Honie Briggs

The deals I make with myself occasionally cause me to achieve a desired result. For the most part though, I am a surprise achiever. Meaning that accomplishing a goal rarely happens the way I expect. Sometimes it isn’t even the goal I expect, but for whatever reason – clean living, appeasing the gods of suburbia, unredeemed karma from a previous lifetime of self-sacrifice – favorable winds eventually blow the tumbleweeds out of my mind and I get something done.

My loyal follower reminds me each morning not to stay hold up inside all day and that is usually when the mental “let’s make a deal” begins. I’ll write ‘til the coffee runs out. Until it runs out of what, I don’t say. Until it runs out my ears perhaps. Before I know it, it’s early afternoon. This signals three things: It’s time to check in with my legs that have been asleep since I poured my last cup of coffee, I’m hungry, and the dialing for dinner dilemma ensues. This is what happened during my last mad dash toward the finish line. Only this doesn’t feel like a mad dash. It feels more like staggering blind-folded out of a mud pit, balancing a birdcage on my head.

So, here’s the deal. I’ll write ‘til the coffee runs out or I’m ready to pick off my characters one by one with an elephant rifle, whichever comes first. Mine is not a tortured soul, destined for disaster. Nor humors seeking discharge from their greedy master. This is no existence so desperately fated. The wing-ed beast inside my breast is merely caffeinated. 

Woolf, Plath and Hemingway never had it so good.