Here’s what I wrote yesterday. I had planned to finish it into the evening, but I became distracted, and by the time the distractions passed, it was time to sleep. I can do this now, but come next month things will be different and I won’t be able to miss these days, not even when the marbles bounce around my tiny head (of which they haven’t been doing, most thankfully, the entire weekend). There’s not much here, but I’m posting it because if I don’t, I’ll feel like an even bigger failure than I already do. I’ll get cracking on today’s words. For the record, the count from yesterday was around 500 words, with this additional counting paragraph, which nicely replaces the one I removed because, well, if you think the below is bad, you should have read this one.

Seymour tried to occupy his time while he waited. He cleaned his apartment. He organized his bills and papers. He started the laundry to watch two pant legs spinning through the glass door. He resisted telephoning friends, even though that was his usual method for passing time. He feared that the call would come in while he dialed. After waiting this long, he didn’t want to take that chance.

The waiting at the end was always the most difficult part. He had set everything in motion, now all he had to do was sit back and hope that something happened. He thought about pushing it a few times, stopping by and trying to figure out what she was thinking, but he didn’t. He knew it wouldn’t help his cause—but even so, without doing anything, he felt completely in the control of others, other people controlling his fate, and he did not like that feeling.

Open up and stop thinking about it and just write. Seymour was not a large man. He was tiny. In his hand, the revolver looked huge. He should have done something or had something done. The wide-open area where he enlisted the big head to learn him something good, in the way of the rest of the huge green sweater. He closed his eyes and waited for the last of the next—where is there any words that can be put together for this to mean something. These words shouldn’t count in the collection of words. I can’t think of what to write, I’m writing endless words in long sentences that say nothing. I have this caffeine energy with no way to direct it. Slow down! Stop. Think!

A story about the patience involved in waiting for something you want: the anticipatory buildup. The dredging of your soul as days tick by and you’re not sure it’s going to happen. Who cares as to the outcome, it’s this feeling I want to convey, to express, to share, to write about.