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> Globs of raw cookie dough fuel my game of make-believe

5 pages in an hour. Not too bad. I've finally resigned myself to a whole pantheon of deus ex machina. (that phrase should be plural, but I don't know how to do that right now).

When I'm writing normally, I actually take time to think about what i want to happen over the course of the novel and spend pages setting it up, so that very little will happen abruptly. It should make sense, be plausible, realistic, or whatever.

That's not really happening now, though, and I think I'm ok with it. It's just a 3-D novel. There was a moment this morning at which I realized that I'm not actually writing a novel. I'm playing make-believe.

You know, when you're playing with your friends, and they're like

"ooh, I know, and then we get attacked by an alien spaceship. No wait, I know, I'm an alien, but I'm really on your side but the others don't know it. No no wait, they already captured us and we're escaping."

"you mean like in star wars when they're in that garbage pit and they get crushed to death?"

"cool, yeah, we could do that. but first lets start with the attack part where I don't know that you're going to be my friend yet. Ok, you're over there, and I'm shooting out at those trees and you have to come up behind me and tap me on the shoulder."

"ok, wait, let me get my lazer."

"yeah, but don't hold it, or I might not know you're my friend and I might shoot you."

"maybe you could wound me?"

"Nah, I think you should get wounded later so we can still run around in the trees."

"Ok, ready?"

"Ready!"

"beoo! beoo! I'm outnumbered, what do I do?"

And so on...

That's really what it's like. The idea that this is just a chance for me, as an adult, to play make-believe, with the excuse that "hey, I was sleep-deprived and under stress and just making stuff up as I went along..." and still go back to my stuffy realistic writing next week... That's pretty liberating.