Last night I hoped to stay up a bit late and reward myself, maybe with a Simpsons episode and some scotch, for a job well done on my first NaNoWriMo day. But instead I found myself quite sleepy, so 10 minutes in to "The Simpsons" I got ready for bed. However, as I was brushing my teeth, I figured out the next two "blocks" of writing for the book. What's cool is that I had no idea what Paula was going to do to Ben when I wrote yesterday's piece, but once I figured it out, it gave me a key way to introduce another important character, probably tomorrow.
It's quite easy to treat writing a novel, especially one with a few planned twists and turns, as a puzzle -- a literary SUDOKU, almost. You arbitrarily fill in some spots, and then you realize that they mess up something else, so you have to go back and erase... but the nice thing with NaNoWriMo is that the "erasing phase" is somewhat limited. You don't really have time to change your mind.
So I was looking forward to getting up this morning at 7:00am and writing until 9:00am. I think I actually woke up around 6:40, but since I don't have a clock right next to the bed (I have to grope around for my phone, and I'm pretty blind without my contacts in) I am never sure. But, with a little dozing and extra dreaming, I didn't get up until 7:20... and then I remembered that client emergency from yesterday, which still wasn't entirely resolved.
So, I decided I'd make the client the priority, since that task wouldn't take me until past 9:00, and then the first part of my work morning would be NaNoWriMo-ing (the nice thing about running the business is that I can choose to call NaNoWriMo "work", and no one can argue -- but really, I'm careful to make sure I'm not "stealing time" from my employees.)
Well, 9:00 rolled around and there was email to be read. I've decided email is the biggest devil to NaNoWriMo-ing. There's always spam to delete, surveys to fill out, special offers to consideer... I tried to be quick about it, but every time I went to close the email, another message came in.
One friend of mine is insistent on checking his email only once a day (and even says as much in his tag line). I imagine that cuts down on the email stress, but when you're running a company on Internet time, usually 24 hours is too much delay. For example, I got a phone call today from someone I work with at Northeastern, who had sent me an email about a conference paper submission earlier in the week. Granted, I had mislaid the email (as happens when you don't respond to mail as soon as you get it), but still... it turns out that there's a paper I should be writing for a November 5th deadline. Whups. That's Sunday.
Well, I decided I wouldn't jump on that, and that maybe I'll do it if I get ahead on NaNoWriMo by a full day's worth of text, but then came email from my agent. I can't go into the details (in fact, this blog would have many more entries if I were able to go into details about parts of my career), but let's just say that Major Company A and Major Company B need their products combined to create Synergistic Product C... and somehow a product my company has been working on may get added into the mix, but only if we actually step in and stitch up the Frankenstein monster ourselves. So, a few hours lost to that.
Then there's the usual staff meetings, random employee/friend emails and IMs, and suddenly it's 5:00 and my brilliant plan of getting writing out of the way first is shot. So then there's grocery shopping and the gym and dinner out with friends. But I slip in a few words between the gym and dinner, so I know when I get home I can finish this off before midnight (which, although there's no "rule" that you have to stick to 1,667 words before midnight, I am determined to do for my own sanity). I have less than one full drink at dinner and head off while everyone else is still having fun. I pop by Starbucks, but they've just closed, so I make myself some tea when I get home. Then I add a little scotch to loosen myself up...
The writing flows pretty well. I get through the scene between Paula and Ben, and then I again surprise myself by writing a transition that takes me to a different scene than I expected. And, at the end of that following scene, I do it again. At that point, though, I've hit my word count for the day, so I write the first sentence of the next scene as a placeholder, and I hope that I'll surprise myself with more good ideas before I fall asleep.
Now I'm off to do some quality cuddling with the boyfriend, so without further ado, here's my second day writing from QWERT, picking up in the middle of the scene I started yesterday (note: there is some italicization in the conversations which wasn't picked up in the copying and pasting to the blog. Italics are kind of a writer-crutch anyway, so I hope you can read where they were intended just by context!).
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“What did I do now, Paula?” Paula grins for the first time in my five years of knowing her. I have no future.
