I read a blogpost from a writer who was describing a leap of productivity she had managed to attain.

She had figured out a way to write 10,000 words a day.

Ten Thousand words a day!

WOw. If I could achieve that sort of productivity, I would be able to be a prolific writer.

I had come up with my own ideas about how much a writer could writer. But this woman describes some really practical ways to make it possible to write like crazy.

hm.

Now all I need is to figure out what story I want to tell.

heh. Yes, there is that.

Reading Main Street by Sinclair Lewis

I’ve thought many a time that if I had time to do nothing but write, I would blog the books I’m reading as I read them. My opinions and discoveries in the books change a lot over the course of the reading of them.

Right now little Carol is having a hard time adjusting to life as the wife of a small-town prairie doctor. Her struggle at this moment is having to ask her husband for money every day. Money to EAT.

The lack of freedom and autonomy in such a system leaves me chilled. Here is the reality:

Refrigerators and other food preservation techniques were in their infancy. If one wanted to eat meat for dinner, it had to be purchased that day and eaten that day. Leftovers were very tricky. Not tricky because they were boring and unappealing. Tricky because they might POISON you because they had turned bad overnight.

Credit cards and ATMS were far in the future. The 20s version of credit cards was having the storekeeper keep a tab for you. In Carol’s case, the grocer didn’t give credit. So.

The lovely graciousness of having a servant and a parlour was more than mitigated by having to ASK HER HUSBAND FOR MONEY EVERY DAY.

EVERY DAY.

TO EAT.

And the forward-thinking solution to this degrading dilemma?

The husband should give her an allowance

Oh ladies. Ladies, ladies, ladies. Let us never forget.

less than a year ago, I’d been celebrating my son’s first birthday, and his wife Julie had smiles for him.  He was about to be promoted. THe promotion came and Julie went.

There seemed to be no telling with life. You get lucky, but not everyone agrees that you get to keep your luck.

Julie said she wouldn’t stop him if he wanted to move across the country to be near her and the boy. But it wasn’t his idea of a way to start a new life together-but-not. ‘Come on along! I won’t set the law on you!’

Operations manager of the drugstore, though, he’d had higher hopes for that. Because it was only one step away from store manager, and store manager was the way to go. That was a darn good career.

Operations manager was a lot more responsibility, which meant he had a reason not to go home. Because home wasn’t much to write home about. Heh.

Wasn’t work supposed to be the best part of his life? But here was death in the breakroom.

Of course it had to be my birthday.

I was 25, sucking a marlboro alone in the drugstore breakroom. Can I borrow that lighter? he asked

I handed it over before I looked. But then I saw him. The grim reaper was bumming a smoke. How does a skull smile? I suddenly knew.

“Thanks”

“Mother of God!” I said before I could help myself. I wanted to ask what he was doing there, but as soon as I formed the question I already knew the answer.

“It’s not yet, is it?”

“Don’t worry,” he said. “You’ve got years yet.”

My years in armored vehicles during deployment had given me familiarity with this drill. I knew this hooded skeleton.

“THen why are you here?”

He dragged full on the cancer stick. Oh, I guess for him it wouldn’t be. “It’s nice to have a place where I am known and where I know how it’s going to be”

So we were friends now. “But why now? ”

His draped shoulders lifted “It’s your birthday. YOu seemed like you could use the company”

Damn. My life had abandoned him so thoroughly that even death felt sorry for me. It wasn’t supposed to turn out this way.