You know that scene in Shawshank Redemption when the dude breaks out of jail and explodes out of the mire into his freedom on a stormy night? Or was that Raising Arizona!? Anyway, I dug a tunnel for years and now I’m outside. I have a full draft of In the Red. 270 pages, about 70,000 words. Now I get to give it a redraft and send it to my agent. Eek! It’ll be weird to have another human being read it. But–that’s part of the point of writing the bloody things, no?
It’s sitting on my desk all printed out. It’s quite a manly pile of paper. See?
The last thing that’s typed on my computer screen in this photo is, “It’s sitting on my desk all printed out. It’s quite a manly pile of paper. See?” Do you feel like you’re with me in the moment, or what? The photo is all moody and dark because it is currently midnight. The shadowy pot on the left side of the photo contains my desk orchid. Unfortunately, the African violet that was once there is no more. It turns out even elderly cats have a taste for certain types of plant flesh.
A moment of silence for our departed friend, Saintpaulia ionantha.
Since my furry little murderers haven’t touched the living room orchids, I decided to play it safe and get another orchid for my desk. Wanna see?
Pretty sexy, no? It’s a yellowed parchment color with closely packed, bright red dots all over it. It was looming over me as I finished the book. It will surely continue to loom over me as I finish the book again and again, until one day it is printed and I can stop finishing it.
Elena Mauli Shapiro 