A friend of mine asked me what inspires me to write. I told her that life inspires me to scribble down possible story ideas. My life.
This morning, in desperate need of caffeine after a sleepless night, I ventured into the kitchen to make some coffee only to find that we were out of instant powder. With a frustrated sigh, I stuck a couple of pieces of bread in the toaster and began fiddling with a confusing Italian espresso machine. I flipped its switches and tapped at its many buttons to no avail. Muttering impolite sentiments under my breath, I located the instruction manual and tried to decipher it.
Just as some of my very poor Italian was starting to come back to me, the smell of something burning snaked its way up my nostrils. My head snapped up and I caught sight of ominous spirals of black smoke curling out of the toaster. Two seconds later, the little metal box sprouted angry flames and the espresso machine started hissing and beeping shrilly behind me.
Breakfast clearly wasn’t in the cards for me. The toaster was dead and I was fairly certain that I had somehow managed to impair the espresso machine for life. I briefly contemplated putting the kettle on the stove for a cup of tea and popping a frozen cheese pie into the microwave but decided not to risk committing any more involuntary manslaughter to innocent kitchen appliances.
With a grumbling stomach and in a quickly darkening mood, I headed to the shower where I cut my leg while shaving, which I didn’t notice until I bled all over a pristine white towel as I was drying off. There were, of course, no band-aids to be found in the bathroom or anywhere else in the house so I had to patch myself up with masking tape and I just know that it’s going to sting like hell when I rip it off tonight.
Due to a wardrobe malfunction (the zipper of my favorite jeans got stuck in my underwear), a lengthy search for my keys which I eventually found chilling out in the fridge next to the empty jar of Nescafe, and a battle with an ironing board that I didn’t win, I was half an hour late for my morning walk with Taxi Driver. He was not amused.
Thankfully, my day is now progressing more smoothly. That aside, my point is that events from my own life, even the mundane ones, inspire me. The character’s in the project I’m currently working on are more than likely going to have a bad day, filled with annoying little hiccups.
Happy Sunday!
