for one more day, author here migt still catch it catch it.
Though one could argue that she has seen it before, you do not really see it again. It is not the
moma, it is just a grad show by fiuture artists. Who will be just like her in seven years from now,
write books that nobody wants to publish. That will rot in the attic only to be discovered after the
artists demise. Apparentlty that is how the art word works, ah , workd s here.
A woman looks into her phone, a woman in orange with astroller. 79 445 words here. May 21,
2016. Apparently, once this does not have wifi connection, the automatic date does not work. Or
does it? Nother bus, a nother bus. A man in red and sunglasses looks at her, judgemental,

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apparently he does not approve of writing in restaurants. It was frowned upon about twenty or
thirty years ago, but nowadays all the cook kids are doing it, writing in coffeeshops, restaurants
the like the like. Another bus, another bus. Roll over, mr. marvel or whoever that was who
disapproved of writing in restaurants, positing that writing is not a performance art. It is so much
easier to write in a coffee shop, you do not even have to look for inspiration, it is just there.
Whoever said that you have to go to a writers retreat in nature, if you sit is a hectic coffeeshop,
the words come to yer automatically, the hecticness of the urban world translates into good
writing. Or at least adequate writing. Good nuf writing here and that ia s all we are shooting for
here. Cars coming cars going, bege, black, up arbutus and up arbutus here. The starbucks sign
hanging over the window, majestic, intimidating. A red car outside within all the grey and blue
ones. The one red one, the one shiny white one. A woman in leggings, her shiny puse hanging
over her arm. Sunglasses. A man in a walker.
9-5
It is late. 1:05 AM. Not when mere mortals are alive. Not when sane minds should write. You
need an air of normalcy around you once you put pen to paper. The words will slide so much
better. So much easier. On the telly, almost live. Or some other show. Apparently it is called
UPLATE. It is an old show. Even later than Saturday night live. She turns up the volume. UP
LATE NW- it is an old show. One of the actors is from ALMOST LIVE. A Sunday morning and
we are working on the master piece here. She has written better, about ten years ago. Her writing
deteriorated. You have to be at it every single day. Or else. It is like playing the harp. Use it or
lose it. Something like that something of that kind here. Her writing is compromised because of
this silly quest for a plot. You have to write something that fits neatly into a genre. That can be
summarized astutely in ahort blurb in the bookjacket. One of those new-fangled bookjackets that
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are part of the cover, that kinf=d of flip out. Pop-up blurbs. She has 79 878 words on May 22,
2016. At 1:15 PM. It is getting hot even here in the telly room. Summer around the corner. The
queezy uneasiness of too much heat. She feels nayseated. Not good not good here. 100 words
and she will have reached 80 000. 100 words on anything. Writers, the writing life, watering
holes. She read the articles on this site called catapult, all about different aspects of the life of a
writer. If you overthink it you are automatically paralyzed, you cannot overanalyze writing, you
just type stuff and enjoy the process. It is like a sport, you just play ball for the fun of it. The
motioning ofe the fingers over the keyboard, that should be enough. Who really needs the
applause, the laurels, the nobel prize and the thank you speech in oslo make that Stockholm. And
on that note, we have 80 000 and it is outta here and outta here.
77.c.
2:42 in the morning. An infomercial about a pan where everything slides off. `it is amazing, so a
female voice states. No sticking no scratches. Look. Oh well, why not. Amazing.
3.
The most important relationship in his working life is the relation between rasmus and his
publisher. Not his editor, not his transcriptionist, not the copy-guy. Everything depends about the
chemistry with the publishing house. And it is not really the publishing house it is the publisher.
You do not have a relationship with a house, with an entity it is all about what the one person in
the publishing place thinks and what the writer, rasmus, thinks. It is a contract and if it is good it
is very good, and when it is bad, it is very bad. More goes into writing than finding the right
words. The artistic element is secondary. Rsmus has done this little home biz for the last 45
years. He sometimes reads, but not much. Participates in conferences but not much. He goes for

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long walks. Thinks about his shitty books. The ones that always sell well. His name is a brand
moreso than anything.
4.
She is a fatty. She will be athinny. Somewhere in the future. She will write abook about her
weightloss, about her struggle against the wish to raid the fridge. A classic tale of withstanding
temptation. About being stoic, ascetic. It is not about moving limbs, motioning thru the
neighbourhood, stomping, your legs against the asphalt in short repetiotoions that are too fast, in
increments that make you breathe uneasy. Jogging, huh. What a boring endeavor, running when
there is nothing left to run about. Run to, run away from. She is a fatty she will be athinny.
5.
She is sitting in the room with the telly. Cnn on a Sunday morn. The egyptair disaster. The words
on the page are mushing together. All the tales pf fictional writers with various amounts of
experience, various amounts of success. The ones that congregate in bars and tell the graduate of
the nyu creating writing program about it. Tales of writers. You can follow them on you tube.
The persona of the writer. The writer as artist. The romanticizing of the person who talks way too
much for his own good. The person who is borderline articulate.
7.
80 430 words. May22, 2016. 12:51 PM. On the west coast of north America.
7.d.
The words against the machine in front of her. While the telly is singing, while the fridge is
singing. While upstairs the dryer is singing. A place filled to the brim with singing machines.
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Iron made into steel into apppliances. She will jump into the little room on wheels and go down
to the market. Her domestic existaence that is so similar to all the ons of existances ovee here.
And her words against the machine. The narrative that does not stick that is all over the place that
still wants to describe a character called roger. And do not forget the stroopwafel. Storytelling
reluctantly. All the words that are not in sync, the symphony that jars horribly here. Songs out of
suburbia and not out of brroklyn. This is not the space where you can start a career as a writer.
Writers should be young white and sport a beard, better yet stubbles. The words are unimportant,
the persona of the writer are paramount. They have to be believable. There is more to be listened
to if you are younger here. You either have to be under thirty or you have to be dead. Thses seem
to be the rules, the regulations for the publishing world. She will muse about these nonsensical
statements while taking the bus down to the art skool. It is the last day in the grad exhibition and
sghe likes it there.
Five-seven.
A morning in Vancouver. Author here is so very wide awake since four in the morn. Her
circadian ruythm is shot. She watched columbo and the odd couple, then fell asllep on the couch.
A tad in the real bed and then wide awakeness. She came down to the room with the telly, did a lt
of research on this lil coffee house in downtown, the chocolate store that serves hot chocolste
with lavender colored cream on it. Purple whipped cream. And after that author put on her
walking gear and went out in the fresh morning air. Sips of air. Starbucks, downtown, the gym.
She fell on the steps of the skytrain, apparently you get disoriented if you are up at the whee
hours of the day. But she did not break anything except for her nail. And she has some scratches,
a bloody knee, but nothing serious. Just some scratches. She then walked some more, took 2
buses, she had a tea and still another tea. This should hold her thru because she has to obsess
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about her weight so that she can get down to 160 lbs. from her 190, the weight she is sporting
right now. She looks like a butterball, and it is not that elegant if all you wear is t-shirts and
leggings. You cannot sport the figure of a butterball and wear soccermom leggings. Lady of
leisure leggings that are airtight, yoga, lululemon, tightest of the tight. You have to have a midriff
abdomen, apparently apparently. Or you have to go out and do some serious shopping, loose
clothes galore. Actually, her real goal is 125 lbs but then she will have too much of a funny neck,
one that is all pleats, one where the loose skin hangs around the bone and swerves in the breeze.
Anyhoo, typing here and typing here. Her amazing book, her great insert whichever region of
this planet you feel like -novel. Her novel that lacks a plot. A good enuf plot. A narrative on
mystery or suspense. Love, longing. Where stuff happens, unforeseen stuff. People hanging from
cliffs, literally. Her writing just sucks. Nobody will publish this. Not even small presses. Not
even large presses. Up-and-coming presses. University presses. Niche presses. Presses in new
Zealand. Anyhoo, typing here and typing here. It is all about the journey, and dont you forget it
here. The journey the journey the journey.
10:09 AM. May 23, 2016. A yucky day, grey and grey. Mildew. In the city that sometimes sleeps.
More like always. And we type nd type and type here. Ahhhhrggghhhh.
7-7.
Microsoft office tells her that she can ho straight to where she left off 3 hours ago. Well, if
writing is this easy everyone and their dog writes a novel. Which means that there is an
oversupply at very very well-written novels. Which means that editors sure can pick what they
will publish. If there are so many overqualified entrants for a position but the positions stay the
same, the number of open positions, than we are in trouble. Besides, there are less readers,
people like to watch something on a screen much more than opening up a good book. Autor
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ponders, is she right with her assessment or is she wrong? When gissing wrote new grub street he
basically made the same assertion that the world of publishing is in trouble. Fastforward one
hundred years or so, everyone is a naysayer just as it was a hundred years ago. Print is dead, print
is dead. But it obviously is not, go to chapters and peruse all the new novels that came out in
2016. Books are bublished that is for sure. Not the book that yours truly here writes, at least not
her last ten or twelve ones. Her first one was her best one anyways, by far, but everybody
rejected it. Well, except for the guy ayt mit who requested a full manuscript only to reject it once
it reached Cambridge massachussetts. Author was actually in nyc and she made the trip down to
boston to see the place and there it was the university press on a third floor in an unassuming
buiding. Behind the door were some unopened packages, manuscripts by other hopefuls. The
door opened and a very young lanky guy with a very tired exhausted experession came out, he
had a beard and a blue white plaid shirt, he looked like somebody who was not exited about
reading maniscripts for the university press of the massachussetts ubstitute of technology,
apparently that job sound more glamoruous than it really is, escpecially when you are at the
bottom of the food chain. Some jonbs are even fun at the bottome of the foodchain, dish washer
and publishing house intern are not one of them, and still typing here still typing here.
Nine-seven.
81 491 words. 2:13 PM. May 23, 2016. Vancouver, british Columbia. A misty day when nothing
exiting is happening here. Only the silly songs of the telly. The overture of laughtracks. The
boredom of domesticity. The dryer that should be filled because the wash is over. That kind of
stuff, ah, that kind of stuff here.
Five-three.