“It’s not what you did,” she says. “It’s what you’re going to do.” She’s teasing me now. I can tell. But it bothers me that I can tell, because that means she’s letting her guard down.
She continues: “I just had my cred limit advanced again, and we’re going to celebrate!” Now I’m just confused. “Do you know how?” I shake my head “no”; it’s all I can manage in this strange turn of events. “One of the perks of my new status is that I can recommend one internal promotion per quarter, and I’ve decided that, since your contract here is up next week, you’re going to be the first!” She pauses to let this sink in.
It’s sinking, in the pit of my stomach. But wait. Maybe this is the moment where she finally accepts me as her near son-in-law. Maybe this is the moment where she says that I’m like family, and that she wants me to feel closer to hear. Or, maybe it’s a case of “keep your friends close, but your enemies closer.” Why am I so damned suspicious? I should really talk to someone about that.
“So tomorrow you leave for the Googleplex in Beijing,” Paula continues.
“China?!”
“Yes! It’s your dream job! I know you’ve never been happy as a data cleaner, and now you can get right in there in the heart of the coders!”
“But… China?!’
“Oh come on, Ben, you know it’s the best workplace for the top coders! How could you say no?”
“But… Trixie!” I’m so flustered I forget how much Paula hates that pet name for her daughter.
“Melanie will be fine,” she says. “This separation will be good for you. Give her some time to think about what she wants. And, once you’ve finished a five year rotation,” and here she grins like the Queen of Hearts and claps her piggy little hands together, “if you two crazy kids are still in love, then it must be meant to be!”
“Maybe she’ll come with me!” Even as I say it, I see where this is going.
“No no! We’ve already discussed it! I wouldn’t want to stand in the way of true love, of course, so I asked her if she could bear your departure, and she said yes. Quite easily, I might add. Do you really think she’d go anywhere near the Googleplex?”
“But I should talk—“
“Listen, Ben. Here’s the deal: You can take the job, or you can go work for another company. Hah!”
I’m reminded of a 20th century aphorism: “My company, love it or leave it!” Even the ergs know that the only place for a qwert is Google. Anywhere else, and you might as well be a lud. For a moment, I question my love for Trixie: is it really worth risking 5 years slumming it at Microsoft? Does anyone even buy Microsoft appliances anymore outside of government surplus stores? They’re haven’t even been traded on the CredEx in, what, 20 years? So the victorious “Hah!” from Paula is justified. She’s won. Unless…
Unless I really do love Trixie that much. Maybe this is the wakeup call I’ve needed. We’ve been kind of coasting along, doing our thing, but that’s pretty much where we’ve been for 80% of the three years we’ve been together. We could just be roommates who occasionally have really, really hot sex. But no. I think there’s something more there. I wish Dag were here. He can read me like no one else. He’d know what I was thinking. I’ll have to review this brog entry later and see if I can’t figure myself out. But for now, I’m not getting out of this chair without an answer so…
“Is there any alternative?”
“Yes. You can leave, or I can fire you. You’re very good at what you do, but come on, you know you’re skating on the edge of authority anyway.”
“Or…?” I keep hoping.
“Ooooooooooorrrrr,” she says, gargling the word around in her mouth like a fine wine. “You can take a job here in the KinderCare division that just opened up.”
She wants me to become a nursery school teacher?! “Listen, lady, what do you have against me? Because it sounds like I’m not going to be working for you anymore, no matter what happens, so you may as well tell me. You’ve got so much more cred than me that there’s no way I could take you down, so you may as well level with me.”
She gives me the most wide-eyed innocent look ever, like a goldfish that’s just been caught eating its own shit. “What ever do you mean? This is a great opportunity, and if you can’t see that, then clearly you have no place in this organization! You’re unhappy, Ben. And I can help you to change that.”
“Bullshit. You’re unhappy that Trixie is dating me, but I don’t get why. I’m a nice guy. I shower daily. I bring home a decent paycheck. And it’s not like she cares about my cred—“
“—but I do,” Paula interrupts. “Look, Ben. I’ll level with you: I don’t like you. I don’t like how my daughter has chosen to live her life. And I don’t like anyone who’s encouraging her to live as she is now.”
