Slip of the Pen

[First fiction piece I wrote on the moleskine. A few lines in, it turned out to be far from serious. Pseudo-sarcastic?]

Nothing was working. He had tried having sex before writing. He had tried eating chocolates to put him in the mood. He had tried watching soap operas to put him in the mood. Neither sweets nor salty tears worked. He had tried sharpening pencils, as Hemingway was supposedly wont to do, even though he did his writing with a laptop computer.

Still, the words didn’t come…but the ideas did. Hell, he had a ton of ideas dumped upon him every hour by his muse perched on the ceiling of his room. He had ideas for poetry, plays, fantasy, mystery, horror, sagas, novelettes, flash fiction. He was absolutely sure that his ideas were inimitable, that they were guaranteed bestsellers and prizewinners — once they were actually put into words, stanzas, chapters. The problem was his muse didn’t want to be bothered with a menial task such as “word-mongering”, as she had put it in her harsh whispers to him. He had to do it on his own.

Then his muse, exasperated by the impotency of her master, hinted to him in a fit of anger, “You’re not a writer, you’re a typer!” With this, he shunned the keyboard for true pen and paper. He managed to satisfy his muse with a few works, but he soon proved inconsistent. The ink from his pen would come in sputters rather than in flows, and his stamina would falter after a few minutes of writing. His muse began to complain again, causing him to scramble for a solution — this and that combination of ballpoint pen, ruled paper, pencil, Post-it note, fountain pen, tissue paper — all to no avail.

The muse reached her breaking point. “What, are you only good for quickies?” Then came the ultimatum. “If you can’t give me the satisfaction I need, I’ll find someone else who will. Even if it’s a girl.”

It was panic time. Why can’t he be like A. Frisco, the young writer who churned out piece after piece to the endearment of the literati? A. Frisco, the literary rock star whose pseudonym was being plastered on the dailies and the Internet like crazy? A. Frisco, who, while not having won the major literary awards, has had 100% of his works published (as claimed by his website) by no less than the granddaddy of book houses, owned by the elderly National Artist, the most influential, the most revered, Alejo Publishing?

So he trained his crosshairs on A. Frisco. Once, he saw a print ad proclaiming, “A. Frisco uses M__”, the legendary European notebook once used by great wordsmiths. Needless to say, he placed an order from Italy. His muse seemed mightily pleased. (She had actually protested a bit about using an Italian notebook, saying, “Can’t you buy a Greek one instead?”) The first few pages went fine, but he started to have problems at the ninth. It soon became obvious that if M__s worked for A. Frisco, they didn’t cut it for him.

Stalking around A. Frisco’s website, he came across a blog entry where the young writer casually dropped, “I’m now using an E__, a special Italian journal with cream pages with torn edges, way more exquisite than the M__’s.” The entry showed a picture of the E__ bound with luxurious leather cover, upon which the writer’s pen name was engraved. This was it, he felt. This notebook was the make or break.

So he promptly shelled out the cash for the E__, which cost five times more than the M__. He added a few more thousands to have his name engraved. His wallet wailed, but no problem — everything for literary glory! His muse was pleased, but not mightily — having another Italian notebook didn’t help.

Sadly, the E__ turned out to be a worse disaster than the M__; all it took for him to realize that were the first four pages of nonsense scribbling. With his muse starting to pack her bag (just one), he went to his last resort.

He would go to one of A. Frisco’s book signings and personally ask him the secret to his success.

It was a bitter pill for him to swallow, him, a vainglorious person who despised all other writers’ achievements. But he managed to drag his leaden feet into the bookstore where Alejo Publishing — who else? — was sponsoring the famous writer’s book signing. He forced himself to buy A. Frisco’s fifth poetry book (and eleventh overall), and patiently waited in line for his turn, with only the thought of him and his beautiful muse surrounded by an idolizing public giving him the strength to carry on in such despicable conditions.

Finally, he was face to face with A. Frisco. The vaunted figure didn’t look that impressive up close — eyebagged face, unruly mop of hair, pimples everywhere. In short, an unkempt man barely out of puberty. But A. Frisco did carry a smile that looked genuine, even to the man envying him, despising him, facing him.

He quickly went through the pleasantries — handing over the book to be signed, introducing himself (he chose to give his full name, Wally Canal-canal, instead of his nom de plume Venice, because he didn’t want to give A. Frisco that privilege.) Once the writer finished the signing duties, he stammered out the million peso question:

“What is the secret to your writing’s success?”

A. Frisco slowly looked up to him, a sly smile drawn out on pockmarked face. “Why, my pen,” A. Frisco said.

“Your pen?” his lesser-known counterpart asked, voice quivering with anticipation.

“Yes. Without it I can’t write that well. All my books were written with it. In fact, I love the brand so much I bought dozens engraved with my name and sporting my favorite color.”

“Can I…have a closer look at it?”

“Sure, no problem.” A. Frisco handed over the pen he was using to sign books. With widening eyes and trembling hands, Wally Canal-canal grasped the pen. The answer to all of his problems was literally now in his hands!

The pen was but the run-of-the-mill, ‘stylish’ metallic pen popular with businessmen and gift-givers. Nothing fancy, nothing too expensive like the M__s and the E__s. The upper half of the pen was stainless steel; the lower half was in dark blue. Turning the pen over, Wally Canal-canal found a name engraved on it:

“Francisco Alejo”


Muse sketch by Ia.