hairy legs

One day while on a plane traveling between New York and Chicago I read about 50ks in 30 Days in one of those airline magazines that about a thousand other people have flipped through and all the cross word puzzles have been disappointingly completed, or at least amateurishly attempted. It's a writing challenge to write a 50,000 word novel in 30 days. The theory is that writing is all about quantity rather than pure quality. That it takes quantity to strip down to the quality.

This challenge got me thinking how wonderfully painful and exhausting it would be to disappear into a bubble for 30 days and crank out word after word. To live fueled on bottles of wine and next to no sleep. To sacrifice personal hygiene, friends and family for the perfect sentence.

But alas I have to live life to write about life. I have to live through the hairy legs and morning breath of personal relationships in order to truly experience them. After all, life isn't about perfect skin and silicon breasts, well maybe it is in places like LA, but not here where I live.

No, I need to know the hairy legs, the dirty fingernails, the eye crust, the pubic hair on the toilet seat of life. Because without all that, the good wouldn't be nearly so good.

That and the money thing. I need money to live.