{"id":1134,"date":"2015-01-18T11:00:28","date_gmt":"2015-01-18T19:00:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.bukkhead.com\/blog\/?p=1134"},"modified":"2015-05-08T11:03:21","modified_gmt":"2015-05-08T18:03:21","slug":"sing-us-a-song-youre-the-writer-man","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bukkhead.com\/blog\/2015\/01\/18\/sing-us-a-song-youre-the-writer-man\/","title":{"rendered":"Sing Us a Song, You’re The Writer Man"},"content":{"rendered":"

Postaday for January 18th: Pleased to Meet You<\/a>.\u00a0<\/strong>Write a post in which the protagonists of two different books or movies meet for the first time. How do they react to each other? Do they get along?<\/em><\/p>\n

It\u2019s nine o\u2019clock on a Saturday. Paul, the real estate novelist, is pounding away at his keyboard, furiously. He knows better than to used adverbs like \u201cfuriously,\u201d but he can\u2019t help it. He hasn\u2019t sold a house in several months. Or were it years. Music, ignored, pours out of speakers on either side of his computer screen. 20 plus years of collected MP3, and iTune set on random. He hears none of it.<\/p>\n

His fingers are sore. He doesn\u2019t care. His back is sore. He doesn\u2019t even feel it. Words pop up in staccato as his slow word processor tries to keep up with his rat-a-tat keyboard stabbing. But Paul\u2019s eyes are in between keyboard and screen. He\u2019s composing. He\u2019s decomposing.<\/p>\n

A knock on his door. Paul writes, \u201che gets up and answers it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Light from the hallway haloes a figure in an evening gown, crowned in roses. She says, \u201cWhat am I doing here?\u201d<\/p>\n

Paul\u2019s eyes adjust to the light. A woman, mid-twenties, sandy-blond here, chubby cheeks, bright eyes. Half a smile on her face. She looks confused but not uncomfortable. She looks real but not substantial. Paul tries to concentrate. Glances back at the computer screen.<\/p>\n

\u201cUm,\u201d he says. He half turns, half points at his computer. \u201cUm,\u201d he says again.<\/p>\n

She brushes past him. \u201cMy name\u2019s Heather, right?\u201d she says. And walks past him. She sits down on a huge overstuffed chair. Her sash reads \u201cMiss Rhode Island\u201d which becomes unreadable when she sits.<\/p>\n

\u201cUh, yes. That is, no.\u201d Paul says \u201cYour name\u2019s actually Cheryl.\u201d He walks back into the room, sits on his computer chair, glances at his screen, focuses on the part where he\u2019s written \u201cCheryl Frasier.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cFrasier,\u201d she says, and smiles. \u201cOh, that\u2019s a nice name.\u201d<\/p>\n

Paul smiles back. \u201cThanks! I mean, well, it\u2019s your name. I like it too.\u201d He looks at her for a moment or two. He never had time for a wife. Most Saturdays at nine finds him in bar, talking to Davy, who\u2019s still in the Navy, and has been since 1973.<\/p>\n

\u201c1973?\u201d She says. \u201cThat\u2019s two years before I was born!\u201d<\/p>\n

Paul gives her a quizzical look. He doesn\u2019t like that he\u2019s used a trite phrase like \u201cquizzical look,\u201d but at least it\u2019s better than \u201che looked at her quizzically.\u201d He turns to the keyboard. How did she\u2014<\/p>\n

\u201cOoh, what\u2019s this song?\u201d she says, jumping up and leaning over his back. She smells like flowers, sweet, yellow, and just a hint of something else\u2026 he can edit that in later, maybe.<\/p>\n

Paul reaches for the mouse to show her the song is Burning Down the House by The Talking Heads. Before he can click away from the word processor, She giggles. \u201cBurning Down the House,\u201d she says. \u201cI was ten when that song came out.\u201d<\/p>\n

Paul spins the chair to face her. She smiles down at him, the look on her eyes enveloping, trusting. He says \u201cWell, Heather Burns was 10 when this song came out. You would have been somewhere between 7 and 13.\u201d<\/p>\n

She sits in his lap. Puts her arms around him. \u201cI think I like you.\u201d<\/p>\n

Paul rest his head on the \u201cMiss\u201d of her sash. They hum along to the rest of the song together. Then the writer stops before the next song comes on, because he\u2019s afraid of what it might mean for them.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Postaday for January 18th: Pleased to Meet You.\u00a0Write a post in which the protagonists of two different books or movies meet for the first time. How do they react to each other? Do they get along? It\u2019s nine o\u2019clock on a Saturday. Paul, the real estate novelist, is pounding away at his keyboard, furiously. He … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “Sing Us a Song, You’re The Writer Man”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[61],"tags":[13],"class_list":["post-1134","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-postaday","tag-fiction-2"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p24y52-ii","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bukkhead.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1134","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bukkhead.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bukkhead.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bukkhead.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bukkhead.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1134"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.bukkhead.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1134\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1135,"href":"https:\/\/www.bukkhead.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1134\/revisions\/1135"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bukkhead.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1134"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bukkhead.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1134"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bukkhead.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1134"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}