Being precocious is like a butterfly knife. It gets me out of a lot of trouble at the office, but the inherent potential for disaster sometimes leaves me wounded. Or needing an alibi. There are limits as to what I can get away with, and today I was afraid I was going to find them. I made a tactical retreat at my lunch hour, somehow managing to find myself doing mundane errands that damn near lead to my doom.
Hi, my name's Tatum and I like office supplies. As a kid, I struggled in school for a variety of reasons; boredom, brain damage, little things like that. I disliked the plain covers of the notebooks Mum got. I wanted the acid trip Lisa Frank junk all the other girls had. We didn't have tons of money for school supplies, but we made do. Now that I'm grown, I find myself purchasing armloads of those cheap notebooks every year. It's benign hoarding. I have it under control. Mostly.
I needed a pen today, but I forgot that at this time of the year, you can't get anything less than a gross at a time. Because I was stuck at the Saltmine, I couldn't bust into the stockpile at the Lair. Sure I could have driven home and gotten the damn thing, but I didn't want to bring such a thing of beauty to work. (Antique fountain, kept in a wooden casket made by my uncle for my college graduation.) Long story short, I spent an hour skipping through the back to school aisle humming to myself, tossing things I could definitely live without into the carriage.
Everything has a purpose. The mini-notebooks have gone into each bag I drag around, with pen attached. I use index cards as a sort of file-o-fax of ideas, not whole outlines mind you, but words or images. Post-its were the big winner today. I use them to flag things in books (when I have that rare moment to read), make notes, characterizations, etc. There isn't enough wall space in the Lair to have corkboards all over the place, so I'm making due with huge pieces of newsprint. I have crayon road maps all over them, connecting characters in one piece to another. My editor has already warned me, again, about sending her drafts written entirely in crayon. Good thing she's my best friend.
Visually mapping unexpectedly pulled a new idea for Memento Mori seemingly out of thin air. Memento is forthcoming. I promise. Please hound me about it. I'm wrapping up this blog so I can begin working in Ed the Archivist. (I don't like him either.) This piece takes new steps over the line every time I work on it, and I'm curious to see where that line actually is. Wherever it is, I know it won't be safe for work.
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