While I was drifting off to sleep last night, a short story idea seized my mind and refused to shut up until I scribbled down enough about it to ensure I didn't lose it during the journey to sleep and back to waking.
I got out of bed, made some barely-legible notes, and fell asleep rather quickly. About an hour or so later, the cats decided that it was time to play, which involves running around the house and across my bed at a speed and noise level that just shouldn't be possible for two animals whose combined weight is less than twenty pounds.
The first time the cats woke me up, I grabbed a drink of water and drifted back to a sort of twilight sleep, where the amorphous blobs of story ideas began to sharpen into ill-defined shapes. I got out of bed and made more notes.
This process repeated itself a number of times overnight, so though my body spent eight hours mostly in bed, my brain didn't get much, if any, rest.
Anne woke me up at 10. "You're going to sleep the whole day away," she said.
"Mrrzzbffgggmmmblllzzz," I said. But, having grown accustomed to dragging myself out of bed when I wanted to stay safely and comfortably wrapped in the covers, I did the same. This time, though, I walked into the kitchen and made myself a cup of coffee instead of stumbling into my office to scribble down notes.
That was about two hours ago, and while my brain is beginning to shake off some of the cobwebs, I still feel a little numb and stingy.
"Don't you hate it when you do something really funny and nobody notices?" Anne said to me about fifteen minutes ago.
"Um, yes?" I said.
She stood in the doorway of my office, rocking back and forth on her feet. "Yeah, it's like it's just killing you that you did something very funny but nobody notices."
"…what did you do?" I said.
"I kind of want you to just find it on your own," she said.
"That's probably not going to happen. I'm only forty percent here right now."
She looked pointedly at the wall above my desk.
"Even if it's, like, staring you right in the face?"
"Yeah, even if it's –" I followed her gaze and saw…
Click More, because the reveal is worth it.
"That's hilarious," I said.
"Why aren't you laughing?"
"I'm too tired to laugh. Inside, though, I'm rolling on the floor. That's very clever."
"And don't worry, I made sure the adhesive was almost all gone, so it wouldn't damage your Velvet Wesley Crusher."
"I appreciate that."
She leaned over and reached toward the moustache.
"Wait," I said. I picked up my phone and activated its camera. "The Internet needs to know about this."
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That’s amazing. Anne rocks.
Oh, that’s funny right there, because, you see, the title threw me off, but, I get it now.
not.
Wil: “…refused to shut up until I scribbled down enough about it to ensure I didn’t lose it”
Your note said “Remember idea,” didn’t it?
New Desktop!
Awesome. 😀 I don’t have a velvet Wesley Crusher, so my moustache is on my lambag (handbag in the shape of a lamb.)
Darnit, I signed in with WordPress, and not only does it not use the name I set there, it doesn’t even use my gravatar. 🙁 Which is just as well, since I don’t have my moustache in my gravatar.
It frightens meeeee!
It sort of looks like a young Wayne-Newton-Wesley-Crusher.
I’m not sure whether to shudder or convulse with laughter.
Seems like there should be some kind of moustache Dorian Gray thing happeneing here.
When I grow I wanna be as cool a wife as Anne is. 🙂 Also I want to own a velvet Wesley Crusher. Important life goals there.
hey, I like Wesley Crusher, not funny… (though Hitler’s moustashe…)
actually I don’t get this whole Velvet Wesley thing, I don’t think it’s funny, bad “art” is terribly annoying, and as for for anything nice or pure there are always haters, sometimes I think the half-animal mentallity of majority of humans is weirder than any weird fiction.
Well, it’s 11:30 pm and I am writing here for a reason that is not clear to me yet.
What kind of a short story came to you?
You know, Wil, I often wondered what kind of experience Wesley Crusher would have had when he left with Traveller,
… I am spending nights in Buddhist Temple and here I never want to sleep much for some reason…
Danke Schoen, Gween, that’s exactly what was spinning about in my skull, too. 🙂
Things that come directly from your subconscious, unfiltered, have a way of being very odd, more so than you thought it seemed at the time.
That said, I have at least had one piece of writing that came directly, unchanged, from a dream, and it was right on the money.
It pays, sometimes, to pay attention to your brain during those moments.
Good luck with this piece, Wil.
…And now the poster features Vasily Krusherovich, lothario of the stars.
(He’s the *real* Doomsday Machine.)
(You don’t want to see his “Corbomite Maneuver”.)
(something something space seed)
My cat wakes me at stupid am, often by playfully clawing at my feet, or like 6:15 this morning by knocking stuff off shelves. Bad Kitty! I’m used to it, but felt rough cos I read ‘Just a Geek’ til 3am. Tired today;totally worth it. Great read, Wil. Nice tache by the way. Suits you. 😀
It takes a special kind of man to rock the Hercule Poirot look so well.
Is it considered “Wil-rolling” if that’s not at all what I was expecting?
I’ve been sick with the flu for three days, and that was the first time I laughed. Thank you both!
Sweet. Someone special to me has a gullible sign taped to my ceiling. I know, still not as kick-ass as yours.
Too funny. Wesley Crusher looks so grown up sporting a ‘stash. Way to go Anne
ROFL! I think I love Anne, lol! That is epic!
Despite her violating the secret Mustache formal agreement that we would secretly place all our mustaches in various hard to find places about the ship, I can say she violated it with the best of intentions.
I like to think that mine is still perched looking lovingly over the port side buffet bar.
S.
I think you’ll enjoy Blogginhood’s post about the top 10 nerds of SF:
http://bloginhood.blogspot.com/2010/08/top-10-nerds-of-sf.html
Awww, that’s sort of wistfully sweet. I stuck mine to the back of my badge, so it is currently looking lovingly at the door to my furnace closet. Not as exotic.
Oh, this particular Moustache comes from our private collection. Our Formal Moustaches are, to the best of our knowledge, still sailing the seven seas.
Darnit, now I want to be a celebrity so I can have a private moustache collection. I had to make do with a moustache from someone who was leaving the formal as I entered. I have yet to find a source of fake moustaches locally (last time I wanted one, I had to go all the way to New Zealand to get one) so I assume moustaches are only available to the people in the secret club.
(signed in with Twitter this time, so I don’t look like a URL)
Very Funny!
The youngest man to rock the “porn star moustache” ever…Ron Jeremy would be proud…