"I Could Write A Book ... Or Not"
an excerpt

EXCERPT THE FIRST [which includes my rapidly-becoming-infamous 1,075-word sentence]:
By golly, she would write that stupid novel. She Would Show Them. There were some babies "only a mother could love," and some novels "only the author could appreciate," but at least she would have a finished project under her cellulite-infested belt.
"So there, world," she thought, "you just try and stop me."
And the world saw the gauntlet and picked it up, spoiling for a fight.
Nanny stared at the laptop monitor, wondering how to work "it was a dark and stormy night" into a story about a beachcomber who finds a magic sand dollar … it would have to happen on a lovely day, sea spray gently abrading his skin, clouds scudding through the sky like soap suds – oh, drat, she needed to finish washing the dishes before she ran out of soup bowls, esp. since OG had said he wanted to make chili for dinner, not that sissy white chili but some hardcore vegetarian chili with real jalapenos, which was fine with her as long as he didn't use her good cutting board for the peppers since the last time he did, it didn't get cleaned well enough and she wiped her hand across her eyes after innocently cutting tomatoes and cried for half a day – but anyway, the hero would have to be strolling along the beach as the sand massaged his bare feet – or would he have shoes, and oh shoot she needed to dry Kid4's sneakers but she still couldn't get the wet laces unknotted, and she couldn't help but wonder would putting them in the dryer make it easier to untie them or just clunk around and annoy everyone all morning putting them in a bad mood – but anyway, he would be walking along and it would have to be a lovely sunny day or else he wouldn't be on the beach and he HAD to be on the beach to discover the sand dollar, although it could be a starfish, which might be more dramatic anyway, since maybe it could be missing an arm and he would feel sorry for it, not realizing it could regenerate the arm and that might be the lesson he was meant to learn when the holy man sent him on the quest – oh, rats! Nanny forgot to put Kid7's and Kid8's lesson plans on the fridge and they would definitely use that as an excuse to take a nap or play "Head Hunter's Haunt" instead of coming in and asking her what their assignments were, but on the other hand at least they would be honoring her expressly stated desire to be left alone to work on her novel even though they laughed at her concept of a woman in the middle years of life (she hoped) trying to write a novel and being interrupted – of course, her own thoughts interrupted sometimes but they could be fruitful; for example, in her pensive state regarding the laundry she sees a glimmer of a concept about … um, about … well, someday she might get an idea about the story from doing the laundry, because Lord knows she got enough inspirations when her hands were immersed in dish water and she couldn't get to the puter to write down the idea, and oops, speaking of dishwater she really should get in there and at least do the bowls, just six or seven soup bowls, not the whole caboodle of dishes lurking on the counter like so many snipers – oh, she could have the holy man send her protagonist on a snipe quest, that would be funny AND a way to move the plot forward, which it didn't seem to have done in the ten or twelve minutes in which she'd been typing, and that was something she never could understand, how she could be working so hard on the stupid novel – it WASN'T a stupid novel, it was HER personal EXPRESSION, thank you very much – and still only have the character take four or five steps and be no closer to finding the sand dollar, or starfish, or whatever, well, not an eel or jellyfish, unless of course … yes, unless it was a lovely lavender jellyfish which would sting him and give him superpowers and he could learn that each gift in life must come at the price of some pain, small or large, and speaking of which, the pain in her foot was really getting worse; maybe she should stop typing and massage it, but no that poor hero – now, was his name Eduardo or Rasputin? where were her notes? – still hadn't reached enlightenment, much less the end of the beach, and she needed to get his rear in gear and outta here so she could get those dishes washed (not all, just the soup bowls, but they'd need spoons and it would be easier to wash all the silverware than to pick out just the soup spoons, which she was almost certain she'd seen a couple lurking next to the den computer and somebody would hear about that, yessiree bob), but how could she abandon her hero as he searched for meaning and a jellyfish – although a starfish would probably be more evocative of beauty and celestial tie-ins, and even a sand dollar could have a meaning about the fragility of money in the storm of life, so maybe go back to the sand dollar idea, and storms would be a way to work in the phrase "it was a dark and stormy night," and – "What is it now? Can't you people give me a few minutes alone with my novel?" – she really should be getting back to check on the Kiddoes, so let's leave Eduardo – or maybe Ricardo, like Montalban, yeah, that's a great idea, good association, nice Catholic boy with penetrating eyes and dimples, he'd look great walking across the honey-colored sand, wind whipping his denim shirt around that well-formed chest, within which beat a heart thirsting for truth – okay, where was she trying to tug that plot now, that's right, across the honey-colored sand and his big toe – it might seem too crude to say big toe; maybe "the edge of his sun-bronzed foot" – grazes across a delicate shell, and as he stoops to see what has interrupted his reverie – hah, he thinks HIS reveries get interrupted and he isn't babysitting grandkids and a husband nor contending with a wild animal who was unafraid to use The Beak Of Death – his eyes, the colour of the terns – remember to google terns and see if there are any ones the color of Ricardo Montalban's eyes, or maybe Danny Glover, he'd be great too – light upon a small sand dollar, which had not been crushed in the waves pounding upon the shore last evening which condition had existed because IT WAS A DARK AND STORMY NIGHT.
