Beginning to write my next novel

Dear diary,

The novelist Bryan Ray awakes in his house, the Great Pyramid of Giza. He yawns and sez to his magic mirror, “Well, it’s high time that I got started writing my eleventh novel.”

“Tell me again about all your previous masterworks,” replies the mirror; “I never tire of hearing about them. I beg you to relay their plots to me.”

So, after kissing the mirror, Bryan reviews all his literary successes. He speaks in great detail about his book called Bryan the Turtle, where he himself the author Bryan Ray stars as a Giant Turtle: he spends the first three chapters laying eggs in the sand; then the last eight chapters are spent watching all of his eggs hatch, one by one. Each of his children get run over by speeding trucks on the dirt road during the Great Depression.

“I wish I had hands, so that I could hold your paperback and turn its pages,” sez the magic mirror.

“Don’t worry,” sez Bryan, “I’ll read the whole series to you right now. But after I finish, I must get going: I must head out: I must visit the coffee shop and order my favorite style of ice cream: I must check my social media account, and then I must get started writing Novel Number Eleven. I must not be late. The publisher has given me an yuge advance payment of billions and billions and billions and billions of caesars, and the manuscript is due on her desk by seven o’clock sharp.”

“Is that a.m. or p.m.?” asks the cute little mirror.

“Seven in the morning,” answers Bryan. “She would have said nineteen hundred, if she meant evening-time. My publisher is clear and smart and good. She is a no-nonsense communicator.”

Therefore Bryan reads all of his novels aloud to the magic mirror. Then he slides on his slippers and walks across the street to the diner.

“I would like to order a strawberry sundae,” Bryan announces to the barista, after cutting into the front of the line; “but, instead of real strawberries, could you just pump a whole lot of extra cherry syrup on top of the soft-serve? And put some caramel cubes on the side. Also I would like three bottles of the worst wine that you have—”

The barista looks up from the register: “The worst wine? Are you sure? Because, I’m warning you: we have wine in stock that tastes like sour garbage — do you really want that?”

“Yes, that’s perfect,” sez Bryan the novelist. “I’m planning on sitting over yonder,” (he points to the largest table at the center of the room,) “and typing into my portable computer here,” — he holds up his royal purple laptop, which has a red, circular “Vote for King Bryan” sticker covering the manufacturer’s logo. “I’m hoping this Novel Number Eleven will be a thriller, with lots of lawyers in it, and lots of battle scenes, with turtles and lions, because my publisher recently gave me my advance money, but I already spent more than half of it on hookers and blow. And by ‘blow’ I mean cocaine, and by ‘hookers’ I mean widows, just in case you didn’t understand those slang terms. So, once you serve me my strawberry sundae and caramels and bad wine, I’ll spend the majority of the afternoon on Facebook (that’s my favorite social network) and then I’ll begin to write my next bestseller.”

“Is all this money that you just piled on top of the counter here for ME?” sez the barista.

“Yes,” sez Bryan. “I mean, the smallest fragment of it should be set aside as payment for my meal, but the rest of it is yours.”

Now a brawl breaks out at the back of the long line of customers waiting to purchase their morning coffee, so Bryan races back there and pulls the two businesswomen apart and helps mend their acquaintanceship. Then Bryan walks over to the table in the center of the café and plugs in his computer.

“This place has free access to the World Wide Web, does it not?” Bryan yells to the barista.

“Yes,” she sez, while placing Bryan’s order on the table precariously, so that the king-sized saucer with the desserts and all the bottles of wine is teetering on the edge and almost ready to fall.

“Hey!” Bryan’s eyes grow wide, “I thought I ordered only four or seven bottles of gross, nasty wine — but there are about fifteen to twenty here on this vast plate!”

“That’s not a vast plate, it’s a levitating saucer; and I gave you extra wine because I like you,” the barista lifts her skirt to reveal a sight before she leaves.

