Blood from a turnip

This entry is part 8 of 24 in the series What's Left of My Life

I apologize to all those search engine bots that check my site. I’ll try to update regularly. I’m sure you’ve missed my lovely wit.

Actually, I’ve been doing some pen and paper writing. I’ve decided I’m going to prove my mom wrong, so I’m trying to get a couple chapters of my novel finished, edited, and polished.

It’s discouraging to stare at a legal pad, write a sentence, cross out half of it, rewrite the sentence, cross it out again, and so on — for something like eight hours at a time. I have a dictionary and thesaurus on one side, Dr Pepper and pretzels on the other, you know, to keep me occupied when I get lost in thought. I take breaks for meals and bathroom breaks.

I have no idea if what I’m writing is any good. Two days ago I despised it. Yesterday, the words barely elicited a reaction. Today, I find some of my first stuff passable; the new stuff, not so much. How can I devolve as a writer in three days?

I think I’ve got most of the main plot points worked out. It’s a little tricky because it’s a time travel story. It’s about this girl, she’s about nine when the story starts, but she can hurl herself forward in time. But she can’t go back. Something in her is driving her forward, but every time she Jumps, she finds herself alone again. She doesn’t want to be special, she wants to be normal, but there’s something she’s meant to do and she doesn’t know what it is.

You see, there’s this tower, this giant edifice that dominates the town where she lives, and she’s drawn to the tower. No one’s ever been inside. There’s no door, no windows, no entrance, no writing on the walls, nothing. She believes the answer’s in the tower, because all time travelers live near the tower. She’s obsessed with it. Every time she Jumps, it remains stationary, like a silent god eyeing the earth — eyeing her.

If I work hard, I should have two or three good chapters by Monday. I’ll show them to mom then. I’ll keep you updated. You web bots get bored if the site never changes, don’t you?

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