As my friends know, I have been screwing around with becoming the next big thing because I am apparently leprous to people who are offering real jobs that reward employees with paychecks.  As pipe dreams go, mine are prolific; I’ve been using my enormous quantity of free time to write a story.  I bottomed out somewhere around December first.

I was having coffee with my friend Bob the other day.  Bob asked how my story was coming, and I answered truthfully.  Usually I lie about the story and tell everyone that it is flowing like a chocolate fountain at a wedding reception.  I said, “Bob, it sucks, buddy.  I can’t figure out how to end it.”

He says, “You should just stop and make that your end.”  Bobby has a great sense of humor, though he reads Sci-Fi I still love hanging out with him.  I laughed at his preposterous idea.

Last night I’m talking with Mrs. RoP, and I says to her, “I should just pretend like I’m done and stop.  No resolutions; just tragedy, tragedy.”  I laughed sheepishly.  Having read Dorian Grey last week, I wanted to kill off every character with lacerations and stab wounds, but that wasn’t fitting.

see what i mean?

Perhaps it was Molly’s jovial mood, or her countenance (she looked hotter than I have ever seen her look.  Not kidding!).  She tilted her head and leaned forward, creating a perfect basket pose like my therapist-friend, Clint.  “You should.”  Then she proceeded to draw the final scene out of me.  Muse.  She is a romantic-comedy type of gal who reads Nicolas Sparks and Jodi Picoult.  Ending things in chaos and disorder is not her preferred conclusion.

I wrote one horrible scene last week.  It was painful.  Pain usually allows people to change.  Characters in stories overcome pain and long-odds to become heroes.  In real life people just become increasingly acerbic and nasty.  So I pronounced my rough draft complete with frustration and bitterness and toil.

A couple of months ago Trinity Jordan asked me to speak on Ecclesiastes 2 at Elevation Church.  Since then I have been ruminating and rereading this awful chapter about how much life sucks, and consequently wondering why we call the bible The Good Book.  Polishing Ecclesiastes is like launching a couple bars of Dove into a pig pen, and then assuming the pigs are suddenly domesticated, ready to sit round your dining room table.

As humans, according to the Preacher, we are offered these tiny slices of redemption, reflections of the rejected Garden: eat, drink and find satisfaction in work.  These things are offered as a way to enjoy life while we attempt to fear God.  That’s it.

My rough draft is done.  I can’t believe it.  It has been the most satisfying thing I have ever done.  Now to eat and drink and then enjoy rewriting.  I am off to Office Max to buy an actual ream of paper and an ink cartridge.

Grace.