“Well I thank you,” Bryan salutes very sternly and then turns on his computer. 

“Now it’s time to navigate to my favorite social network, The Facebook dot com,” Bryan explains to the customers at all the tables surrounding his. “Do any of you have accounts at The Facebook?”

All the customers shake their heads and murmur “Nay.”

“Well you should sign up and get an account there. It’s a way to stay connected to one’s family and friends,” Bryan explains. “Plus it’s free, and it always will be. And you never need to worry about them sharing your personal info...”

Bryan presses a few keys; then dips his spoon into the sundae and enjoys a mouthful of ice cream. “Yum, you can really taste that cherry syrup,” Bryan remarks and then swallows and points at the screen: “Oh, look: I got a message from my mom!” 

“You better answer her back, before your meal melts,” a clever man who is sitting at a nearby table sez while pointing at Bryan’s sundae, which indeed is beginning to melt.

“Ay me,” cries Bryan, “you’re right!” Then he spoons more servings of ice cream into his mouth and thinks for a while, before addressing the clever customer who last spoke: “Hey, guy — what should I say back to my mom? She’s asking if I can attend a holiday get-together with the family. I gotta dash off a response very quickly, so that I can begin to work on my next novel. (This one will be number eleven.)”

“Oh, is that so?” sez the man, as he rises from where he was sitting and moves closer to Bryan. The man takes a seat in the lap of a matriarch whose table is southeast of Bryan’s. The matriarch frowns and looks aghast at the man who just occupied her; but then, when she realizes that the man is handsome, she returns to drinking her tea and reading her newspaper. “What are your other ten novels about?”

Bryan sighs and repeats by rote the standard litany: “In the first I was a dove; then I starred as a squirrel; then I was a lion; then I was a fox; then I was a cabbage; then I looked like a tree and stole the fruits of all my neighbors; then I was a cop; then I was a cabbage again; and lastly I was a ghost.”

“Oh, is that last one called Bryan the Phantom, or something like that?” the man is excited.

“Yes, Bryan the Menacing Spirit, Big and Tall,” Bryan replies. “That one sold three crates of ingots on the gold market. Not too shabby.”

“Ah!” sez the man, “that’s my favorite book of all time.”

“It does have the best story and characters,” Bryan frowns. “But help me out with this letter to my mom, so that I can start to type Novel Eleven of Ten.”

“OK, OK,” the man sez, “I’m thinking.” The man groans for a while. “Hey, I have a question for you,”

“Ask me anything,” Bryan sez.

“Do you WANT to go to this family get-together that you’ve been invited to?”

“No,” sez Bryan.

“And do you believe in the holiday that is being celebrated?”

“On the contrary: I hate both Christmas and Lent,” Bryan sez; “they’re both Christian festivals, and I am THE ANTICHRIST. I only worship the god of Halloween.”

“The false god?” sez the man, now slightly crestfallen.

“Well he’s real to me,” Bryan explains. “I’m just trying to speak my truth. Don’t you yourself have immoral obsessions that other people say ‘ick’ to?”

“Yeah, yeah, you got a point there,” the man admits. “And I guess it makes sense that the Antichrist would be against all Christian holidays.”

Now the whole tea room falls silent while Bryan and all the other customers ponder the things that were recently revealed in this loud conversation that has been dominating the atmosphere.

“Alright, I have a plan of attack,” the man in the matriarch’s lap finally announces.

“You have an idea?” Bryan sez.

“Yes, now here’s what you should do,” the man claps his hands.

“I’m all ears,” Bryan claims.

“Alright, go ahead and tell your mom that you’ll attend the family festival,” the man sez; “and then, when the day finally arrives, just go and make your appearance but then leave early.”

Bryan types as he speaks: “Dear mommy, I will go. I will be there for Lent and for Christmas. I will bring gifts in abundance… How do you spell ‘abundance’?”

