Back when I was a kid, I had a lot of records — proper LPs, the sort of thing that’s hard to find anymore. One of my records, no idea where it came from, was a comedy record for children: Some silly songs and a lot of rimshot-type jokes and skits around different themes. Jokes that probably got stolen and sanitized from bad vaudeville routines, way back when.
One of the jokes, one of the only ones I remember, was someone getting pulled over by a police car: “Ma’am, why were you speeding?” “I had to officer. I was low on gas and was hurrying to get home before I ran out.”
No, it wasn’t funny back then either.
Most days, the end of days, that’s how I am with writing. I’ve got a fairly narrow window between everything settling down and everything crashing to a halt.
There are pages in my current noteboook where you can literally watch me fall asleep in the middle of a sentence.
But there’s a ritual that’s been set and it’s working fairly well these days. Everyone’s off to bed, I find some Dragon’s Blood, my pens and notebook, and a glass of something* and then get to work.
And a candle. There’s usually one of those.
And music, sometimes. Something simple, something** with some space in it . . . but also some depth too.
(Insert obligatory Your Mom joke here.)
At any rate, I took a moment here to post this and now, of course, I need to get back to work before the tank runs dry.
Back to work…
* Tonight it’s a cheap Pinot Grigio.
** Past few nights, it’s the soundtrack to Ulysses’ Gaze
