This is the Way it Works--Making Art in a Rude World

S.R. Karfelt/The Glitter Globe

My landline phone and my cell phone exist for the sole purpose of me making an outgoing phone call. Think I’m kidding? Ask my family and friends. Forget about the friends. They all left because I won’t even answer the phone when they call.

Here’s the thing. I write for a living. My entire day, nay, my life revolves around getting in front of the page. If you look around at my life, the organization will probably not be apparent. I promise you it’s there. I schedule everything around the writing day. It just happens to look like random heaps of paperwork, because that’s my method. You probably won’t get it. It’s very Common Core.

The amount of time devoted to getting words down is in direct proportion to where in the writing process I am. It waxes and wanes depending on if I’m first-drafting a book, playing WHY DO YOU HATE ME with an editor, or incorporating changes into a manuscript.

My family is normally aware of where I am in this process. During the waning of the script we jump out of airplanes, feast on food I actually cooked, or empty closets. Even during those times they know not to call me because I. Never. Answer. The. Damn. Phone.

A normal writing day looks like this:

• Slide out of bed like a slug.
• Ooze into the kitchen and consume something.
• Drop onto an exercise machine and Just Do It while loud music assails me.
• Hurl into the shower.
• Slide to the computer and COME TO LIFE.
• Write. Write. Write. Write. Write.

If anything interrupts this process, like a sunbeam or a puppy, or people TALKING directly to me with words, the last step is delayed. Possibly indefinitely, mostly for hours, and sometimes until tomorrow when the process begins again.

Judge if you must. I’m just saying this is how it works for me.

A ringing telephone doesn’t faze me. I can’t hear you. Pounding at the door? Nada. Once a meteorite sonic-boomed through the atmosphere. Please, girlfriend. I’m writing here. Maybe next time. Evolution has been kind. I’m impervious to normal interruptions.

But the Good Lord help you if you find a new and improved way to interrupt my writing. Those guys in suits selling salvation by ringing my doorbell incessantly, well, they’ve never been seen around these parts again, have they? The telemarketers who’ve managed to score not just my mobile number BUT my kid’s names to plug into their Caller ID in hopes that I’ll answer? I’ve got some words for them. And I’m not above using them. All the words. I’m a writer, I’ve got words. Want some? Do that again.

One of the great unsolved mysteries of the age, to me, is telemarketing. Who the *%@! buys anything from telemarketers? I want to know, and I want THEIR phone numbers, because the rest of humanity has some words for your a$$.

What I need is for my answering machine to automatically tell all telemarketers these facts. If you’re selling anything that I can’t live without, and that is the greatest deal on the planet, I do not give a shirt. In fact I’m the giver of zero effs for what you’re selling. EVEN if you’re GIVING AWAY the following I still DO NOT GIVE A SHIRT:

• Solid gold. All the gold. On the planet. Don’t care.
• Literal Screaming O’s on The Beach. Don’t care.
• All the freed House Elves from Harry Potter, to clean my house. Don’t care.
• The driver’s seat on the first Mission to Mars. Don’t care.
• The actual literal hover suitcase I’ve dreamed about all my life. Don’t care.
• All the vacations in all the places I want to go. Don’t care.
• The real Jamie Fraser who’s come to his senses, dumped Claire, and is looking for me. Don’t care.

Are you sensing a theme? Do. Not. Call. Me. The only regret I have about getting out of photonics is that we didn’t first invent a laser that would shoot out of the telephone and into the telemarketer’s ear, downloading this entire blog post, and perhaps also the supernatural ability to sneeze out their ears. We all know they can already talk out their…well, never mind.

Enough said.

Don’t call me.

WRITE me. TEXT me. Leave a COMMENT down below. I live for that shirt. xo