EXCERPT THE SECOND:

[Nanny, the protagonist, has gathered the grandkids to threaten them with what will happen if they keep interrupting her as she tries to write her novel. OG (Old Goat), her hubby, comes in at the end of the session.the "10" on her lap is grandkid #10.]

OG came through the doorway and was aurally assaulted with pleas to add the last and greatest threat. "Are we doing that silly thing again? I swear, RubyMae, you are gonna warp these kids into social misfits." His grin belied the harsh words.
"Unlike somebody we know who taught them it was okay to sing '99 Bottles of Beer on the wall' in place of a meal blessing?"
"What are we threatening now?" he asked.
"What will happen to the hapless huckleberry who dares to keep me from finishing my novel."
"Pretty serious infraction. Okay, how about ..." he perused the ceiling as if the answer could be read in the cobwebs like tea leaves "whoever busts in on Nanny in one of her creative tornadoes will be strapped to a ski, slid down the stairs into the laundry room, and washed with a load of dirty socks until she finishes her book?"
Wild applause greeted this pronouncement. Nanny slipped 10 off her lap and retreated to her room in anticipation of a job well done. But first, a list needed to be made ...
My Top Ten Threats Of All Time, Including Those Levelled at Children and Grandkids, beginning with the phrase, "If you ever even THINK of doing that again ..."
1 – I will cut your hands off at the wrist using the plastic scalpels from your toy doctor kit, string them up with your entrails, and hang them around your neck like boxing gloves. (said to a daughter after she started a school ground fight to prove she was more of a man than the bully boy of the next higher grade)
2 – I will take all this makeup and make a stew and you will eat every last bit of it and then I will give you ipecac syrup and make you clean up the puke. (said to daughter who "borrowed" her mom's makeup to wear on a clandestine date when she was supposedly at a chess tournament)
3 – I will let the poor doggie ride around on YOU at the Christmas parade and then let HIM eat dinner while YOU clean out his dog house since you will be staying there over the holidays.
4 – I will mail your aunties a letter saying that you were too busy to send them a thank you note even though you lied and told me you did, and ask them to please donate the money they would have spent on next year's birthday gift to a charity for homeless children in hopes that you may receive the benefit after I kick you out of the house for being so rude and inconsiderate; don't smile at me when I'm talking to you about something this serious.
5 – I will make you eat the gravel off the newly paved street and not allow you to come in the house until you scrub all the tar from around your mouth.
6 – I will call Wolverine and tell him that you are older than you look and are personally responsible for his adamantium skeleton, and I will tell Daredevil that you secretly murdered a convent full of nuns and all the kids in their orphanage but got away on a technicality, and I will hint to Spider-man that you sold Norm Osborn all the Green Goblin equipment so he would look like a great inventor, AND I will tell Stan Lee that you said Marvel comics are for losers, posers, and lamebrains and I will give him your cell phone number too and don't think I won't.
7 - I will put you in the rain barrel (the empty one with the hole in it from the time your Aunt Sunny decided she was going to reenact The William Tell Overture), roll you down Main Street, and sing "Roll Out The Barrel" at the top of my lungs, with your name printed on my t-shirt.