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Ode to a coffee house. Now there is a title. Especially because there is this sudden influx into the
coffee house, it never ever is like this, when the clock strikes ten on a Monday morning, this is
what happens. Well, technically it is a Tuesday morn, but it is the first workday of the work week
after the long weekend, so it is a quasi-Monday even though it is a Tuesday. A Monday-stand-in.
the influx is tremendous, police men, persons in matching T-shirts , one with a clip-board, no
students yet because they come in at noon. Suddenly the coffee house is swamped, an
unpenetratable line. A man in a grey suit with a slightly amused grin, holding a recyclable coffee
mug in his hand, all of the bottles neatly arranged behind the counter. It is a coffee house but it
has the air of a bar, a watering hole. It has its regulars, author has seen these faces lots of times.
They come here often. You can sings songs about this place, the coffee house on arbutus. Tomes.
All worth reading. So much to describe. Different seating arrangements that always change. The
coff map on the wall. The one that reminds her of the coffee house she frequented in Austin,
texas. Has it been a year already? Whwn she was in Tulum, there was no starbucks. There are
hardly any places where there are none. Where will you have your half-de-caf soy latte? How
can you subside without those? Is it even possible? She has a wrap, for later, for lunch.
Something with zest beans in it, black zesty beans, zesty is shorthand for not too spicy, for
bearable spicyness. She could sstay here, she sits across from a too young man in too muchlanjkiness, in a too blue suit that has to be worn sans a tie, a kid out of high school that has
entered the work-world with a too serious face for his own good. He is from an age where
everyone is measured against a mark Zuckerberg, where people dress up and only Zuckerberg
can ge away with sporting a hoody, a zuckerbergian hoody. The rest have to wear something
reminiscent of a two piece suit. The writer here should take notes, she will forget all this once
she is back in the room with the telly, once that matlock sings its songs or any other of the oldies

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but goodies, perry mason, columbo, the odd couple. He will pen her masterpiece just as she does
everyday, hunched over in the corner, a writer churning out words that nobody will ever read. Or
will praise, it depends of whether you hit the jackpot or not. The words are inconsequential, it
depends if there is a market niche for authors like her that write about coffee house and
stroopwafels. That keep tabs on the lives of writers everywhere. The nameless nano crowd. The
ones that you can follow on nano regional forums. The ones that describe their process, in detail,
in detail, that mark their progress with wordount milestones and author here is at 82 068. She
cheated, she copied and pasted words that she wrote in February and last September, two pieces
of twenty thousand each that suddenly upped her word count by forty thousand. A collage od
writings, which means that she cannot print those February and September pieces as stand-alonepieces, they have been swallowed by a merger, the bigger story just ate them up, they have to
dance in unison with the rest of em. Words compete with each other, sentebnces do, there is
always a way to describe stuff in a more eloquent , more articulate way. And the dryer stops its
ramblings upstairs and trumpets the end of the cycle from upstairs. Move to new York already
where you push your daily laundry into the shop on eighth, where you will feel lierated and in
aan everything can happen mood, where you will be one of eight million to take manhattan, you
cannot forge an artistic career while spending your life down here in the boonies. Anyhoo, typing
and typing and typing and typing. Out in suburbia, whwree nothing ever can happen here.
82 251, 10:57, May 24, 2016. The weather is misty and foggy, cold with tinges of heat that are
happily drowned.
9-seven.
On the telly, the judge and the litigants in front of her. This is not a conducive environment to do
the writing. Author ponders if she should go to still another coffee house or to the tea house on
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Mackenzie. Having some hot beverage should fuel her words. Moreso than the stuff on the
screen. The real world of a coffee house. Or the real world of a grocery store. To fashion a plot
you jusr have to sit still and look at the typng machine, that should be enough to pen a master
piece. The most amazing master piece of this century. The one that is so elusicve. Writing classes
should help, workshops. Or they might stifle the ideas, kill creativity. This is a risk author here is
not going to take. She will just hammer away at the typer waiting for the plot.
FIVE.
He looks like an artist. A writer. Mainly because he is sporting a ponytail. This is not enough for
being a writer, you have to show work. Meerly hanging around in Williamsburg wil not cut it.
Besides, he lives on @0st, off eighth, he walks to the 23rd station, by the stabucks and the health
store, he transfers to the L-train on 14th, and then goes down to Williamsburg and exits at
Bedford and has a waffle at the sedish konditori. There are others like him, it is way too hot,
people at the communal table in the back, people at the window. It is too hot to sit outside, so
merely the persons with dogs sit outside because they have to. It is half past eleven, not the time
for a waffle. He could walk down to the Italian place, the diner like shoppe, but he prefers to stay
here in hipster country. He soaks in the tmospher of writers and start-up jockeys, painters and
students who want to go to tisch but are not exepted. Or do not have a student visa. All eight
million stories in the city that never sleeps. Taking the subway, hanging out in the subway,
following in the footsteps of keith harding, long long after he is gone. The romance of the artists,
the bohemianism. The clothes that are swirling in the laundromat on eighth. He writes a little bit,
puts pen to paper, he will go back to Oregon, portalnd is more conducive to his artistic career.
Not everyone will be the next norman mailer. You have to have biting words or stab your wife.
Either way. You have to be deveased in order to make a name for yourself.
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Seven.seven.
They all took notes duing the mfa class at nyu. Mfa of creative writing. They are the chosen
ones. How many creative writers does a country really need. All the programs spit out their
graduates in foreseeable increments. There are only so many Pulitzer prizes to go around. Only
sso many new young talents, frsh minted boom of the monthers, book of the yearers. The voivce
of a generation. More males than females, more white ones than ethnic ones. It is all politics. An
mfa in creative writing, do you want to have fries with that?
FIVE-THREE.
Bankastrati is nice, Reykjavik is so romantic. If you are not from hre. So far away from
anywhere. She can daydream all day lonf\g. she is doing some writing but is not getting that
much work done. You need deadlines, that is the hard reality. If you have to make up your own
deadline, it does not work. Wishy washy rules will not cut it. Regimented, militaristic structures
buid the character of the artiste.
SEVEN-SEVEN.
Itzehoe, huh. Some more stories on itzehoe. Today she is just sitting in the so very bourgeois
lobby of the basler hof, she does not feel like going down to itzehoe, she can just describe it and
then have a nice sole with alnonds and some runny sauce at the restaurant. The food here is
always good, never spectacular, never mushy and bad. Reliable. All thru the years. She has come
here since she was twelve. She is now sixty-one. An eternity. And the fish is always good, it
survived the renaming of the hotel, the little disco slash bar next to the hotel, everything at its
finest in the esplanaden
FIVE_FIVE.
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I write. I read. I sit around coffee houses the world over.


SEVEN.
On the telly, modern family. Outside the greenery. Late afternoon in may. No plot.
EIGHT.
SHE
She watches people omn their commute. There are a million stories in the naked city. One of
them will be worth telling. Telling in a very spectacular way so that authoer here will garner a
Pulitzer prize. She will be a sought-after visting lecturer at oxford. Yup. That is how it is, though
she is not quiote sure if scholars at oxford do actually read contemporary creative writing.
Contemporary lit. she will hit it big by describiong all those poor soulds who are ordering
melons by size and color, who flag suburban moms so that they do not drive where the
construction crews are, ahe will describe the barista at five in the morn, she will talk about the
nurse who makes it to her post in yime. Autyhjor here is commuting too, she commutes to the
space in front of the typing machine in the art school, she writes about her inability to fashion a
readable plot, she is tired and pooped, she is awake since a quarter to five. Her non-ability to
achieve anything worth mentioning keeps her alive, her inability to garner a publishing contract.
She is awriter for ten years and she still is nowhere nowhere. She just had three readings at an
open mic thingie, we;; two ofthem were open mic thingies near to the art schools, in that caf and
in the space next to te caf, the other reading was part of her senioer stydio class, and everybody
liked it. Thjat is what we want here, applause, thundering one, not tomatoes huled at yer face.
She types types, watches persons on the subway at their commute, they are all hgainfully
employed, except fotr author here who is an independent contractor sans contract. As of yet. She
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will mtake her wares to market, send them out, you should never seize to send your words out.
The minute you do that you are dead. History. Career over. Your work has to matter . besides, she
has a niche, she writes about ordinary people , mallrats. Regular joes and regular janes.
Describing the bizarre, nope, wait, the prosaic, slinging words together as if you are slinging
drinks in a seedy late night badr in the seedy underbelly of the tone, of the city. Describe the
regular stuff and give hints that there is more to the regulatr, berrer undewrbelly, wordse
underbelly. But the main thing is that there is more than meets the eye. Anyhoo, she forgot her
glasses, she is so very very sleepy, she hardly slept three hours, she was at the coffee place at five
thirty, at the gym at a quarter to six, back home for a showere and change into regular clothes at
six thirty, she then went out again, parked her car at the mall, took the Canada line down to
broadway, had a tea at whole foods while watching the produce people order tomatoes and
melons, had a piece of quiche, watched parents with their kids in strollers, too k the B-line down
to Granville, walked down to the art school, waited until the library was open and now is
penning parts of her master piece here. The one that will be rejected, not because it is bad, but
because they are all rejected. All her words cannot cut it. It is all politics as George costanza
would say and George costanza cannot be wrong and cannot be wrong here. She will hgo back
home and watch comedians in car having coffee, the gasmeter people will be tere between
twelve and three. Which is of course reminiswcent of when Kramer waited for the cable guy
here/. And stop and spellcheck spellcheck. Describing ordinairy shmoes on their commute has to
ewait. Spynovels, lovestories thaey have to wait. Finely crafted novels have TO WAIT. AND
STOP AND SPELLCHECK SPELLCHECK HERE. Ppmmmnn. Just checking the typing, the
caps. It is nine and twenty-five on a sunny morn in Vancouver, in the library of the art school. A
man in a very professional attire, the librarians at the otrher table, talking talking. The word

