The Writing Velociraptor

Okay, I know I've been gone for a long while from the Internet. Sorry! All shall be explained in this post.

Well, my daddy and I don't often get along. He wants things done IMMEDIATELY, and I want things done when I'm not busy with something else. It often doesn't become an issue, because he's at work and I'm at home or at work and it's all fine. I try to make sure I do what he asks when he asks whenever he happens to be at home.

Well.

The other day (as in last week), I was writing. It was the first time in months that things were really flowing, and I was typing more than ever. Then my daddy came home early, and I mean like three and half hours early.

I hadn't done my chores yet, because I do them around 4 so that the house actually looks clean. As it was around 3:30, I had not done them. My daddy told me to get off the computer and come clean up where I made pizza.

Now, when you interrupt me when I'm in the ZONE, I become what I've come to call the Writing Velociraptor. This means that no matter how nicely you phrase things, no matter what you ask me, I become a nasty, evil, out-for-blood dinosaur demon. You could be saying, "Hattie, I'm going to get ice cream, would like a large or an extra large rainbow sherbet?" and I'd still turn to you and say, "I really don't care, just leave."

As I've been like this for years, you would think that my father would have picked up on this by now. My mother certainly has. She waits until I break for food to ask me anything, and then she asks in her sweetest voice. Why my daddy hasn't learned, I'll never know.

Anyway. So he told me to clean up where I made pizza, and without turning away from the computer and what I was typing, I responded with, "I didn't make any pizza."

Now, technically this was true. I hadn't made any pizza. It had already been cooked and everything, and I just pulled it out of the plastic bag and ate it. The plastic bag still sat on the counter top. My daddy pointed this out, and because I was the Writing Velociraptor, I said, "Well, yeah, but I still didn't make anything. Choose your words more wisely."

Whenever I insult his syntax or lack thereof, my daddy gets mad. Like, really, really mad. So within .05 seconds we were screaming at each other, me telling him he shouldn't have even come home and him telling me that it was his house and he'd come home when he damn well pleased.

Looking back on it, I know I shouldn't have reacted that way. I can always tell afterward. But at the time, all I can think is, "He's interrupted me, I was writing, I need to go back to writing, my poor characters, what if it all flies away, I'll never get back to it, now I'm doomed to fail." Which isn't true, but I can't help thinking it anyway.

I can remember once when I was maybe thirteen or fourteen, writing up a storm. It was like nine at night. I wrote and wrote and wrote until about midnight. Then my daddy woke up, came in, and told me I had to go to bed, because it was past my bedtime. This is the first time I can remember becoming the Writing Velociraptor, and I spiralled into a rage worthy of Veruca Salt (which is what my mother calls me whenever I want something, or have a tantrum).

Thankfully my mother woke up and diffused the situation. She told my father that it was a weekend, it probably wouldn't kill me to stay up later than usual. Of course, after being interrupted, I no longer felt the pull to write. After that, though, I learned to type really quietly.

The good news about my punishment is that I was able to write a lot more. I wrote maybe 2,000 words a day! I'm on page 53 of one novel, got a few core scenes down in another, and even edited a bit in my ABNA submission.