“You’re mad at me because Trixie’s a lud??
“No, I’m not mad at you. But I don’t like you because you encourage her behavior. Before she met you, do you know how close I was to getting her back into school to make something of herself? She’s a smart girl, she’d probably be running a division by now. But you know what? She was finally figuring out that being a lud is kind of lonely. I mean, it’s one thing to be taken for granted by ergs, but to have your friends and family look down on you? That’s got to be rough. Of course I’ve never looked down on her, but I’ve always known she could do better. And I’ve always tried to steer her towards that. But then you come along, and you thing its ‘neat’ to have a lud for a girlfriend. What did you say once, it’s kind of like dating a lesbian?”
I open my mouth to protest, but she holds up a hand to stop me. “Yes, things get back to me. A mother always knows, you know. At any rate, just when I thought she might settle down into a nice regular job, you have to go and encourage her to be her own person.”
“Don’t you want your daughter to be who she is?”
“That’s who she thinks she is. But I’m her mother. I know better. And, believe it or not, I know what’s best for you, too. KinderCare puts you in direct contact with ergs. One right move, and you can rack up more cred in a day than you’ve lost all year.”
“What if I break up with her?” I’m not really asking that, I’m just testing the waters. Or at least that’s what I’d like to tell myself, but faced with the possibility of dealing with ergs without the barrier of a monitor between us, I’m not entirely sure.
“No, that won’t do it. She’d know I was behind it, and then she might not speak to me for another two years. So what will it be: your dream job in Beijing, or my dream job for you here?”
“Can I think about it?” I really want to go to talk with Dag.
“This offer will expire in 30 seconds… 29…”
“Fine! KinderCare!”
“Why, Ben Thayer, I’m surprised! Maybe we’ll all make a happy family, yet!”
@@@@@
I don’t feel much like part of a happy family when I get home.
“You’re doing what?!” Trixie asks, for maybe the third time.
“I’m a Level 2 Ergonomics Trainer,” I say. She knows what all this means. She just can’t believe it.
“You’re indoctrinating children into the cryptofascist hierarchy. Nice.”
“I’m teaching rich kids how to interact with their environment!”
“You’re brainwashing kids to be tomorrow’s oppressors!”
“Oh come on! Just because they’re rich doesn’t mean they’re the enemy!”
“God! Sometimes I can’t believe you! It’s not the money, it’s the access! Do you really think you or I could get the kind of information that they probably let their five-year-olds play with?”
“What are you talking about?” Trixie’s in radical rebel mode, so it’s not a rhetorical question. It’s a question of her rhetoric. I find myself almost agreeing with Paula for a second.
“I’m talking about how the world really works, Ben. I’m talking about why I took myself off the grid. And I’m beginning to wonder if you’ve ever really listened when I’m talking.”
Oh great. I’ve just signed a five-year contract at KinderCare to keep my relationship, and it may be gone before I even start. I take a deep breath. “Listen. I want for you what you want for you. But you have to recognize that there are things that I want, too. And this job could help me to get them.”
“You want cred.” She practically spits the word.
“No, I want comfort. For me and you.”
“That is so information class!”
“I’m a qwert. I am the information class. And so were you, before all this.” As soon as I say it, I know I’ve gone too far. Trixie turns as purple as her bandana.
“My mother put you up to this, didn’t she!”
“Well… yes.”
“That bitch! I’ll show her!” Trixie gets a maniacal grin on her face. “Fine, Ben. You take your job. You get your cred. You make mom happy. But at the end of the day, you know who’s going to be laughing? Me. Hah!”
I decide that if I want to get makeup sex out of the end of this fight, it would be best not to point out that Trixie’s “Hah!” sounds disturbingly like her mother’s.
@@@@@
It’s the middle of the day, so Trixie hasn’t had a chance to get in the last laugh yet, but Dag’s there filling in quite nicely for her. We’re at Beerhouse, celebrating my last day as a data cleaner.