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count stands at seven hundred, her job for today is done. If you feed a thousand words per day to
the machine, then you will have 300 000 or so in ayear. Anyhoo, typing and yuping and typing
here.
AND STILL LATER IN THE DAY
In the room with the telly, the telly is not on. It is 2:33PM. May 25, 2016. It is 16 degrees outside
but it seems much much warmer. Apparently it is 29 degrees in new York. We have 83 785 words
here. She was in downtown, she had veggie pizza, she walked from the art school down to the
little bakery in Yaletown and had a piece of pastry that was way too rich and two people looked
at her very judgemental when she ordered it. Apparently it was the wrong time of the day to have
rich pastry. Rich stuff you eat at 3 in the afternoon or else you are comiiting a major crime, a
serious crime. You are molesting the pastry.
The gas people came and went. She is typing, she had some great philosophical ideas about
writing which came to her while she was trotting over the burrard bridge or while she was
driving home from oakridge. Whatever they were they are all gone, vanished into thin air. She is
still the plotless writer, it is quite back to square one. No plot whatsoever and no excuse for not
devising a plot. Her writing career will never ever take off. she did not enroll in the videogame
strorytelling class mainly because she thinks that videogames with their openendedness are not
the same as one unit of a full story. They are a different animal, all interactive. Shed rather
produce a full unit, a full episode of something, the viewere than will just cheer or jeer. A novel
is like a box of chocolate, you never quite know what you will get. A videogame is the antithesis
of that, the viewer decides where the story will go. Author here actually bought a box of
chocolate and that is where the chocolatebox metaphor comes from. And from tom hanks of
course, forrest gump vcannot be wrong. 84 065, and stop and spellcheck spellcheck, save too.
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FIVE_FIVE_FIVE_FIVE.
Plotless in Vancouver or roger and stroopwafel. Now how is that for a titel? Pretty good huh.
Aplay on sleepless inseattle, a play on jake and the beanstalk. Two conotations in one, two plays
on existing works, on a movie, on a chidrens story. Amaerican pop-culture. Never mind that
nobody really knows how the story with the beanstalk really goes, is it a nursery rhyme, is it a
book, it kind of opens this image in peoples mind, it has a visual connotatuion, an illustration
from a book. Colorful, cartoonish, but not too cartoonish, still representational and the cartoonish
element is more to illustrate, childhood, innocence, the awe in front of the juxtaposition, of the
small human and the over-sized bean, the illogical, unreal of a beanstalk that is so much bigger
than usual bean stalks, the plant that surmounts the human, nature as omnipotent, not man who
conquers nature and makes it work for him, nope in the end nature wins and is bulding your fate.
And then there is sleepless in seattle, tom hanks and a blond woman, there was another movie at
that time, youve got mail, tis was back in the nineties, in times gone by, nostalgia, it is after all
the guy who played in forrest gump, if author wants to read muh more into this, ah, well, in the
end, the term plotless in Vancouver stuck in her mind, the minute that she woke up, it kind of
characterizes her writing here, do not fight it, celebrate it, the perceived negative of the
plotlessness, make it into a positive, celebrate it, decidedly so, it is all in the attitude, yup, why
not why not here. On the computer, the beats of the swing music, apparently today is the 102nd
birthday of frankie manning, the google doofdle told her so the night before, which made
everybody fanatically search for the meaning of the lindy bop and frankie manning as author
here could gather from the comments on different you tuvbe vids, seems she is not the only one
that searches for what this funny google doodle animation eant, s=especially because it did not
have any audio which is so sick for such a motin ful exuberated animation, the dance where a
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person is tossed into the air without letting go, it is even more stressed because there is total
silence, the movement in itself provides the sound. Anyhoo, autor rolled outta bed, the day is
grey which is nice, an anything can happen day, which is way too gray for this time of year, the
drive down to arbutus, by the flagperson who gives her a nod, which is kind of unsettling, please
do not invade my privacy, it is not that good if someone knows when you are in and when you
are out, someone, who knows that she is not gainfully employed, she just merely writes here,
author is feellling paranoia gripping her by the throat, while gouing down on 33rd, while all the
cars are like beads on a necklace, it is early morn rushhour, all the minions are going down to
their nicely-lit, nicely-cleaned offices, they have a place to go. The parking in front of the coffee
house has space, the barista says hi, he guesse what author here wants, though wrong, he guesses
what the next person wants. The feel of lax community you feel with the persons in the coffee
house, the remark of some person back in Alamo saying to her relative, I see you more than my
mother, this is how the lives of the plotless unfold, this is good, lives that move along just so,
always on the cusp of something that might happen, but at this point happily secure, the
inevitable will set in, but the oder of the everyday makes everything manageable.
She waxed philosophiacally to herself, articulated this all so very good, so very lucid while she
was driving down the street, alas, now that she is back in fronto of the typing machine, all those
thoughts have vanished, poof, into thin air, you get the wording just right but then something else
comes up, a car, a streetsign and all the eloquence goes bu the wayside. She is having a coffe, a
marble loaf, she sits by the window, a man comes in, a woman gets milk in the coffee station, she
is short skirt and in a green suv, she looks like a caricature of a soccer mom. The guy looks like a
hipster who denies his hipsterdom and merely shows parts of hipsterdom as a badge of identity
but he is kind of a grown-up hipster, a hipster in adulthood, some red, some black, an easy
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stylishness, a man of the 21st century, a softer male but still clearly a noblesse-oblige male, very
white in an easygoing entitlement that dies not have to be in-your-face, that does not have to be
defended, that is just there what with all youth, anyhoo, a man in plaid , a man in a t-shirt. Author
ponders about what she read the nite before on the men with pens website, watcg h people in
starbucks and make up characters, anyhoo, styill typing still writing still writing here.
84 945 words, May 26, 2016, Vancouver, Canada, the weather is grey or something, the lindy
bop is playing, playing, wgainst the cheers of an audience. The day is young here, young here.
FIVE-NINE.
Some more words to ound this up here, nine more and we have arrived, three, there it is 85
001, outta here, some sense, some feel of outta here outta here.
SEVEN.
8:55 AM.
EIGHT.
PLOTLESS
The plotless wonder is at it again. In the community college library, very near to the entrance
door, the computerlabb is pretty filled up to its brim, it is one month otr so into the summer
semester. Apparently, the first essays are due. People are typing and printing out stuff, it is a
Thursday, the thursdaty aftyer Victoria day, which is the equivalent to memorial day, anyhoo
typing ah typing here. She could go hom,e, fast, try to catch the end of matlock or she coud just
type and then see the diagnosis murder show, the one with dick van dyke and his son. Or she
could go later home. Catch friends, than mike and molly, and then other diverse shows thru the
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day. Binge watching well, it beets binge eating. Bingedrinking, it is easier on the liver and makes
yoy feel happier and healthier. Binge typing, her masterpiece ah her masterpiece. She mioght go
to the third floor of the A building here in the community college on f49th. To the take a book,
leave a book place, the one where she put tywo books and never ever took a book. She just
donated two books which is not how this works, if you put a book on the shelf you are supposed
to take away a book so thet the number of books stays constantly the same. Anyhoo, typing here,
she left her car in the parking at the Y, near to the golf place under the sign that postulates that
this is no student parking. Ah, her car looks more like a car that transports around senior citizens
not students, it hads the Y decal, the one that is current, she will be there in time to drive away,
hopefully nobody will thingk of towing it away, while she is typing up war and piece here, while
her masterpiece will be walking forward, accumulating words. Penning da mahstapees, that is
what we do what we do. She is working on it for four months, well, two months this year and
two months last year in fall, it is amazing and totally plotleess, totally plotless here. She will go
inh at a later time and edit it all but at this time she is njust typing a-typing here. 381 words, save
and spellcheck spellcheck.
SONORA.
One more thing, she played around a lot with the plot generator out of the uk, that was the nite
before and it was really funny, and for some reason this whole interface is screwed up, shit.
ANTHA
On the telly, the Donald.
12:20 PM. May 26, 2016. 85 444 words. A misty coldish happily day. And he says crooked
Hillary again and again here.
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STOOP.
She should get out again, make her way down to broadway, soak up the determined hecticness of
the city, the running after the bus, the subway that spits put the people who rush up the street to
Vancouver general or city hall, while looking down on Canada place in the distance. You do not
have a job, youre job is to type up your so very plotleesss story, but you should pretend that you
are part of the lifeblood of this city. The writers of this world ah the writers of this planet here.
500 more and we have 86 thou.
CROOP.
She could purchase on of thiose overpriced pints of ice cream at butter. Beter to not have that in
the house, she has to lose 30 pounds or so s, so get on with it, have a nice fridge full of onions
and tomatos, nothing to fill up the fatcells here.
OOT.
She has put her laundry into number eleven, one of the sinle-load ones. Then she put her five
bucks into the vending machine, and held out her hand for the quarters it spat out. Quarters into
the machine, the push of the button, the red laundry powder, the push of the button and the
machine is starting to twirl. She goes to the ice cream place two doors down, this is what she will
do for the next half hour. Or not. She should look at people, make mental notes, sitting in the
over priced ice cream place will not cut it. Hardly anybody is in here. And it is too soon for ice
cream. This is what she is up to these days, it is just way too hot in nyc. 31 degrees. Summer
came to soon to new York and too late to Vancouver. The heat in the city, unbearable as always.
She writes a tad, but not too much. It is too hot. Even the spurts from one air-conditioned coffee
house to the next is daunting. There are at least five coffee houses on eighth, which all brim with
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aspiring writers on their laptops. Everybody and their dog is writing a novel, a script, at the very
least poetry. The words sling yer along. She will go to this place in Brooklyn later on, wendys
subway, she will take the L-train of course. It is writerly there. A lecture by the librarian of the art
library in MoMa. About zines et.al. what people write bout art. Small presses. Small books. This
is what she did when she graduated from art skool. She had five artbooks on a chair. That was
her grad piece. Books on a chair. Written all by yours truly. And the laundry is twirling around.
In twenty minutes she has to be back to take it to the back where the dryers do their swirling. Ah,
laundromats of new York city, author here once met a coffee book on laundomats. All images of
laundromats, from all over the world. Though nyc seems t be the capital of all laundromats. It is
hot here, the price of water is low, you nedd to do laundry, you need freash clkothes.
555.
3:53 PM. May 26, 2016. 86 006 words.
577.
Later in the day. Some words to feed to the machine. She went down to the market, got chips and
cookies. Is back in the room with the telly, thinking about what to write. The description of the
drive down to the market. All the cars, coming back from work. A funeral in the Hellenic center,
a hearst, agrey one. Lots of dressed up persons walking over the street, seeming to the center.
And then it is the parking lot of the market. The starbucks is till open, the one inside of the
market. They still might serve beverages, though the pastries are all taken away, nothing left in
the display. She gets cookies, double chaoclate milanos, pringles that are in a green, a pastel
olive green package, tube. She does not have her glasses on, she does not know what flavor it is,
something green, apparently. Stands in line and tries to hold her hand in front of her mouth. Had

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garlic, the new cashier, the one in training gives her a big smile though. The woman in front of
her says, no plastic bag. The one behind her seems to wear scrubs, he is portly. And out of the
market we are here. Back into the street by the old peoples home and the high school, two
women are walking by the school, they were in the market before, autor recognizes them. Author
should walk like them, she has way too much junk food these days, she should at least walk. At
least move some. PLOTLESS
The plotless wonder is at it again. In the community college library, very near to the entrance
door, the computerlabb is pretty filled up to its brim, it is one month otr so into the summer
semester. Apparently, the first essays are due. People are typing and printing out stuff, it is a
Thursday, the thursdaty aftyer Victoria day, which is the equivalent to memorial day, anyhoo
typing ah typing here. She could go hom,e, fast, try to catch the end of matlock or she coud just
type and then see the diagnosis murder show, the one with dick van dyke and his son. Or she
could go later home. Catch friends, than mike and molly, and then other diverse shows thru the
day. Binge watching well, it beets binge eating. Bingedrinking, it is easier on the liver and makes
yoy feel happier and healthier. Binge typing, her masterpiece ah her masterpiece. She mioght go
to the third floor of the A building here in the community college on f49th. To the take a book,
leave a book place, the one where she put tywo books and never ever took a book. She just
donated two books which is not how this works, if you put a book on the shelf you are supposed
to take away a book so thet the number of books stays constantly the same. Anyhoo, typing here,
she left her car in the parking at the Y, near to the golf place under the sign that postulates that
this is no student parking. Ah, her car looks more like a car that transports around senior citizens
not students, it hads the Y decal, the one that is current, she will be there in time to drive away,
hopefully nobody will thingk of towing it away, while she is typing up war and piece here, while
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her masterpiece will be walking forward, accumulating words. Penning da mahstapees, that is
what we do what we do. She is working on it for four months, well, two months this year and
two months last year in fall, it is amazing and totally plotleess, totally plotless here. She will go
inh at a later time and edit it all but at this time she is njust typing a-typing here. 381 words, save
and spellcheck spellcheck.
SONORA.
One more thing, she played around a lot with the plot generator out of the uk, that was the nite
before and it was really funny, and for some reason this whole interface is screwed up, shit.
ANTHA.
For some reason, the software glitched out 2 pages that she wrote. She must have pushed a
button by accident and she cannot retrieve her words. They have vanished into the cloud, forever.
It was all about her foray down into the market, a meticulous descript of the adventure of a
supermarket run. On an eening slash late afternoon in may. There was a funeral at the Hellenic
center, a grey hearst, stoic persons streaming in and coming up from the street, crossing the street
at the red light. It is rush hour, reversed rush hour. People coming from work, from downtown.
Lots of cars.
The market is still happening, author here grabs cookies and chips, stands in line, gets out, gets
back home. She could describe all the details but she did that once, all her words gor lost
somewhere. With the push of a button. Maybe there is no use in describing very prosaic, very
bam]nal endeavours in detail. The everyday on paper, sung about, there for future generations to
disseminate. The packaging of sliced, baked potaoes, the milanos, all of this is so everyday, so

