10,000 Words

Painting borrowed from Bing


I Am Going To Write 10,000 Words Today


I'm going to write today if it kills me.
I'm going to write 10,000 words,
10,000 amazing words.
I'm going to be James Joyce,
I am going to invent words
that scholars from far and wide
will gasp out loud about
and devote courses to me.
I'm going to have a plaque over my door
that tour buses will drive by and wonder
how such a normal house could contain
such writing genius.

I'm just going to make
the school lunches first
of course.
Such motherly devotion,
I should be in a Renoir painting,
-Mother nurturing her young-
hanging in the Louvre, perfect
tasteful morsels in two lunchboxes,
sun-ripened peaches and blocks of cheese
ripening in wax paper.

O.K. someone forgot to go to Tesco last night,
it'll have to be plastic cheese
and I'm sure half a blackened banana
each will be fine. Do I have to do everything here
for crying out loud ?
Did James Joyce stop writing
to find sports kit
or sponge yesterday's uniforms
to make them look linen-fresh ?
I don't think so.

Ok, I'm going to write 5,000 words today,
less is more of course.
Children despatched to school,
off to nurture their minds
or build up more requests
for Nintendo games and Ugg boots.

But I am above such monetary concerns,
I am Joyce and Beckett combined,
words spinning in my brain dripping with beauty.

The 'spinning around' reminds me
to load the washing machine
and while I'm at it the dishwasher.
Did Jane Austen have to put up with such racket?
Machines are removing me from my genius writing zone.

I'm at one with my desk and my keyboard.
The masterpiece will begin.....
I'm just going to clean the keyboard,
someone was eating what looks like
the contents of a bread factory on it last night.
Oh, God the sun is shining,
I'm going to be all 50's housewife now
and hang my darling family's clothes on the line.

I'll be at one with nature,
phrases about sun and birdsong
already leaping into my brain
to battle their way into my masterpiece.....
Who took the bloody pegs ??
Blinking school projects, half my household supplies
have made their way into classrooms
attached to monstrosities created late
in the evening labelled 'art'.

Back to the keyboard and I begin my work.
I modestly title it 'The Masterpiece'.
It's starting flipping raining,
out to the garden, not feeling so
at one with nature now I can tell you,
wet underwear dimming my mood a tad.

OK. now it's lunch time,
creep creep goes the clock accelerating
towards the witching hour
that is school pick up time.
Even Joyce had to eat, for God's sake,
plastic cheese and the last blackened banana it is.
I'll eat fast and get 1,000 words in,
I'll be realistic and compose the other 4,000 words
in my head at the school gate,
while pretending to listen to the other mothers
tell me about X factor.

I'm a creative genius, dammit,
I'm allowed be weird and pale and interesting.
OK, it's the witching hour,
the masterpiece will have to wait.
I'll just write my shopping list,
it'll be good writing practice.

Tomorrow, I'll write tomorrow, I know I will,
I'm going to write 10,000 words tomorrow,
actually 20,000 amazing, insightful words.
I'm going to do it if it kills me.................

Brigid O'Conner

Posted over on her site Sort of Writing
Listed as #30 over on Magpie Tales 66