6 – I will tattoo "My sister's not a dork; I am" on your forehead and never let you wear bangs or a cowboy hat.
5 – I will let all your siblings ride you piggyback to college and make you carry their lunches to them and unfold a napkin in their laps and clean up after them in the dorm dining room for the entire week of Homecoming.
4 – I will write secret love notes in lemon juice on all your job applications, then stick post-it notes on them telling the interviewer to be sure and hold them over a light bulb.
3 – I will send you to Gilligan's Isle and pay the script writer to give you incredibly stupid lines which will make the first mate look like Stephen Hawking.
2 – I will Photoshop your face on to (depending on victim, insert current celebrity bimbo headliner)'s picture and send it to the Sports Illustrated Swimwear Edition Editor.
And the Number One Thing I Will Do For Retribution:
When you run for President, I will hold a press conference and inform the nation of every stupid, wicked, thoughtless, or ill-conceived thing you've done in my household.
She paused for a few sips of lukewarm Citrus Blast tea, then dug through her money management file until she found a list begun on last month's light bill envelope.

[EXCERPT THE THIRD: it gets off to a slow start but keep reading and you might enjoy it, and remember, this is all pretty much first draft.]
Nanny leaned over to OG's face, put her hand on his greying whiskers, leaned in close near his cheek, kissed his receding hair line and said, "Scritchy scritchy scritchy my good little birdy boy," as she scratched his cheek. Sometimes she forgot if she were greeting the parrot or the life mate, but they both enjoyed the attention.
Hubby popped one eye open and grinned at her. "Does this mean I get an almond for breakfast?" he asked. His hairless hand snaked out of the bed and patted her apple-like cheek. "You sure do look lovely first thing in the morning."
She gave him time to get propped up on one elbow and rub the sleep out of his eyes with the free hand, then took the coffee cup and gave it to him with another peck, this time on the top of his head near the bald spot that she always ignored seeing. "I'll be back in a few with some breakfast. What'll it be: whole wheat waffles, oatmeal with a ton of butter and sugar, or egg white and veggie omelet today?"
"Surprise me, sweetie," he answered. He had told her in the past htat this was his way of trying to make it easy for her. She had told him numerous times that it helped her more for him to state a specific menu so that she would not have to spend time and what little mental effort she could muster this early in the AM –or any time of day if it came to that – trying to make a decision about what somebody else would enjoy.
"I feel like surprising you with coffee only for breakfast, you old goat," she muttered with a distinct lack of charity.
"Well, I am sooo sorry, Miss Touchy Feelings, that I didn't simply jump up and rise to the occasion and demand something specific like poached salmon on a bed of fresh asparagus topped wtih hollandaise and toasted almonds."
He had seen that on a commercial and mentioned a few times to her how good it looked. She had mentioned to him each time how many dirty dishes making a meal like that would leave. He had responded that they sell smoked salmon, canned asparagus, and hollandaise "just add water" type sauce mixes, to which she had responded that he could probably make it very well all by himself, so there.
"Well," she said at the present moment, "since you seem to have almonds on the brain, I'll make you some almond and cranberry cereal with orange juice on the side."
"I didn't know that was one of my choices," he said, sipping his coffee. Nanny knew from past exchanges that he really liked the special coffee she had to buy at a store on the other side of town, and she hoped that, every time he enjoyed its aromatic vanilla pleasure, he knew she loved him. She could tell by the way he sniffed before he sipped that he was indeed enjoying the special blend.
"It is now," she said, ruffling his hair. "And I got the no-pulp orange juice so you don't have to spend so long picking your teeth. See you in a few."
OG was reflecting that he missed the regular orange juice; it was the extra pulp to which he had one time and one time only objected. A little pulp is good roughage and he was never one to turn down fiber as they called it nowadays. But she was a good woman, with a good heart, and he knew it was a struggle for her to function in the morning.