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humdrum. The plot of the plotless. The non-story. And still some more words here, some more
words here.
LATE.
She is at this reading, this lecture. A lecture by a librarian. It is interesting, the crowd is polite
and attentive. She likes these lectures, they are usually small, a performance geared to a small
number of persons. You always learn something, there is always a new perspective to be looked
at.
There is something wrong with the wordcount. With the button. On second checking, it seems
that everything is ok.
She can just watch the laugh tracks on the telly. She is not happy that she lost her writing. It was
exceptionally good. All the right words. Ah well, what can you do, they are lost for eternity. All
the right words, all the right right words. All by accident here.
87 023 words. 8:21 PM. May 26, 2016.
SEVEN.e is not happy that she lost her writing. It was exceptionally good. All the right words.
Ah well, what can you do, they are lost for eternity. All the right words, all the right right words.
All by accident here.
87 023 words. 8:21 PM. May 26, 2016.
SEVEN.
The rain is coming down harsh. She did not sleep much. Three hours tops. And now she is
typing. The writing while not being of sound mind. Those words cannot be good. It is like
running a marathon after a ild night out. Or under the influence. Your body will not be able to
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cooperate, you will collapse. How is writing any different. You have t type. Well, obviously ,
typing is a much less trying endeavor than hurling your body thru space, up and down, shuttling
it, pounding it, in writing you just sit and stare down at the keyboard and push those square
buttons down. Typing at an oldfashioned typewriter is more trying than this, this is nothing,
nothing, I tell yer. There are others doing what she does, the world over, inmates in correction
cells, poets in Ireland. Boozers with too many words in them. Good journalists, people who
throw down the facts into the machine. She is merely making stuff up here, the room with the
telly, well, she could describe this one here. The sound of the AC, or maybe it is the sound of the
lighting system in here or maybe it is the sound that the computer makes. Thn there is the
everchanging sound of her own typing, the muffled typing and then the staccato of the pause
button, the one that throws her words forward, she types, types, mostly with one hand, her right
one, she has 87 323 words here, the details of the life of a writer. Any writer writes about herself,
well, not necessarily, if you write about the life of textile merchants in brbant you then have to
stick to the facts. But if you describe your going down to the market, your standing in front of
the cookie aisle and chosing the package of chocolate milanos, double-chocolate milanos, not
mint, the ones that are called Monaco cookies whereas the same flavor is called milanos down in
the states, if you describe that, there is more a personal flavor to the description. This is how I
see it. The reader might not be interested, then again neither might the reader about the textile
merchants in Brabant be interested in the subject matter. The Brabant idea is actually predisposed
by the reading of an article in the new Yorker, one that one of her friends on facebook had
posted, one of her 22 friends. Author here makes sure that she has no more than 22 friends, that
is all the friends we need here on this planet. Who can go out and buy more b-day gifts then that,
she does not even buy thenm gifts, does not even congratulate them on facebook. Her attitudes in

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facebook land are weird, then again anyoness are weird, the e-protocol is not cler, the netticate.
How to behave in cyberspace and can you even behave there. It is human communication, but it
is not really. Anyhoo, typng here, still typing.she typed up 500 or so words ever since she came
down to the room with the telly, in the midst of the night, she is kind of underslept, kind of worn
out, but still wide awake, as awake as a writer should be here. She could push the button on the
remote, listen in to pix eleven, describing a Friday morn in nyc, where it is hot and humid. There,
the button is pushed, a woman talks about coney island, a hot dog, Hiroshima, the visit by
Obama. The sky show of the memorial weekend, you sit on the west coast and you are listening
in to the east coast news, actually even a different country. It is the same when you ar in zurch,
you can listen in to the telly of Germany, Austria, the French part of Switzerland. And now and
ad for something in the tri-state area, apparently that is new jersey and new York and maybe
coneecticut. An ad for dennys. an ad for a an appliance store that wants to sell yer applinaces
over the memorial weekend, lure customers in. they evn sell matrasses. Matrasses and tv-sets,
what a combination. 87 772 words, at 3:24 vancouver time, 6:24 new York time. The channel out
of nyc sings all its songs here, the mets, the woman of pix eleven is delivering the news in her
bege dress. Next to a sign that says sports desk. Six thirty ovr there.
NADA.
It is early morn in soho, she goes down to the subway station, by the Y in Chinatown, by the
whole foods. She is taking the train to penn station, hardly anybody in the street this soon in the
day. She is here on a visit, she feels dislocated. She is working on her novel, day-in, day-out. The
life of a transient, it is good for writing. Conducive. Being here in person is better than armchairtravelling.
ARTA.
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Her life as a writer. Her lot as a poet. Down to itzehoe it is. The foray to the coffee space, the
bakery next to the fashion store. There is no plot for her story, but her words accumulate
nonetheless. She listens in to the radio, her i-phone is throwing out the words from the station in
hamburg, the one out of the new buiding on rothenbaumchaussee. Author here used to live in this
city, she remembers the old buiding, the one in 196. She is old, so very very old. Too old for a
writer, too young for a writer. Her writing in English, weird, while listening in to the german
singsong around her. Sjhe has 88 015 words here, the train is going down to itzehoe, it will not
stop on the way. Or mauybe one, in gluechkstadt. Or elmshorn. She does not really know and she
does not really care. The oblivience of a traveler, ah, oblivience is bliss. It is all about her writing
anyways, that is what eats her up, her typing, her typing.
REYKJAVIK
A summerday in the city. Banjkastrati, the bakery. A coffee, a piece of cake. The round one with
the chocolate glazing. The one that has a raspberry jam filling in it. Te lilt of Icelandic around
her. Author loves coming here. Today it is pen and paper. No laptop. The wifi is temperantful
anyways. She is writing on loose sheets of paper. With a blue bic-pen. She is working on her
persona of being a writer. The right flip of the hair. The way she adjusts her glasses. The way that
she stares into space, pensively. Well, the right words would help too.
A REEDING.
She has arrived. She is the star. A reading at strands. Wow, sho would have thought. This is what
all those hours of typing hunched over in the room with the twelly have brought her. Now she
will read to strangers, lullabyes from her own pen. There wil be a q and a. one hours or two hours
of embarrassment. She is taking it in strides. She will sound sincerely, make jokes but not many.

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Self-deprecating ones. Two hours of public speaking. A slight performance in front of people she
does not know. She might say something stupid. Hopefully not. She will shoot for being lucid,
sensical. No-nonsense. How hard can it be? Her reading at strands. not many writers get this
opportunity. What is next? An interview with paris review? She is nicely dressed, adjusts her
glasses. The day in nyc is throwing itself into the night.
753.
3:49 AM. May 27, 2016. 88 338 words. In Vancouver, British Columbia. It is cold outside, rainy.
A reluctant day in late May. Reluctant in its summeryness.
754.
88 360 words.
756.
The rain here is excrutiating. Cats and dogs, more like fluuries that will turn into snow, ice. She
sits in the car, on the radio, major tom, the song about ground patrol to major tom, sung by the
british singer who was married to iman and whose name she cannot remember, she will go in and
do some writing, working on her magnum opus which will just slither along until a certain word
count, while te rain is coming down on this city, again again again here.
777.
500 words and she will have 89 000 words. What will be achieved by that. Are words better
because there is a big number of them?
741.

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Nine AM, sunshine diner, brunch. Author is on a diet. How will she manage to lose weight when
she has to be in a social situation where one has to eat brunch. Eggs, sauce? Her dieting has to
wait. She will never be 125 pounds again. Story of her life. The quest for the perfect figure. The
elusive perfect weight. There are more important quests, the cure for cancer, world peace, but all
of that is overshadowed by the running after the right body mass index.
923.
The addiction to cutting up stuff. That should be another way to describe cooking. The addiction
to purchase onions, zucchini, celery sticks. Mushrooms, the white kind, not the brown ones
because they are more expensive. The addiction to put the mushrooms into the bag, the paperbag
with writing thereon. Author is cooking all these diet food that are all equally disgusting. Veggies
in water, boiled. There are eons of ways to do this. You then stack them in tupperwares and eat
them and wait for your extra weight to come off. there are more exiting lives than this. Scaling
mount Everest it aint.
She goes into some small tiff with the paerson next to the cashier line, she is using the selfservice place and all the time he wants to intervene. Scram. It is called self-service for a reason.
The machine is all we want to interact with here, no human contact whatsoever. The machine
knows best, it can tell the difference between turnips with white top and yellow top, the
difference between celery sticks and the whole celery, it knows all of the kinds of pears available
in the place. There are nice cute pictures on the screen, all the different kinds of potatoes. It is
like being in vegas, playing the slots here. Domesticity as entertainment, anyhoo, writing here
and writing here. The narrative of grocery shopping, the different colours of produce. The coice
of cutting this up into stripes or cubes. Ah, and you thought your life is blah. Author here is
widening the scope of her subject matter, from describing coffee houses to describing fruit,
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produce, veggies. Different things that grow on plants. Nature. On the telly, a woman in yellow
talking about politics. Now tanks and men with helmets and guns. Typing here still typing. The
rain has come to a standstill. She has to go and cut up some more celery stalks, so that she has
neat cubes of celery. Which will then be part of her diet foods, small meals that are all healthy.
What an endeavor. Just like typing up small letters into a computer. And we have 88 922. She
would go down to the coffee house on arbutus, but she is afraid that there are remnances of rain
in the air that will not be good for her machine, her coveted laptop here. And it would be the
second trek down to the coffee house, there was another one first thing in the morn. And still
typing still typing here. 2:10 PM. 88 989 words. May, 28, 2016. 12 degrees Celsius, in
Vancouver, 31 degrees Celsius , in nyc.
753.
What to wear when you run out to the market? Choices ah choices.
173.
89 020 words at 3 oh 3. Still misty and grey outside.
173.a.

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Her writing is all about art and life and other things, it all happens while cnn is happening on a
Sunday morn. While she is all dressed up tp go out for Sunday brunch. All these words that have
to be fed to the machine, after a short coffeerun, after a wigh-in at the gym. There was a pretty
serious vehicular accident at the corner of 41st and west boulevard. A manled car, another car on
the side. She drove by this on the way to the y, when she came back from the y, there was an
ambulance and more police. Anyhoo, now she is all ready for the meet up for brunch, her words
have to wait. She will not talk about her amazing book, after all it is depressing to fess up that
you are all engulfed in a futile endeavor. The road to nowhere. She could talk about her diet but
that is kind of a road to nowhere just the same. The yo-yoing up and it is pretty obvious, you
cannot hide, your double chin says it all, and this after all the gushing of the very same people at
last years thanksgiving, wow, you losrt so much weight. And now it is all back where it belongs
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and then some. What a failure. Her pants are way too tight, we can hardly breathe here. No
breathing room whatsoever. And the half benny in the morn will not help apparently. She will be
quiet and observing. Yup, that is what all writers should do, observe and observe and observe and
observe here. 89 261, 8:34. May 29, 2016. The weather is nice and sunny outside here in this
city.
537.
It is ten. Ten in the community college. Well, ten everywhere in this timezone here. Ten on the
west coast of north America, ten in California, ten in lvegas. Ten everywhere in this vicinity.
Down the coast, up the coasty. And it is not really ten in the mnorn, it is merely nine minutes to
the full hour. She is sitting in between all thse ppl that are half her age. Triple her age. That is
how it is in a college emnvironment. And the community college environ ment is a tad more
forgiving, there are pldies but goodies here. They are usually of the former inmate kind, people
whoee lifves went terrib;y pff course and you can see it on their faces, by the way they hold their
bodies. By the textiles they put on theior bodies. Jeans with holes in them and not the Gucci
designerish kind. Nothing by those two ilatian guys whose fashioshow had selfies in them and
whose names author here cannot remember for rge life of her. This is how it is these days,
earlyonset dementia will do her in. how can you pen your amazing masterpiece when all you do
is forget names, people, locales. Historic events. How can you write your mnextexst
masterpiece? Some woman sneezes, it is a female sneeze. Some male voices mumble, one
behind her, one in front of her. One persons posits something, the other asks and listens. One is
the teacher, one is the spupil. They talk in Punjabi or in mandarin. Something on the other side of
uk-based longo. Author is not thjat familiar with English here. But it has to do as the language of
her writings. She has to pen her masterpiece. Has to edit the parts of her masterpiece that she fed
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to the machine alreadyu. Quite an endeavour. You read all thru 100 000 words and try to
phanthom where the irregularities lie. Some irregularities are artsy, they are cute, original voiece
kind of glitches, but the reast are fuffoes that have to be ironed out before piuublishing, before
submitting, before querying this to some agency in nyc or boston. And we type here type here,
maybe today ty she will feed 5000 words or so to this machine, she has paid for parking till two.
Her masterpiece has to b willed into this machine here. It has to hast orelse. Every day is a
nano day in her life, in her life here. 5000 words per day, ah, this better be good better be good.
Quantity begets quality, the plot will crystallize automatically, if you just jkeep on hammering at
this keyboard, just as if you are in trance here. She is missing matlock for this.
The woman at the otrher computer, she malkes a puzzled face, she looks up, to the right, she
fixes her dress. She has long straight hair, brown , she parted it in the nmiddle. It falls flat to each
side of her face. It is brown hair, not tooo datrk not too l;ight. Somewhere in the middle. Her
dress is too pale, white but more off-white. Somehwree teethering teween white and beige. It
has a blure tone, black tone, off-ble off white. Nothing warm and orangy. Author is not good at
sdescribing viual stuffimuffi. Author was in the mall, in the gym. She was at a an artsghow, an art
fair over the weekend. At a brunch where she had pancakes with jam amd whip. Cut up gbig
strawberries in te jam, which was not really jam, more compote. The whole thing was a tad too
sower, the pancakes are not sweet, neither is the compote neither is the whip. A sweet meal that
looks as if it is very sweet but that is actually quite tart. Which made author say things that were
kinda offensive. Tart comments at the breakfast brunch in the sunshine diner on fourth.
And we type here and type here. The woman with the flat brown hair to her hip and the pale
dress, piuts her left hand behind here, makes aface as if she thinks about stuff. That is what
p[erople do in a community college the think. They blearn how to think. They process
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information. The information ogf trhe ages. Rthere are more books in here than trhere were in the
lancient library of Alexandria. So many books so many books. Nowadays there are hierarchies in
knowledge, everybody can read, everybody is literate, but you still have to quantify people into
higher ranks and lowere ranks, because who will brew the coffe and clean out the codffee
machine, trhen beans. Rthere is a woman who is the janitor, whose face is all accusation, and
maybe she would write a much better book than author here ever does. If you just have the time,
the resolve will come by itself. And what kind of job is writing anyways. You have to have
something to say, something substantial, something for the ages. Something rational, logical;.
Sounds like a song. A song on the oldie station out of Bellingham. And we type here and type
here. This keyboard is more like an o;ldfashioned type writer, there are holes in between the
keys, you have to press each of them down, about half an inch. The keyboard is by Hewlett
packerd. There is a small hp sign, hp logo at the top of the keyboard. An h and a p, both leaning
to the right. With a circle around them. In silver against the black background. Silvery Hewlett
ansd silvery Packard. Or packitt. Something to do with carly Fiorina or so. Who did loose ourt to
trump. It is the last day of may here. Her writing ah her writing here. We must have one thousand
words already. It must be eleven. Chairs are ro;;omg in the disrttane, another person is typing.
Mope, wait that is the sound of mouseclicks. Another person ois coming next to author, sits
dowm she cannot seei if it is a man or a woman, anyhoo, typing here, typing here. Looking at
people pout of the corner of her yese, periphal vision periphal vision here. The person at the
other chair speaks Punjabi and has a backpack that says born 2 ride. It is a male, a young one,
twenty max. everybody in this college is younger than author here, even all of the librarians.
Even the librarians with all white hair. Author here is by far the oldest person on this planet here.
Make of that whatever you want here. The person next to her asks author if the internet is

