I bought a coffee and sat away from the door. I turned my phone off and removed the legal pad, sharpened for the first time all four pencils that’d be my ally in war for as long as they’d last, or for as long as I would. I took a long drink of coffee. Getting started is the hardest part. Write one sentence and go from there. You know the story. You know where it’s going, so go ahead and get on with it.
I tried to take every good and bad thing in my life and let go of it all, put all of it on the shelf so I could pick it up later. There was no place for any of it in my story. Let us stop worrying about ourselves. It’s Barrack Gray, my protagonist, who we worry about now. It is he who will be hit by the world and try with everything to hit back.
I had a paragraph after twenty minutes. The coffeehouse was still empty. There was something pleasurable about working while most of the world still slept. I had always worked best in the morning, though I didn’t anticipate being able to do it much because of my job.
It took another forty minutes to finish the first page. I counted the words in each line and wrote the numbers in the margin and tallied them up and had 357. Two more pages and I’d be done. Then I’d smile for the rest of the day.
I walked outside. The weather was mild but the wind barreled through the streets and the trees shook in the pale light of the coming day. I bounced on the balls of my feet. I could make it another two hours. I went back inside after ten minutes.
It took a long time to get started again, but when I did the words came easily and I kept at it until I had three and a half pages, 1,127 total words. A success by my definition. It was a quarter till ten. It had taken three and a half hours. I hoped it wouldn’t take that long every day.
“Take it easy, Stratton. Rushing these things only hinders quality. Remember, patience is a virtue.”
Fuck patience, I thought. I don’t have the time for it.