He slurped some more special vanilla brew and thanked God for a wife who thought ahead the night before to set up a pot of coffee to brew itself freshly first thing in the morning. And she always fixed him something tasty for breakfast, so it never mattered what she fixed. She still felt obligated to offer him a choice, and he hated sometimes the fact that she waited on him hand and foot. But if he ever mentioned that discomfort, she countered by saying that she enjoyed bringing him good food and keeping him happy. What could a man say to that? "Oh, honey, please don't do something you like because it makes me feel like a slug." No, best to let sleeping dogs lie, although he wished he could go back and be a sleeping dog a little while longer but he owed it to his early bird wife, who was already up puttering around the kitchen, to stay awake, drink his java, and plan out his day. Or not. Staying awake and downing the brew would probably be good enough for now.
He could hear her going thorough her morning wake up routine. "Hey, little waddly birdy buddy, how are you? chirp chirp chirp my sweet little heart of my heart." Funny how she talked so sugary to that grey featherball and then made fun of people who named thier dogs "Poopsie" or knit sweaters and matching bows for their poodles. Best not to mention it to her, however.
"Here's your cereal and toast. I brought honey, cherry preserves, blackberry jelly, Mrs. Butterworth's syrup, and apple butter for the toast. Oh, darn it! I forgot the orange juice," and in a whirl of apron and wringing hands and heel-dragging house slippers she was off after having deposited the food- laden tray on the bedside table.
OG surveyed the choices, then started in on the cereal. He didn't rememer her mentioning toast, but it was all good. Everyting smelled great: the cinnamon of apple butter, the tangy sweetness of the open jar of cherry preserves, the dark earthy scent of blackberries, and the smooth rich aroma from the honey bear pot. She never could leave that restaurant training behind her. One of her frequent sayings was, "You can take the waitress out of the restaurant, but you can't take the waitress out of the waitress." Kinda made sense, if you knew Ruby, that is.
"Here's the juice, honey." She stopped dead in the middle of the room like a swimmer sighting a shark. "Is something wrong with the toast? Did you want grape jelly? Because I was making your lunch bag sandwich with it but you can have it now if you want it on your toast and I can make your lunch later and clean the sinks in the bathrooms now and just come back to make your sandwich, but I really wish you would have at least had the courtesy to try and TELL me you didn't want all that stuff, that you only wanted grape jelly because honestly it wouldn't have been any trouble at all. Did you want grape jelly, honey?"
His mouth was full of cereal crunching away like rocks in a quarry, so he gulped it down and reached for his coffee cup to get rid of the tickle in his throat left by a hastily departing wheat flake. Evidently this was not a quick enough response from him because she snatched the cup away from him, saying, "Oh, I am so sorry, I let your coffee get cold. Here, I'll bring you some more and get you some orange juice too but if you didn't want the other stuff just let me know and I'll bring in the grape jelly when I come back. Okay I'll just be right back with some more coffee in a minute. And juice. And then we'll see what it is you don't like about the toast."
How a woman who can barely spell her own name before ten thirty in the morning could string together so many words, most of them useless, was beyond his ken. Here he was, choking on a flake of cereal without coffee or juice or even enough saliva to wash it down, and she ws zooming off chattering away worse than the parrot about jelly when he hadn't even expected toast in the first place. The things we put up with in the name of love, he thought. She means well. Just not too bright in the early hours. And she tries too hard to please. A smile and something wet in a cup or glass and a little bite to eat, that would be all he needed to make him happy. But the King of Enlgand probably had fewer choices than he for breakfast. Tea and crumpets, most likely, although OG personally had no idea what crumpets looked or tasted like. They sounded kind of floury and filling. He wondered if the King of England ever got stuck with a tiny morsel of crumpet refusing to slide down his throat as he waited for the servants to bring him a second cup of tea.
His lovely bride of ... er, lots of years ... bustled in, orange juice in one hand and coffee in the other. The steam from the mug floated in a delicious vanilla fragrance toward his bed. She placed both cups on the tray and commenced to wringing her hands again. He picked up the juice in a cup marked, "Head of household, and if you don't believe it ask my husband" and slurped it down, grateful for its simple liquidity. The resisting breakfast cereal slid down and his inner regions were once more at peace.
"Thanks, Honey," he said.
