Baskin needed to write a second novel. There is only one problem. No one wanted the first.
“More coffee!” he shouts at Margaret, his wife.
Writers can be very demanding. Especially frustrated writers.
He has been up all night. Sitting at a keyboard, Baskin channels his inner Kerouac. Kerouac also wrote a novel no one wanted. Then waited ten years for publication. In the meantime he wrote ten more. This took a sort of insane courage, emphasis on insane.
Kerouac didn’t write every day. Or every year. But when he did start he didn’t stop. He poured it on, pounding out words night and day. ‘On the Road’, the book that put him over the top, was written in two weeks. He actually ran a teletype roll through a typewriter so he wouldn’t waste time pulling pages.
Baskin didn’t use a teletype roll. He didn’t have to. He had the modern equivalent, a computer. Margaret filled his cup. “And keep it coming,” he growled, fingers rattling the keyboard.
“When will this be done?” she asked.
“When it’s done.”
He paused. That was harsh. Tired as he was, nerve-frayed, bleary-eyed, Baskin didn’t want to lose the last person who believed in him. That wouldn’t be wise.
“Here’s the deal,” he said. “When I hit seventy thousand words, I’ll have a book.”
“But aren’t you worried about quality?” Margaret asked.
“I only write quality.” Spoken like a true writer. He resumed speed-typing.
An hour later Margaret realized things had been very quiet in her husband’s study. Too quiet. She crept up stairs. There was Baskin, face down on the keyboard. She looked over his shoulder.
The letter “Z” ran endlessly, page after page. Well, one good thing. He was sure to make his word count.
Richard Donnelly lives in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Classic flyover land. Which makes us feel just a little… superior. He publishes a weekly column of essays on the writing life at richarddonnelly.substack.com