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working. I do not know, I am working with word here. The person left a nother person in grey
sits in fronto of the ocomputer here. Nrxt to author, on the right, a woman in black, her hand on
the mopuse. Apparently the internet is not working, that is what is the consensus of this place.
Author here writes but she has to save her words to he email, she did not bring a usb drive here.
She could buy one in the shop though, apparently you need a usb drive gfor printing out your
words, especially if you do not want to pay more than ten cents Canadian. Ten cents per page
that is how much it costs everywhere, which is till steep, pretty steep here. The person next to
author is actually all in brown and it is a man though her had long locks, so that is where the
confusion came from. Author here does not see well on one eye, which is kind of confusijng,
living in this world as a one eyed person without an eyepatch like a pirate. You are a pirate but
you do not look the part. And we have 1500 words here. All inconsequential observations, the
life of a writer who did not secure a publisjher as of yet. One day, long time from now, she will
have this all printed out, bound into little rdctangle pacages, that fit on a bookshelf. She will fly
to Dublin and read at thea litfesticval in Dublin anfd then have a pint in a pub in diublin.l she
will lead the life of a writer, go to watering holes, sojourn thru watering holes. That is the dream
of becoming a writer, living in places where they serve fermented grape juice, in places where
people all tal;k at the same time. Which must be kind of like this very place here., the computer
lab in the library in the community col;lege on 49th. Everybody is talking at the same time,
especially the persons who are standing together around the printer. They are all talking in a
language that author does not understand, theyb are a;; male. Seems, males are way more
talkative than their female counter parts. There are two heaps of people, who are gesticulating
loudly, in front of author andf in the cack of author, behind her. There are two women actually
talking too, that is the subtext, the woman bin the brown flat hair that is parted in the middle the

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one with the too pale dress. She is tal;king too or is talked at. There ius a red exit sign in the
distance, but who wants to exit this place when there is soi much to describe here. Today is part
of the bike to work week, there are tons of books about bikinfg, which bike to buy, how to repair
it, docunentaries of bike voyages, it is all in the display case near the entry and it is all sponsored
by klm, the airline from the country where bkies are the kings of the road. Where there are
designer bikes in stores, bikes that cost more than a Lamborghini. And we type jhere and type
here. Te editing of all this will take forever, foever. Her right arm is hurting from typing, her
elbow muscles are cramped. Well more her arm muscles/. Typing typing typing typing typing.
On march, wait, may 31sr. in 2016. She has written straight for two months. All thro march,
april, may. Well, shw started in the end of maerch, so technically it is april and may here. Her
book herr booj her book her book. Save and spellcheck spellcheck here.
She typed up 1700 words. Not bad. The red light on the mouse of the woman with the brown
parted hair lights up. A parently all the mice at all the computers are red and liught up if you
press on them on the left part or the right part. T5he woman wuith the parted hair gets up and
walks to talk to another vperson, she now has the back to author here. The woman is very slight,
much slighter than her round face suggested. The body that goes with that head ios way too thin
for the roundness of that head. A stick with a ball on top, that woman is really like a
cartoonfigure, a stuckman, make that a stickwoman. The woman with the braoan parted hair, she
is now nack to her original seat, reads what is on the monitor. Anyhoo, typing eher, typing here,
dispatches from the compterlab in the library of the college on forty-ninth here. She has 1881
words, theses days this has to let out she cwill patch all of these passages together and then start
editing them all. Iron out the glitches, copy and paste. Make sure there are no grammatcla
msytakes and do misspelled words. Ahe will capiatlize what has to be capitalixzes. Will use te
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owl of dukes, apparently that is a good resoursce. Chicago manual, mla, apa, ah, who cares who
cares here.sp many words ah so many words here. We are getting crazy, that comes with the
territory. Crative mionds are crazy minds, those individuals who think thatv they can fashion
something new, something original. You have to be real arrogant to thionk that. Sautjor here
nacan see the tink and tut of the writing and tutoring place, the one in the disrttance. The letters
are very big so that you really know here the writing and tutoring space is. They are vblack
capitalized letters in a very blocky script, black on a frosted transparent surface, writing on glass,
that kind ah that kind here. It is eleven oh one, she has two thou for today, time to save this,
ytime to have an Americano and a marble losf in that little place at the end of the walkway. In the
lall, in the hall, her writing sucks, it does it does. But she will still make sure that it is published
one day, her writing should be as good or as bad as every body elsess. It is still way better than
the writing s of mere mortals, she is not a prince wbwmongwriters, but still a better writer than
those who do not write for a living. Yes, and she will make s a living with her words eventually
ah eventually. It will pay for a galss of whine or a coffee maybe, maybe. And that is wall we
want here. Somebody sneezes, hissy loudly, for a mojent in time and a moment in time here.stop
or yoyr arm woill go all flat here. The muscles cannot take that much take thatmuch here.
LATER LATER
She had her peppermint tea and is back at the writing place. She has her tea with her and is
actually sitting next to the woman with the parted hair. That woman is zipping up her bag and
leaving which makes the space next to her free. Author here is sitting next to a person who
smalls a tad and has his papers all over the place, too much next to authors space. It is
something about organixzartional behavior, well, he is organizing it all wrong and he should take
a bath for god s sakes. Wuthoer here has to move but then she has to save it all and pack up hher
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belonginfgs and then move her teacup with her. This is all way too complicated. Besides, who
jknows who the next person will be, all of theses persons are students and all arec frazzled by
their stupid work, and all of then m have no time for showers. Really, writing is tough, you have
to be able to navigate all of these obstacles. Whixch is of course easier than George orwell
writing nineteen eighty four under duress, what with tuberculosis and all, this bee hivecom
computer;lab has to be a much morte easy place for penning your master piece. Anyhoo typing
typing, this peraon really smells and wyou would not even know it by looking at the person.
Author cannot write the right words, she is half dead by the BO, save this amd leave ah leave
here.
THIS
This is a book aboput writers, foremost. About the process of writing about the tactility, the
sounds, the smalls, the physicality of writing, the process, the journey thru lit land. The mere
struggle against the paper, the typing machine, whatever, and the getting ahead, the victory
agauinst the language. The motion of writing, yup, that kind of stuff that kind of stuff, the stuff
that writers are made off or more so the stuff of what tyhis particular writer is made off. That is
what this book is about, in anutshell.
473.
Uthor
Author here is not quite sure if she is even allowed to use this place. Well, her ID still works, so
that should be ok. If the machine lets you in then everything should be legit. The machines know
more than us mere mortals. If the IT place is ok with you writing up your big novel, then
everything is fine. Admin cannot do anything. So she can live happily in this college
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nowmansland, especially if admin faculty the janitors and IT do not see eyetoeye. Everybody
knows that these places are ruled by the janitorial stuff, they can make yer or break you. The
people who clean the place, the people who feed you at the coffee house. The ones that sloiing
your drinks. Those are theones that will make the wheels run in time, the trains. The people who
will make the trains run on time. Yup, that is how the saying here goes, the poet the writer, she
can use the words at random, it is hit and miss anyways. Sometimes they are the right words and
sometimes they are the wrong ones. Author is good at making up bullshit anf it is all bullshit. It
comes with the territory, all art is pure and simple BS. Here. She likes to put a HERE at the end
of every sentence, especially when she has no clue if what she postulates is true or not. Stuff that
you postulate cannot be true. Real men do not postulate. Just like they do not eat quiche. The real
ones. The ones that put their pants on one leg at a time. The non-artistic ones. The ones that are
more brawn than brain. Anyhoo typing anf d typing and typing. Her humerus si aching, all
humerusi of all writers are aching. The humerusses of poets. Ah, wordcount wordount here.
723-seven two three.
She need some 100 words or so, then this will be at 82 thou. 92 thou.
Her parking will be over once the clock sounds one and fifty-nine. She takes out the parking slip,
it is actually one and forty-nine. On may 31st. her writing ah her writing. She walked around this
campus, it kind of is its woen world. In the morn she was in metrotwon. Trhere is another world
all its own. A mall. The mall of malls. The biggest mall in the lowere mainland. With ample
parkings. With a cinnabon. She feells like having a cinnamon roll. Who has time for dieting. The
world of people who have cinnamon rolls. Happy people. Not poets with hurting humerusses.
Who do not know if the plural of humerus is humeri or humerusses. Those are the people who
have cinnamon rolls in their fridhge. She will go trhere and buy cinnamon rolls. Dieting is for the
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birds. Writers have to be wellfed. So that they do not go on barricades. So that they do not start a
revolution while waving a flag, red flag black flag white flag.,. any color of flag. Multicolored
flag. The flafg of the peioople who hang oput at malls. The mallwavinfg flac g crowd. A woman
in green beige with a serious face and glkasses. An older cstudent. A mature one. Author here has
forty minutes left to do her writings. The text the txt. She is losing it, happily happily. She has
274 pagws to read thru and edit. That will take an eternity here. 92 464 words of insightful
writing. Thid is what she did since last summer. There was this movie about last summer, tell me
what you did last summer or something, a ninetys movie, a movie from the last cebtury or so. 92
504. She needs 500 to habe 93 000. On may, in may. Her arms is killing her. Here.
573
She has to write some more. Mainly to finish this. To have ahigher wordcount. She was at
metrotown again. Which is not where writers hang out. Apparently writers hang out in bars,
pubs, places where alcohol is served. According to this book she read in chapters, it is called
COME HERE OFTEN and it describes writers and their favourite watering holes. Author
ponders if she wrote about this very book before, yup, she might have mentioned it, but this time
she delved more deeply into it, read some of the netries by the writers which was really
interesting. Before she had read the note by the person who gathered all of these essays and his
ideas about pubs, which was very interesting too, this time it was different becsause you could
read thru all of these differing descriptions of bars. There was one in paris and another one in
Austin. There were bars in nyc. Each of those places meant different things to their patrons. The
person who gathered all those essays stated somewhere rthat writers do not write in bars, they
come there to get away from the process of writing. They do not take the office to the watering
hole. Just like a construction worker cannot take his constructionsite with him. And the
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construction worker could be a she. But we digress here. Outside the day miffles, apparently it is
warm and sunny in new York city. Hhere it is miffed. Author bought an orange shirt with a bike
thereon. A fluffy bike, all female and, well, fluffy. With rhinestones and flowers and a basket in
front on the handles. With floweres in it. A fluffy girly bike. Which is not how bikes are. They
are masculine and mean business, they are pushed around town by muscular persons in
bikeshorts and helmets. Biking is a serious undertaking in the states, it is fluffy though if you live
in Amsterdam or paris, hamburg or Antwerp. Italy. There you can look like gina lollobrigida on a
vespa with butterfly glasses and a shawl around your hair. Or maybe that is more with a vespa.
Author here uses all the wrong words, wrong tenses. Her writing sucks, on so many evels, the
grammar is off and everything is nonsensical. Not sensical at all. She needs 200 words and then
she will have 93 000 words. No plot as of yet but that seems to be irrelevant at this time. She has
to write an ending that will pull all of this together, so that she can go out with a bang, a story
that makes your eyes tear up, there has to be a sweet aftertaste once the story is over, something
that makes you feel as if you have been in another world and now you are back in the cruel
reality. Like after a movie when you go out, after a movie showing john wayne and 100 little
cowboys are leaving the dark theater. Anyhoo, typing some more and typing some more, she has
reached 93 thou, outta here and outta here and outta here.
522.
There are problems with the saving of this text, the computer is doing its own thing here.
Seven-TWO.
On the telly, two and a half men. Laughtracks. And we are writing and typing. The difference
between writing and typing. Writers have written about that. Capote versus Kerouac. Outside the

