Dr. Dume ~ The Doctor is In

The Day is tomorrow, or rather later today. Senga is preened and washed down with paintstripper and Jeyes fluid, coated with rustproofing and whitewashed. So she's nearly ready but she smells like a garden centre next to a garage. I suppose the final coat of bleach will sort that out in the morning, just before I bolt the veil to her head.

I have spent the last couple of nights submitting a novel. I know, it's not very weddingy or whatever the word is but it's the first time in weeks she's let me alone long enough to do it. Besides, the publisher Sergeant Shelsky mentioned only accepts submissions during set months and submissions close the day after tomorrow. So I had to hurry. I have therefore been busy putting together a synopsis and other details for 'Jessica's Trap'. I was delighted to find that this publisher has very specific and very simple requirements for submissions. It's done, so I can relax a little, although there is another one to send out. 'Samuel's Girl' is ready to go and 'Norman's House' is in rewrite. 'Victor's Will' is a mess. I might have to do that one over from scratch. 'Demdike's Ambition' is only in notes and 'The Apocalypse Show' has an out-of-kilter title.

Plenty of time. Response time for submissions runs into months. I could have the second book out there before I hear about the first. I know, I said I'd only submit to agents but I'm bored with trying that. I can see the problem. Authors get maybe 10-15% of the cover price in royalties. Agents get a percentage of that percentage and that's where all their income comes from. They have to take on authors who will keep going, who aren't one-book-wonders. So, as the Sergeant said, prove you have more than one book in you and then talk to an agent. I like the way he thinks. Military precision. I should have expected that.

What, though, if there are no more in me? What if I'm played out? It's the terror of the writer, an irony of epic proportions in a horror writer but a terror nonetheless. What if Writer's Block hits? What is it, anyway?

I think I know.

Writers are, by nature, mad. They have to be. Who but a lunatic would sit and type out a whole novel, decide they don't like it and type it all out again? How crazy do you have to be to imagine stories whose sole purpose is to scare people senseless? When a writer goes mainstream, they earn respect and respect is what kills the muse, The muse doesn't want respect. The muse is a reprobate and a libertine and likes it that way. The muse does not want to be associated with suit-and-tie types, with cocktail parties and fast cars. The muse wants to hitch a ride on a tractor driven by a banjo-playing toothless maniac with webbed fingers. The muse wants to hit the booze and party. The muse wants to wake up under a bridge and have no recollection of how they arrived there. The muse wants madness, not sanity.

Sane people don't make up wild stories. Sane people work eight hours, sleep eight hours, play eight hours. Sane people care what the neighbours think.Sane people mow the lawn and wash the car and plant rows of pointless flowers and discuss the problem of lilacs with the neighbours. Sane people think along sane lines.

Writer's block, therefore, is sanity. When you are afflicted with sanity you can no longer drift into another world, you can no longer wonder why the Mr. Universe contest is only ever won by people from Earth, whether ghosts change their clothes or who found out that hemlock was poisonous. Sane people think along rigidly defined and logical lines.

It sounds disgusting. I hope it never happens to me.

There isn't much of a risk, really. If I was afflicted with sanity I wouldn't be marrying Senga and if I ever feel it coming on, there's an instant cure.

All I'd have to do is lift her veil.