"Why, you're welcome, Sweetheart. I didn't know you didn't want toast today. Can I get you something else? A poached egg or some country ham?"
"No, Babe, the toast is great. I just started in on the cereal and was enjoying it so much that I haven't gotten around to the toast. And I'll probably have the honey with it, but you can leave the tray here in case something else beckons and I change my mind."
"Good," she replied, "I'll get back to making your lunch. Do you have plenty of blood bait or should I defrost some?"
That's right. He was due to take a couple of the grandkids fishing today. But the mention of blood bait made him decide to nix the cherry preserves. Yes dry toast was not so bad after all come to think of it. "Um ... whatever you want, Hon. This is great oj, by the way."
"Don't you change the subject on me, Mr. Stringfellow."
Uh-oh, she had called him by his surname. What had he done wrong?
"It doesn't matter." Watching her clomp back to the kitchen, he thought that what he REALLY wanted was a little peace and a plain bit of breakfast. And some more hot coffee. Oh, yeah, she had brought that with the juice. There was a little grey feather floating around in it like a graceful but unwelcome boat in a lake. Maybe the coffee wasn't that important. The juice was good, citrusy tang but sweet to the tongue and cool as it slid down his throat. Yep, she was a good woman no doubt about it. Even if she did annoy him a little bit now and then.
She breezed back into the bedroom and stood by thier bed, fussing and fidgeting.
"What?" he asked in genuine puzzlement.
"What about the bait? You need some chicken livers or that blood bait, or should I whip up a batch of that jello bread stuff? I need to know so I have time to fix it before the early arrivals come. Are you through with that bowl?" She reached down to snatch it away, but he clung to it like a dog to a favorite chew toy.
"Not quite finished, Ruby. How about you just let me pick up some crickets on the way and then you won't have to worry about it."
"Okay, but I didn't want you to have to make one more trip. Well, if you don't want the toast I'll take it back and eat it when I have time." Again she stretched out her overly-helpful hand, and he fought the urge to bat it away.
"It's all right, Sweet Pie, I'm gonna eat the toast as soon as I'm finished with this cereal. I want to eat the cereal before it gets too soggy in the milk. Everything is great, just great. You go on ahead and fix the sack lunches, and I sure do appreciate you and how hard you work on keeping us all fed and happy."
This caused the desired reaction as well as an unintended problem: his wife leaned down and kissed his forehead again, which spread warmth throught his whole being, but also caused him to spill a bit of the cold milk from his cereal bowl on to his wrist, making him jerk in surprise and spill yet more milk onto his cotton placemat. No problem, he thought, that's why God invented napkins.
"OH, RATS!" she squeaked. "I'm so sorry; let me get you some more cereal."
"HONEY."
She stopped in mid-flutter, cocking her head and leaving her hands extended in suspended animation. "What?" It was the smallest voice she had used yet this morning.
"Please. Leave everything here and go to the kitchen, fix yourself a cup of hot tea and start making the lunches. Everything is fine, this is a GREAT breakfast, and I don't want you to feel that you are getting behind on your day just because I'm a little clumsy." He tried to keep his eyes telegraphing all the love he felt for her. Anything to keep the peace and get him some peace in which to eat his breakfast.
"Okay." Ruby shuffled out of the room, head hanging down and hands stuffed in her pockets.
Such fragile things, women, he mused. They can pump an eight-pound human being out of that tiny opening, feed it with milk produced by her own body in those gloriously lovely soft and squishy breasts, then run the whole household while tending to their own interests and hobbies ... but one wrong sentence at the wrong time of the month, or any wrong time, and they were crushed like a rose under the foot of an unruly bull. Strange. You tried to figure out how they wanted to be treated, and even after years it was still often a guessing game.
His Ruby ws a bit like a volcano; she would boil and bubble and hold that molten frustration or irritation inside, then explode, her wrath splattering all over the unlucky spectators, but then she would simmer down again and go back to more or less harmlessly rumbling along.
Here she was again, marching in a sedate pace toward his tray. Should he ask for a new coffee cup or ride it out? Hard to decide, since if she noticed the feather he would be chided for not telling her about it, but if he asked for a new mug it might inconvenience her to the point that she would begin spluttering and acting put-upon. Why did somethig as simple as a bite of breakfast have to be made so complicated?
