Taken in Hand

David just arrived home. "Darling, it is outer fucking Mongolia out there, I tell you." He laughed. "Seriously." David suffers with the cold. Actually, he's just spoilt and pampered and wants his life to be regulated at a constant 25-30 degrees. He's been out working. Met his accountant at Birdman Eating and is now off to yoga. I guess that's one of the advantages of not working 9 to 5, the days get more of an even weighting.

All I've done is turn on my computer, brew coffee and roll a joint.

David cornered me in the kitchen, on Thursday night, with some new self-help book - he's an addicted for self-help books. This one is about unlocking your creative energies, no matter what artistic medium is your own. Bottom line, according to this bitch, I should be able to write 3 pages a day when I'm off work. David has a way of locking into the information presented and not letting it go. I came up with many and varied excuses, all of which were shot down with a dogged determination to stick to the rules as presented.

"So you can't write 3 pages a day?" said David. "Is that what you are saying?"

"Well, um, yes, of course I can, if..."

"Good." At which point he produced a calender and roughly ascertained that I could have my screen play finished by mid-September.

"But, that's if you know what you are writing..."

"A writer writes?" said David. "Isn't that what you always say?"

"Well, um, yes," I offered.

"I get back from Hawaii on September 14th," said David. "I'll expect a finished draft waiting for me to read." He eye-balled me, as if daring me to come up with any more excuses.

I got the distinct impression that David was thinking of writing a book himself, probably a yoga book, from the tone and interest he was taking in the theories behind what he was saying.

I wanted to tell him is knowledge was scant and his interpretation, although I haven't read the book to which he is referring, possibly naive, but... I had no excuses I wanted to use. Truth is, it's nice when someone takes an interest... really. If I want to write, I, actually, have to sit down and do it. May be, I need someone to push me?