“It’s just the word dance with a bun before it,” sez the man. (The matriarch on whom he is sitting now moans with approval while she scribbles out some boxes on her crossword puzzle.)

“Thanks,” sez Bryan; then he returns to typing the letter: “I will only stay a short while, because I am the Devil who hates your risen savior; then I will leave. Sincerely, Bryan Ray the author. — P.S. don’t forget to click the heart button next to my profile on all the social networks, and subscribe to all my tales! Frog emoticon, frog emoticon.”

“Wait!” the man who has been instructing Bryan shouts; “you didn’t just press ‘Send’, did you?”

“Sure,” sez Bryan. “Why not? My reply was completed.”

“You put two frogger emojis at the end!?” the man exclaims.

“Of course!” sez Bryan. “That’s the cool thing to do.”

The man looks incredulous. “That’s cool?” he asks.

“Yes!” Bryan laughs good-naturedly. “I can tell that you don’t use the Internet very much to communicate with my mother.”

The man looks at the matriarch whom he is sitting upon, and she shrugs as if to say “Bryan is correct about such things. Learn to cope by paying a psychologist to befriend you.”

“Alright, little man,” sez Bryan to the dapper fellow who helped him finish his missive, “you better skedaddle now — I’ve got an eleventh novel to write.”

The man slides down off the matriarch’s lap and begins to sulk away. Then he turns and sez: “One last thing…”

“Speak up, I’m still listening,” Bryan sez.

“You should maybe surf around more on the Facebook network, before you engage in any serious writing; otherwise you might lose touch with all your old friends from public school and your previous jobs in fast-food and retail.”

“Ooh! good idea,” Bryan sez. “Thanks, old timer!”

The man doffs his hat and returns to the table where he was sitting aforetime.

Now Bryan the novelist spends a great many hours studying the posts and comments on the social network. He clicks the “thumbs down” icon on all the status updates that contain awful news, such as “I lost my true love in a tornado last evening”; and then he clicks the “thumbs up” icon on all the updates that share pleasant news, such as “I lost my virginity in a tornado last evening.” This latter update was posted by a Republican-Democrat Senator whom Bryan is online-friends with; and Bryan thinks to himself, “I wonder if this tornado is the same one that plays the role of the LORD in the biblical Book of Job.” Then he begins to write his novel.

“All finished,” Bryan sez, pressing the final key of “D” to complete the phrase “THE END”. Then he holds down the “Shift” key and hits the number “1” to make an exclamation point; and there is a ding-bell noise like the one that would happen when you reached the terminal margin of a line on an old-fashioned typewriter. 

Bryan now yanks the sheaves out of the laptop computer and fastens them together by sliding a pink ribbon around the phallic scroll. He then uses a cinnamon-scented marker to handwrite the phrase “Manuscript: Novel 11” in thick letters on the exterior of the shaft. 

“I hope nobody mistakes those double unos for the Roman numeral two,” Bryan remarks to himself aloud while dropping the roll of papers into the vacuum-tube system that faxes novels to their publishers.

The air is suddenly affronted by the small electronic synthesized sound of a female human moaning in sensual pleasure. Recognizing this as his ringtone, Bryan takes his mobile phone out of his leather jacket’s pocket and looks at the screen: “Yep, that notification means that my publisher has sent me a text message — let’s see what it sez...” 

Bryan thumbs the touchscreen for a few moments: “OK, here it is,” he shouts to the customers of the coffee shop, relaying the contents of the instant-postcard that his publisher sent him. “She writes: ‘Just received MS’ (that’s short for manuscript) ‘love it big tyme this is gonna be a hit dot-dot-dot am faxing you more $$$’ (that means money) ‘buy yourself some bad wine you deserve it’ and then there are a bunch of frog emoticons. — This is AWESOME news!” Bryan waves to the barista: “Drinks on the house: Virgin Marys all around! And a decaf coffee for the fellow who helped me answer my mom.”