275

weather becomes dark but not quite not yet. The impending night, the darkness of the greenery.
While the telly is singing its songs here. She wants for pizza pops or pop tarts. Something with
pop. And typing and writing here. Some more words and some more words. Her shoulder is
acting up. From all of the pushing down of typingish keys. The typewriter in the community
college is a tad too hard on the body. Her own keyboard is so much better. She will take it down
to the college, because she needs the human hecticness in order to feed her words to the machine.
She will write in malls and in fligt centers. Aeroporte. In gynms and in coffee houses.
573.
800 words while the telly is on. The show with doogie hauser. How I met your mother. All the
laughtracks that kind of interfere wit the ariting. Author watched the movie charly and noticed
that the actor who played senfelds dad on the show plays on charly too. Anyhoo, typing here and
typing here. Watching the mazda ad, reading up on trivia about patsy cline and other
hollywoodsy stuff. The internet should be used for looking up more important stuffi-muffi, but it
is more about the comstant flashing arund. Kind of like looking through a thesaurus, and we are
typing and typing here. It is dark outside noew, andersoon cooper talks about the election. Trump
super pac is targeting amish voters.
753.
700 words to 94 000 which would be a total of 5000 words for today. Her humerus, her humerus.
And still some more words and still some more words here.
755.
Bankastrati, the bakery. The round cake with the chocolate glaze. The raspberry filling. All of
this with a glass of coffee with cream on top. A latte, a cappuccino. Whatever it is it is so very
276

good. The Icelandic lilt all around her. She feels very calm here in Iceland, so very far away from
anywhere. Secuded, isolated. Far from anyone she knows. The world is happening somehwre
else. She loves it here. This city is hectic but author here is removed from what is going on. She
is at rest. The resting tourist in her idyllic surroundings. That is what makes travelling fun. You
are far away from your regular tribulations, the chores at home have to wait, life as we know it
goes on without here. She is busy with writing, with thinking, with srawning her yarn. There is
no plot and that is exactly her subject matter. Te utter plotlessness. The tribulatons of a writer.
How do you describe stagnation. You just stare into splace until there is something to describe.
Something will crystallize. Or not. One can always push the buttons on the plotgenerator out of
the UK.
573.
On the telly the gorilla in the zoo and the child that fell into the water where the gorilla was. Jack
hanna and Anderson cooper. And now trump lashes out at media. That is what the headline says.
The news is all about mixing writing and sound and sight. Visuals and text.
732.
400 words. Her kneck hurts from looking down at the keyboard. Now the king of queens. We
have 93 630 words here, it is May 31, 2016. It is pretty chilly inside here. Author chooses to not
look up the temperature, what is clear is that it is pretty chilly in here. Not the right temperature
to pen a novel. Any novel. She is writing since ten in the morn, it is now ten in the eve. 12 hours
of writing. Next to 5000 words here. 300 words. One to 93 700.
7771.

277

An ad for my pillow. Patented adjusted fill. Sara e. likes it, so does matt h. an animation of a
head and his or her bones. And again the guy from Minnesota who lets you in on ll his info about
my pillow.
573.
250 words.
735.
Now an ad for jam. An oversized spon of jam, more like a knifefull, as big as the screen. Igger
than the real thing is. So that is why you are tempted to overeat. Alll of these oversized images of
food. So that is why the nation is so dfat here.
53.
200 words. While watching the sitcom. The one with the staplegun. Yup, that episode. Now
carrie in the emergency room. Talking to douglas.
547.
Lucid writing. Short and to the point. Well, we know who is not able to do that. Why use a small
amount of words when you can go on and on and on about stuff. Well, that is why we are non
published as of yet here.
732.
Itzehoe. The coffee house. The apple crumbcake. Tea or coffee. some hot becverage it is
anyways. Three women chatting. Waitress and bored face. Fashi store. Te usual. And catching
the train back just in time here.

278

732.
100 words and we are finishe bhere. She will edit this later on. An ad for a mattress.
Posturepedic. An ad for groupon. Isnt the heyday of groupon over? Having the experience.
Gatherers of experiences. And now an ad for Klondike bars. All kind of different Klondike bars.
The original ones win hands down here.
7211.
Not that many words needed here. 25 words. 10:31 PM. The iceman cometh. 73 981.
723.a.
15 words here. 13. And still some more king of queens. Five words, three and we are out of here
out of here. Racon in a dumpster.
20.
94 012 words. 10:36 wpords. May 31, 2016.
573.
THE SCIENCE OF FICTION from the ANTWERP REVIEW # 176.
Interviewer:
So, what is your daily routine?
Writer:
I get out of bed, I go out for coffee, I go to the gym.

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I come back and type up 4000 words. This is what I do daily when I am working on a book.
Later on, I do the same morning routine except that I spend my day reading through what I wrote
before and I correct it. Later on, I go for a walk, watch TV, go to bed early. Everything is very
regimented and I try to stick to a routine.
Interviwer:
So, I gather the routine is very important.
Writer:
As I said, the routine is paramount. It is what gets things done. If you have a certain structure
everything falls in place. If you have a certain wordcount you have to meet, then you do not
diddle duddle and you get things done. It is just like a plumbing job, you have to fix the pipes so
that the water keeps on running. Slinging words together has to be looked at the same way. You
have to produce a certain amout of words, there is a minmum of words that have to be met, a
minimum requirement of newly hashed, newly minted words. 5 days a week, eight hours a day.
At least that is how I work, I cannot speak for others. I used to be an animator, you have to be
very disciplined to animate and that is where I trained myself how to be awriter. I proceed the
same way in my writing, I tackle the language , the words in the same way. Everything has to
have structure, order. The words have to march in line and I am the general.
Interviewere:
Certainly a very poetic way of looking at art.
Writer:

280

Yes, very romantic, very much giving a nod to a bohemian lifestyle. I mean that of course
satrirically. Ironically.
Interviewere:
How about your subject matter? You chose to write about the persona of writers.
Writer:
I am fascinated by the persona of an artist and by the sphere that artists occupy in todays society.
How the world regards their artists. I look at it very anthropologically, what characteristics do
others, non-artists attribute to artists and are those wrong or are they correct and accurate. Are
there not as many artist personas as there are artists and what is to be gained from sheer, pure
generalizations. Is there not an individual story to each writer? I read a lot about the lives of
famed writers, Nabokov, hemingway, norman mailer, norman mailers wife. I watch interviews
on you tube with writers, max Frisch , peter handke, norman mailer, jack Kerouac. This one
interview with peter handke I watched twice. I like how he refers to his work as scheissbuecher,
shitty books would be a loose translation. I could go on and on about this, but I guess I have to
keep it short, yes, to answer your question, my main subject matter are writers. A subspecies of
the human animal.
Interviewere:
Do you like to give readings.
Writer:
I like the performative aspect, the social aspect. It is a show and it is the antthesis to what you do
when writing which is a very isolated endeavor.
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Interviwer:
Thank you for your time.
Writer:
No, thank you.
573.
Outside the day is warming up. She was in the mall, just when the donut place opened. The
coffee place. They call thenmself donut house and everybody else calls them the donut place.
They doid not have strawberry shortcake donuts yet. They had Nutella filled pastry and Nutella
filled donuts. The Nutella filled pastry were little brownish horns with beige, cinnamon
podersugar critalls strewn on. Powdery donuts tha looked elegant and very different from sticky
Nutella. Nutella contained.
7.
Outside the greenery becomes sunnier, sunkissed. Highlights and lowlights. On the car radio the
station out of belling ham. A discussion about fruit, mangoes, raspberries. The fruits were rated.
One of te disc jockeys did not like cherries.
8.
The term would be radio hosts not disc jockeys. There are two of them and the show bears their
names. They get paid for talking into a microphone.
9.