It was too dang early to have to think about this stuff. He would finish his cereal and pluck the feather out of his coffee and get into the shower.
Too late.
She had spied the floating feather and was flustering around complaining about the very bird to which she had been cooing and making lovey dovey noises not twenty minutes ago. Changeable beings, women. Never sure where you stand with them.
" ... and it wouldn't kill you to at least please TELL me if that rotten little ball of fluff molts in your expensive coffee that I have to go all the way to what used to be the old Piggly Wiggly to find, and then you still haven't told me what you want for bait, oh that's right you said crickets but now I need to check your wallet to make sure you have enough cash because you never carry cash but you always want to buy things at the last minute, and are you going to eat that cereal or just let it turn the comforter into a swamp?" Before he could draw breath for an answer, she barged on, "Is that toast okay? Because I can take that tray into the kitchen and put everything up if you're finished, but there's no hurry because I want you to enjoy your breakfast and I'll be right back with some fresh coffee in a fresh cup. Unless you want more oj. Do you want more orange juice? I made plenty; the grandkids will drink it if you don't want it tomorrow or I can use it in a recipe.”
His brain was spinning, his stomach was rumbling, and his arm was getting numb from perching on it as he waited for his much-vaunted breakfast to be assembled to the satisfaction of his sometimes persnickety wife. This had to stop.
"Honey," he said in the sweetest voice he could muster on an empty stomach and a chilly wet arm. "I am going to finish my cereal now, then eat the toast with a little honey on it, and then take a shower. You made a wonderful meal and I appreciate it, but I don't want to make you run behind, so please don't worry about any of the other stuff like juice and jelly and bait and coffee. Everyting is great, just great." He kept telling her that but she so seldom believed him. Maybe she never could accept herself as a worthy mate, no matter how often he tried to giver her honest encouragement.
"Okay," she acquiesced, I'll take all this except the cherry jelly—"
"The honey. I was going to have honey."
"Well, please make up your mind."
"I did. I asked for honey." All this breakfast folderol was making him tired enough to want to go back to sleep. Maybe he could take a nap at the fishing hole. If only he could be so lucky. Out of nowhere, a sigh pushed its way up from his exasperation.
Oops. Wrong move. Wrong move entirely.
"Hmph. Here I am trying to make your day start off easily and bring you a little bite to eat and all you can do is snort like a bull spotting a matador. I don't know why I bother trying to fix you nice things and communicate with you; I may as well guess at what you want and let you make do with whatever I decide to make for you."
"Nothing is wrong, Sweetie. I'm just finishing my breakfast and then I'm going to take a shower. ANYthing will be fine on the toast, really. It's all good."
"Oh, try and placate me now, will you? Well it doesn't do any good my trying to ask you what you would like, so tell you what for the rest of the day I won't bother you at all. Would that make you happy? I won't talk to you all day long. You should enjoy that; silence is supposed to be golden, after all. How does that sound?"
Like a vacation, he thought. Out loud, he said, "I didn't mean to make you mad, Ruby. Whatever I said or did, I'm sorry."
"See, you don't even know what you did. Sighing as if you are sooo put upon because I tried to make you a nice breakfast," the tears were edging their way into the corners of her eyes as well as tiptoeing into her voice, "and then acting as if you are the good guy by trying to apologize when you don't have a clue, not a blooming CLUE as to how you make me feel." With each burst of a phrase, she pikced up another condiment from the tray until her arms were bobbling around with jars and bottles like a juggler on her first day at the circus. "So I'll just get out of your face and out of your way and let you have your breakfast, such as it is, in silence and maybe THAT will make you happy." She had reached the door by this point, and she pirouetted around, jars clanking in her arms. "And I'm not going to be talking to you all day. I hope you will enjoy your nice, quiet day. I still love you, and if this what it takes to please you, then I am perfectly willing to be quiet and not bother you."
She left the bedroom and walked down the hallway muttering her recriminations all the way. As her words faded, OG let out a for-real genuine man-sized sigh and scooped his cereal up and into the mouth as quickly as he could. This was going to be a long, long day.