I’ve been thinking about university lately. I think I was happy then, I’m not totally sure. I majored in magical creativity. It is pretty much an art degree for unicorns. I am somewhat above average as far as unicorns go. I attended a prestigious private school, a good finishing school, and was able to get into university on a scholarship. In university, I coasted my way to my degree, being thoroughly average and relatively unnoticed. Being unnoticed is good. Nopony expects anything from you if they don’t notice you.
It was university where I first tried moondust, a potent alchemical compound made from various fungi, magical roots, dreamweed, and if the claims are to be believed, moonbeams captured, solidified, and turned into a powder. It opened my mind and made my magic stronger. My thoughts opened. My writing improved. I became hooked on the stuff, a dangerous thing to do, and continued to use it until it began to burn me out. I went through a painful withdrawal period, I suffered a great deal while I did so, and found my muse in my suffering. I contracted a fierce case of horn rot from the moondust usage, and had to endure a long period of regrowth. My horn grew back longer and stronger and I consider myself lucky. For a lot of unicorns, their horn never grows back or becomes healthy, the fungal rot lingers and causes a great deal of pain.
Which leads me to one conclusion, as I sit here typing. I need to suffer. All of the best times of my life have been marked by suffering. I think that is why I have fallen into a rut. I no longer struggle, I no longer suffer. I no longer worry how I am going to pay the bills. I no longer worry if I am going to be published. Technically, I really don’t need to worry about anything else for the rest of my life… I could stop writing now and easily live off the royalties and accept the occasional movie deal. Except, I keep writing, a squirrel the money away, I take on editing work to pay my day to day expenses, like keeping my self in drink, and I live from paycheck to paycheck, never touching my savings. So I probably could just quit writing and live large instead of living like a bum, which is what I am doing now.
I think if I did that though, I’d probably die from alcoholism within the first five years.
I am dying of boredom as I write my current novel. The sex seems as meaningless as my own last encounter. It seems dry and repetitive. If I have to type “throbbing member” one more time I am going to spew all over my damn typewriter. Research shows that my target demographic reading group likes “throbbing member” though, it is the keyword that sells the scene. My target demographic also likes descriptions of things like the medial rings and flared tips. My agent is very insistent that I stick with the formula. Young innocent mare who was a filly only yesterday, does -blank- for a living, meets so and so and thus begins the whirlwind romance. So and so being the embodiment of the romantic preferences of the moment as deemed by popular culture. Some novels, it is a hunky fire-stallion, other novels, it is a rugged farm pony, and so on and so on. In my current novel, the cardboard cutout mare is a coffee shop barista by day, bartender by night, and somehow finds enough time for a reckless romance with a venture capitalist who has dreams of being the world championship ping pong ball player. All of these things are either current trends or the predictions of current trends of what is considered hot in popular culture.
As I typed last night, I actually entertained the notion of giving my own eyeballs papercuts as penance for the literary dribble I am producing.
I swear, if it wasn’t for Morose and Melancholy leveling me out, I think I would have lost my mind by now. Not sure how much more of this I can take. I need things to change, but the idea of breaking my routine scares me to death.
Purple Prosie was sitting in a folding reclining lawn chair on the small balcony accessible from her bedroom. She was wearing a broad sunhat, and had oversized red and white polka dotted sunglasses covering her eyes. She was sipping a tall glass of rum on the rocks, her second one so far today. Morose sat beside her, reclining back in the folding lawn chair, also wearing sunglasses but no hat. Morose’s ears were tied back behind her head with a bright yellow-green ribbon. Morose was drinking an apple soda spiked with gin in a tall glass that was half full.
“This is a good life,” Purple Prosie said, sipping her rum. “Quit your job. Become my housekeeper. I’ll pay you to do this every day.”
“I am a good respectable donkey,” replied Morose. “I have to be a good example for my little Melancholy.”
“But you could spend more time with her if you didn’t have to work,” reasoned Purple Prosie, sucking in an ice cube and crunching it between her broad flat teeth after she spoke.
“You don’t mind watching her at night do you?” asked Morose.
“She watches herself,” Purple Prosie confessed. “She comes home from her after school program, gets a snack, does her homework, asks me for help if she needs it, has dinner when I fix it, and then reads books or works on her paintings until bedtime. I mostly sit at my typewriter.”
“She idolises you, you know,” said Morose. “She wants to be a painter in the same way you are a writer.”
“I am an awful writer,” snarked Purple Prosie.
“So go back to writing other things,” Morose retorted. “I’ve read your first few novels. They are brilliant, even if they are unnoticed.”
“Bah,” muttered Purple Prosie. “Writers must have readers. Writers write to be read. It is too painful writing a novel containing the words of your soul and then have no readers interested in the contents of said soul.”
“I don’t think I’d make it without you,” Morose mused. “It is rough being a single mother.”
“I know I wouldn’t make it without you Morose. Your my best friend. I think you are my only friend. Everypony else just wants to know ‘Sultry Satin’ for the sake of knowing a famous writer. You are the only real friend I have. I had to ditch the rest of my friends after the ‘incident’ and go into hiding, change my pen name, and start over,” Purple Prosie said bitterly.
They clinked glasses together and continued to lay in the sun for the rest of the afternoon.