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They must be good with the language, they must think on their feet. They are preaching to the
drivers of vehicles. It is a gig. A so very social gig. Less than teaching though, less than being a
prof. more than writing all alone in seclusion as author here does. She usually likes to write in
coffee houses or libraries, she starts humming when she writes all by herself, which is kind of
weird and strange and is starting to ffreak herself out. Se should go down to the coffee house on
arbutus, do her writing there. They might tink that she works on her dissertation, because she is a
regular there. They always greet her and try to guess what she wants to order and maybe that is
what head office tells its baristas to do, so that the clients feel that they are regulars and that they
should come there again. Te feel of community as marketing gimmick. How are bars run, how
are restaurants run, how are coffee houses run? How do you attract repeat business? Ah her
writing her writing here. She has near to one thpousand in one sitting here, in one morn, time to
watch matlock on the oldie station. In order to rest up the fingers, in order to reast up the
shoulder. Gotta take breaks so that the work will flow easily onto the paper, into the cscreen here.
NINE.
Her chaptering is al eclectic, all erratic. There is no order whatsoever in the way that she order
sthes vignettes. They are disordered, unordered. The only thing constant is the odisorderlyness.
You have to break up the visuals of the letters, after all, text nowadays compete with images on
screens. With sounds to be listened to. Audio, smell, tactility, lots of things in the environment
are stronger than all of thses words. This is a world of nonreaders. How do you hold the attention
of viers, of listeners. Where do you get them? Maybe in the car while they are driving to work.
Maybe author here too should have a radioshow. Out of Bellingham. How does broadcasting
work eher?
9.
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MARTHA in new York. It is warm outside, humid, next to hot. The big apple is happe ning.
Summer in the city. She does not really much here, she just roams the ity. Does laundry. Uses
citibike. Is part of the sheer flow of people. Being part of something., being a number in a sea of
eight million. Everything goes somewhere, everyone walks with purpose. People shout stuff into
the little black rectangles they hold to their ear. It used to be blackberries but that is so yesterday.
Now in this city it is i-phone galore, Samsung is so second rate. Vancouver though has an equal
amount of samsungs and iphones. Martha has no statistics, her random observations are enough
for her. She merely observes, she does not know if it will fly if she calls herself a researcher, an
analyst. You cannot really be an analyst if you are not working for a bigger entity, a corporation,
an institution, something that is registered and pays teaxes. Her own business. At this point she is
merely a writer who puts out her wares and tries to sell them. An independent contractor. A
producer of items that will then take her words to market and sell them to the middlemeb. Or she
could draw on the pages of the books she prints out at kinkos and then call it artists books, she
could sell that at the new York art fair, at psi moma. There is a market for small editons, for
books at aas art pices. She willlook into that look into that.
5556.
Bankastarti again, the round cake wit the chocolate glaze. The lilt, te Icelandic one. Hr oblivion
to what is talked anbout around her. Ignorance is bliss. She likes to watch Seinfeld in Icelandic,
two and a half men in Icelandic. She reads the Icelandic scripts on the oversizd ads on the walls
of the city. Iceland to her is all about the urban environment, the man-mide life. Nature does not
concern her. Let others take pics of gysirs. Te people of Iceland are fascinating, what tghey wear
how they comport themselves. How they interact. Are they the samae as any urban population,
from new York, to shanghai, from milan to tokio, from hamburg to Tabriz? From London to
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tilflis.urban population move all the same, they are all aptly described in benjamins arcardes
project.
7-1.
Her last train down to itzehoe, she will leave hanmburg, fly back to vancity. But for now, she
enjoys the trainride down to the coffee house in itzehoe, the one where fashion stores and bored
waitrsesses rule. Any coffee house is a mere illusion, the things that we as patrons gain from it,
the view from the seat of the patron, the customer. How do thse watering holes look from the
perspective of the people who work there. Who make their living to cater to the freak whims of
the customers. The market, the market, late capitalism how does it work? She will read up on it,
she will, she will. In tw days from now she will have acdoctors appointment, an injection into her
eye. Sounds more dramatic than it is, it has basically the feel lof an euye drop.
7.55.
Author and hr right shoulder. Tis is what writing is all about. If you have a good enough shoulder
muscular in your right arm then yo can be a good enough writer. Autor here broke her shoulder,
dislocated it, which now is aoliability in her career as a writer. The overuse of her humerus, a an
occupational hazard. She sits hunched over, that too is caused by her constant sitting at the
typewriter, the typing machine.
11.
Matlock is not on as of yet, you first have to sit thru the black and white world of perry mason.
While the greenery outside sways slightly up and down, diagonally, forcefully. Te first day in
june, the first day of summer. Wghen does summer officially start up? Who makes up this stuff

285

here? She feels like going out and having a shortcake donut whatever that is, whoever heard of a
strawberry shortcake donut. A wicked play on the concept of cronuts.
14 and then some.
The writer and her laptop. The books on the bokkshelves. The planrts near the window. The
paper basket. The telly that is silent. The green coucjh with the new too firm upholstery. Te
writer in her isolation. The writers studi. Te telier. The place the space here it all happens. All of
the words all of the words. She should spi n words about goblins, about te political issues of the
day. About medical conditions, aches, pains. She should write about stroichometry, geometry.
There is so mcy much to write on. There are stories to be invented, there are stories to be retold.
Te nigt before she saw the movie charly, mainly because apparently the actor ho played
seinfelds dad, well, the third actor in that role had nbeen on charly. Shenever noticed that. She
loved charly. It was such an everinintriguinfg story. The ascent from simpleton to genius and the
subsequent fall fom grace, the fall that was deeper than the original stte carly started from. It is
how hu,ans are, it is the arc of human life in general. That is what makes the story so compelling
so universal. The quest for greatness, the impossibility of greatness, everything is fleeting, the
strory hillustrates eternal hope and eternal failure, Sisyphus, Sisyphus. You struggle, you conquer
only to fail again. Anfd you diust yourself up, and try again as if nothing has heappened. The
fruitfulness of the journey itself, the pleasure, the njoyment that lies in there. Tehe never ending
motion here. Aiutho I s getting a tad to universal, a tad too philosophical. Time to get out to gt
that strawberry shortcake donut here. They sell it at oakridge, in the right conrner in the back of
the foodcourt. There is always always a long long line here.
4.

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96 095. 9:07. June 1, 2016. Vancouver, bc. In the AM section of the day. It is reluctantly sunny
outside here.
Nine-Seven.
You are a good writer. Thank you nope, you miost certainly suck. The writer fighting with her
alter-ego. What makes you think tat you can write? I always got good grades in a school
environment for my words, in any language. Others, teachers they evaluated me as a geofted one,
good enough with words. A superbe wordsmith. Sometimes, they woyld gush, sometimes they
would just listen. Ah, so, so, but actually they all woud clap. They all would acknowledge her
knack for putting in te right words to describe a situation. They woyuld anser, dispute her
statements, refute them, mock them only to acknowledge the validity of her words later on.
Words are the lifeblood of our very essence, our very being. We like to hear ourselves utter
sounds. This is what was not there when the great big gorilla and the small child interacted in the
Cincinnati zoo. That is where it all went wrong. That is why animals should not be held in
captivity so that others should gawk at them. Kaley cuoco had it all right in her tweet. Even in
the gym, after a workout and total sewting, the early morn crew started up te discussion sbout the
coincinnati zoo incident. Whatever is on the news becomes pur news here. Apparently you
should be amish and not watch what is going on non te gtelly in oder to maintain your sanity. Be
not part of the machine, defy it ilently, quietly, inobtrusively. Your silent protest by nonparticipation.
SEVEN_NINE.
Later on, she will live in the wasteland of copy-editing. Going thru all of these words that she
blurted out, correcting them, ordering them, cutting out the bullshit. Somebody else should do

287

that, somebody with distance, somebody who is not in love with her amazing words, her
articulate innovative inventions. Her stellar sentences. She herself is far too involved to do that.
How can you both produver and critic. Evaluate what you yourself constructed. Formed. Well,
good good luck with theat later on here.
9.
Roger and the stroopwafel. He still lives on, there will be a sequel. The writer on his way to
Amsterdam, the writer from Amsterdam.
7.
The last chapter, this is basically the conclusion. The finishing point to a writing frenzy that
lasted for two months straight. Double the national novel writing month.!Undefined Bookmark,
N a longer book. One she will sift thu to take thehaff away. Eliminate the superfluous words. The
ones that are not needed. As if any of the words in a boo are needed. Who wntas literature
nanyways? When you can see the movie? The live performance with the claping at the end and
the flowers for the main actor. While the lowere actors loo full of jealous glee on and try to
remain stoic. Their turn will come too, later in their career. Or never ever. Gotta die trying. And
the humerus is acting up and actin up here.
2.
Back at the typing machie. She watched those commercials for mazda, it is actually the same 30
minute lond ad that she watches over and over again, it would be nice if she knew how to loop it,
but apparently you have to push the start button after it is finished so that it will repeat from te
beginning. There is no automaytocally looping device on the software which is so vr y annoying
when you are the kind of person who likes to listen in to all in pblack by the ro;;ong stones for
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days on nd. With recordplayers you could do that it would play the same soeg over and over, but
with digital stuffi musffi that does not work well except or vine, there you have a loop but she is
not quite sure where there is an audioloop device for you tube maybe there is. Anyhoo, typing
here still typing here. And, yep, driving matters. The miata cannot be w all wrong here.
5-3

Back at the typing machie. She watched those commercials for mazda, it is actually the same 30
minute lond ad that she watches over and over again, it would be nice if she knew how to loop it,
but apparently you have to push the start button after it is finished so that it will repeat from te
beginning. There is no automaytocally looping device on the software which is so vr y annoying
when you are the kind of person who likes to listen in to all in pblack by the ro;;ong stones for
days on nd. With recordplayers you could do that it would play the same soeg over and over, but
with digital stuffi musffi that does not work well except or vine, there you have a loop but she is
not quite sure where there is an audioloop device for you tube maybe there is. Anyhoo, typing
here still typing here. And, yep, driving matters. The miata cannot be w all wrong here.
5-3
96 944. At five to ten. Matlock it is, matlock it is here.
5-3. once more again. Play it again baby.
The last minutes of perry mason. Thank you mister mson. Perry is smoking, lighting up a
cigarette. It is over, the credits over law books, the iconic music. The white script reading
Raymond burr. He was originally from Burnaby, you know. Me tv from seattle, me tv.and

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matlock it is. Ah a morning on the sunny west coast. In boerdomland. The isolation of a writer.
Any writer, anyone who is not working in ano office. There are still creatures like that, you
know. They too roam this planet in oblivion though.
TEN.
Watch your show, writing has to wait here.
ELEVEN.
97 066.
ONE.
A murder suicide at ucla.
TWO.
3000 words and we have 100 ooo. What to show for for a two month work. Though technically
she copied and pasted at least 40 000 out of texts she wrote last year. So, technically it is merely
the writing of 60 ooo words, 30 000 per month. Which is less than a month in November when
nanowrimo is going on, where you have to write 50 000 words in one month and lots of times
you can finish those in fifteen days. One woman finished all those 50 000 words in 17 hours.
Which means how many words per minute? Writing is more like algebra, not like forming nice
sentences. To have tabs on the wordcount, to have a good accountant to count all of those words.
The times of insightful words is over, all that count is the wordcount. And pun is intended here.
THREE.

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Two women talking about hot pepper relish. One of them has a british accent. The woman who
usually has her hair open, now has it in an up-do. There is so much going on on the screen. Ah,
the telly. We have to write a novel about this telly.
The novelwriters are all fighting with their words. Here.
722.
The text is all over te place, different characters, different locales. It is kind of like at the end of a
musical, all the actors come to the stage and take abow. This is how this very book functions,
people walk in and out, make an appearance, leave, the passages are put into little chiunks which
are not numbered chronologically, it is all artsy fartsy and a tad chatic. The anarchy of words, the
potpourri on the page. It is one and twenty minutes in the afternoon, we have 97 359 words.
Five-three.
A discussion about how many friends a person can handle. Something about ghosting and what it
means. And there will be achef named rocco on Monday on the show which is called city line.
And now the rivago guy who is sharing his insights. And now an ad for downey fabric softener
in a light blue plastic container. Yup, this is what author here writes about, the stuff that is
crawling over therectangle screen in the corner. While the sunny greenery is happening outside.
There still is no plot worth mentioning here and we are fine with that. Not every book has to
have a linear narrative. Some books are better off without them. Not everything is abou the story,
there are a millin on stories on this planet, and fiction always straddles non-fiction anyways.
Mixed-fiction works in books on the bookshelf. Tactile items, which books of course are. Then
again, you can read a text on a screen at any time. 97 359.
573.
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A man on te telly talking about pollen. What to do to get rid of pollen after you have been
outside.
574.
Judge judy while she is rolling her eyes. A man and a woman. It is not quite clear what is going
on. The woman has a thick new York accent and a very mideastern look.
555.
Mike and molly. Laughtracks here.
734.
Curious George.
777.
Bck to mike and molly. Stories to write about while watching the songs on the telly. Stories that
come to you. Narratives that are kind of illogical. Not very well-constructed. Without a stern
foundation. Stories as sturdy as a house of cards.
732.
Once more the story of the writer in itzehoe. Or the one in bankastarti. The one in nyc, the one in
Zurich , several different nes in Vancouver, one in Oregon. Which is not true, there was no writer
in Oregon, but there were divers ones in nyc. New York is where it is all happening. The city that
rules publishing. Well, except for London in the UK. Coffeehouses where people are having hot
beverages and writing teir heatrts out. The quest for the right wording. The right sentence. A
never ending journey and the weather outside is miffy, way too miffy for the first of june here.

