Excerpt #11

The writing has slowed to a snail’s pace and your word count is about half of what it should be. Just keep it coming, string together words, get to fifty thousand for the sake of your psychological survival. You just broke 11,000. You got home this morning ready to sleep and she left you with the kids and went for coffee and to grocery shop. The kids have been on their own for the last six or seven hours waking me occasionally with their escalating and alternating laughter and arguments. They have their own resources. It’s important to realize that. You’ll need that knowledge one day. You wish they’d go outside and remember being thrown out in the cold at that age to blow off steam and keep the house intact. You remember the smell of wood smoke; stinging ears, fingers, toes; the creak and sway and sadness of bare trees.