292

753.
The numbers are illogical, they just are. It is part of the idiosyncrasy of this particular text here.
Maybe she should write a manual about how to read this text. In order to work sgainst the
confusing parts of the text. Then again, all texts are kind of confusing. She never had aclue about
all those characters she read about in the novels in the American lit class. It was all pretty fishy
here.
711.
200 words and we hacve 98 thou.
7-1.
Sne is faking asleep by all the descripts of different locales the world over. It is all about different
streetnames and buidings made out of concrete or wood. With windows, holes made out of
gallsss. That either open or do not. People walking on the street, sitting in coffee houses. Sipping
espressos. There has to be more interesting stuff to describe here. She should take a creative
writing class. Or read another nice enough book here.
5-5.
I00 words. Mike and molly on their respective bridal showers.
555.a.
Now two and a half men. A commercial for something called storyland. A skincream
commercial. Aveeno. By Jennifer aniston. She is the spokeswoman. Rachel green is all grown up.
And we are at the bottom of page 294. The story the nonstory is slowly letting out here.

293

5-2-7.
Bankastrati. Once more the description of Reykjavik. Author here has never been there. But she
can collage all of the images on tripadviser and yelp together. It is as if you have walked those
streets in person. News footage, you tube videos. You do not need to do your research in person.
Just push the right buttons on your laptop here.
SEVEN-TWO.
The veggie food is kind of too much. It just stays in your throat somehow. But apparently it is
good for yer. Better than ice creams and double chocolate milanos. But not that yummy. Yup,
these are her insights that she cares to share with the world.
5-6.
Charlie harper, alan harper. Laughs.
9-2.
98 092 words. 2:06 PM. June 1, 2016.
9-3.
An ad for dunkin donuts. A part of 2 broke girls. The episode witbthe maid. And laughtracks that
kind of interrupt the speakings. It is not that the laughing is over when people speak, lots of times
the persons talk over the laughing. Ouside it is still pretty miffy and it gets miffier by the minute.
Inside here it is really really chilly. 98 165 words at 3:37 in the afternoon. On june one.
9-7.
98 177.

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9-7.c.
The writer and her typewriter. She smokes, she drinks, she writes.
9-1.d.
The coffee house in itzehoe. The cake tahat crumbles perfectly. The whiffs from the cup with
peppermint tea. The three women near the window. Chatting a way. The wairess in bored
expression. Everything is just so. This is where it all happens. Where all the great plots are
plotted. On the other side of the street the fashion lady. In a slobbery hat ingreen. Kind of a
funnyesque fashion statement. Outside the rain is coming down. Author here will get wet on her
walk back to the station. But who cares, at this time she is happily drumming way on her laptop.
Which she will pack all up so that it will not get wet once this stay here in the coffee place is all
done, all ini.
FIVE-TWO.
800 words to finish this or at least to get to the next round thousand number. All of these words
ah all of these words here. Author feels like ice cream. A run out down to the market. A walk by
the aisles of the grocery place. A tub of French vanilla frozen dessert. But it will not happen. Iron
will power, will ;power above all else. There are words to be typed, a masterpiece waiting to be
penned. The finishing touches, the finishing touches.
NINE-THREE.
The greenery is silent. Some red flouers.
SEVEN-EIGHT.
Random numbers at the beginning of passages of words.
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SEVEN-SEVEN.
Wether in nyc so near to the weather in Vancouver here. Miffy weather all over the continent.
Author here has nothing to write about. All the words are already used up.
SEVENTY-ONE.
1500 words, could be a short story. A love story aka a romance. Or a whodunit. A mystery
waiting to be solved.
SEVENTY-TWO.
Up the stairs to the writing studio, by the people who are lounged there, to the cubby, and then to
the desk place. Firing up the laptop. Her words will be read once they are done. Later on she will
go down and get cookies by Melissa,
THREE,
A reading in this trendy place in Williamsburg. It her turn to read. She puts on her glsses, reads
poetry. Applause. She takes a bow. She is not aggravated. Handles the situation like a pro.
FIVE.
He walks by the limmat. Towards the lake. He writes every morning. In English while the world
around him happens in schwytzerduetsch. Yup, that is nick for yer.
THREE AGAIN.
Roger and the stroopwafel. He might change his place, move out of the walk-up in kits and either
more towards oak or to the other side, nearer to theunversity. Either way, he will keep up his
writing. It will go somewhere it hasto. And he isstill having stroopwafels on arbutus.

296

TEN.
On the telly., big bang and all of the laughs.
TWELVE. TWELVE.
The credits, the theme song. While outside is a miffy green. Relly way too dark for a summer
afternoon. An always rainy city. Which is actually non-accurate. There is no rain. Just fresh
overcastyness. The right weather for a writer. The dreary, slightly dreaminess of clouds in the
sky, not enough light. It is a mulmy feel that will work well for forming sentences. Like a motor
slashing the words forward. Soitting them out. An ad for a matreess. Ombrady and the Jordan
furniture store. All out of boston. And a commercial that once more reinstates the eternal truth
that America runs on dunkins.
NINE. A.
A reiteration of the descript of different coffee houses, again again again. The pastry that is
served. This is what binds her words together. That is the subject matter. Different baked goods
waiting to be devoured with hot beverages. And every meal is slightly different. The mystery of
what the writer will order. Depending on how much it cots. The usual meal of a writer is five
dollars worth. Which is fifteen bucks per day. Majke that twenty. Yup, more like twenty. Too
much for a writer who moves thru the world without ever seeing the distribution of her words.
And save, save here.
TWO.
A walk by union square,. She will not go up to the writing studio. She will just straight walk
down to the meat packing. By pratt. Straight up to the highline. She could check out the new

297

whitney. She has seen images, phoptographs, but not the eal thing as ogf yet. Thre is a purse by
max mara modelled after the bulding by Renzo piano. Anyhoo, walking ah walking. She might
catch a coffee on her way. Step in front of step. Up 14th.
EIGHTY.
Seven more words and she has, one, 98 960. It is all about counting the words. That is her subject
matter, yay, still another so very nonsensical sujevct matter. Absurd sentences, te illogical flow of
the story. The antistory par excellence here.
She feels like a beer but it is still late afternoon. Not quite the time to start boozing in this city
here.
THIRTY.B.
99 018 words at four and nineteen in the afternoon.
THIRTY.F.
She could stop her writing at this worddcount or she could go on until she reaces 100 thousand
words. Choices there to be made.
ZERO.
A different number at the bginning of the word passage, though it does not reaaly make sense
here.
ONE.
99 p073 words.
TWO.
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At the top of page 300. The actors on the screen in the comicstore, stewart and leonart. Writing
while the story plays out. A campaign ad against a senator. A woman in boston. Maggie hassan.
One can see her image on the screen and the speaker against her is a woman too. An ad for
xfinity. An ad for ice cream. Makes you want to go out to buy icecream. Vanilla, vamnilla is the
best. These are our insights here. Nothing special, nothing deep. It is more the fun of writing.
Just like playing the piano. The obseesssion with pushing down keys on a keyboard little
swquares. And the fun of leaving a trace. We have been her a monument to that. This is what I
did for two months. I too wrote a novel. Anovel on novelwriters. On the process of writing. 99
220 word of it. So far.
FIVE.
99 228.
ELEVEN.m.
Longhorn steakhouse. That is what the commercial is about our new hawaian grilled steak. An ad
by a man with glasses who is against a woman who apparently does not understand seniors. A
commercial for big bang. Right within big bang. Funny, huh.
72.
A movie about the costume designer of big bang. The wardrobe of howard wolowitz. Wow. Very
ordered. And confusing.
73.
Still some more words here. A slight plot that is still somehwee hidden. The story that does not
go anywhere. Stagnation in words. A loop.
299

74.
And we have 300 pages here. Times new roman. Doublespaced. With tab indents at the
beginnings of paragraphs. Lots of little passages. On te telly, still the big bang theory. The telly
telling its songs. Singing its songs. And now amy and Sheldon. 700 words and we have 100 000
words here. One of many 100 000 word long books. They can be puvblised in aneat little book, a
small package. What is the commonest number of words that make a book? 100 000 is such s
nice round number. Manageable. And the trees will cry. She has to do much more resaercgh sbou
the publishing industry. Where are most of them bound. The north east? Oregeon?
76.
Staring at the blank screen while trying to come up with stuff. A boring occupation. As much fun
as watching paint dry. A new show. The closer. The music is catchy. And so very retro.
77.
500 words or so. The finishing touch or something like that. She is looking out the window on
her way to itzehoe. The raindrops, the flat land. The dreariness. The happy miffy weather. The
right mood for a writer. Better words are plastered on paper in this kind of weather. Freash
weather with dreary notes. A weather that makes you leave the bike inside and take out the car.
That makes you wear a yellow hat and yellow oily clothes. So that you do not get wet. Here in
Germany they call those hats southwestern. Not in the sttes though otr maybe they do. It can
catch on.
Anyhoo, she thinks about the rest of her words. The final goodbye. The words that are there for
the let out. In the same way that class lets out, school lets out. The finish of a book. Does it go
out with a bang or does it go out with a whimper. The long long goodbye. Author here will miss
300

these her days sitting hunched over at the typer. Thre will be other days, days of revisiting,
reviwewing. The big big edit. When you have to let go odf some of the passages. Cut them out.
Microsoft word makes it easy. And once they are cut you cannot retrieve them . they will be lost
forever. Editing will be trying for an obsessive hoarder of the kind that author here is. And who
talks about herself in the third person. The absurtdity of thlife of a writer ouside it is getting
sunny, sunnier. 300 words left to write. Go for it.
FIVE-TWO.
Smart talking by the woman who plays the closer. She is no columbo. Ah well, detective movies
are all the same. The hunt for the criminal. In exactly one hour. The talking in increments. An
ambulance siren on the screen. A talk about the coroner. Must be a homicide. Camilla Santiago.
Is that the victim? Suspenseful music and an ad for a toothpaste with stronger fluoride. More
fluoride. An ad for a deodoramnt. Please, let us once more know that America runs on dunkins.
Agh, an ad for reeses snacks. And and ad for adating service here. 150 words left. Babble
something. Ghibberish. In writing you can always change it later. But once it is out there you
cannot recall. So maybe publishing is not an option. It is not for the faint of heart. A reading in
Williamsburg. The latenite walk back to the L-station. Ah. Maybe we should really reconsider
this writing biz. 100 words from 99900 to 100 000. Al, these numbers all thses numbers. That is
her subject matter : NUMBERS. Will they ever get along with letters? Apparently they already
are.
FIVE_FIVe.
Seventy little words. Before going out to have a marble loaf cake piece on arbutus, in the coffe
house tat will close at eight, that closes down on Saturdays at six thirty. A coffe, or maybe merely

301

a tea. No caffeine after a certain time oin the day. Twenty words, nine, we are there we are there.
Yup, 100 000 in two months. Ouside the sky can e seen behind the greenery, the sky is peaking
out just all in whiiet and all in white here. 100 018., 5:20 PM. June 1, 2o16. An afternoon like
any othr here.

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