Against Fate: A Prince Castle Novel by Damian Bloom

Author:Damian Bloom [Bloom, Damian]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2020-11-22T18:00:00+00:00

15

Adam

Gradually, as if waking from a fever dream, my inspiration falters, and the outside world begins to insinuate itself back into my awareness. Like a drop of paint in a glass of water. How long has it been since I’ve been seeing, hearing, breathing, eating, drinking only work?

As I blink around the room, I’m surprised to no longer be surrounded by my characters, by dark alleyways, and creaking old houses.

My discipline is the one thing I most pride myself on as a writer. I don’t sit and wait for inspiration; I chase it. I don’t expect ideas to appear; I unearth them. Since that fateful day, when I decided to follow my dream of writing fiction, I’ve treated writing as a full-time job, which has allowed it to become my full-time job. But while I have no problem writing even when I don’t feel like it, there are times when something—call it inspiration, call it the muse, call it whatever you want—takes hold of me and squeezes every drop of creative juice out of me. Growing a mind of its own, the story sucks me in and chews me like a toy. As if in a trance, I find it almost impossible to step away from the manuscript for days on end. These spontaneous states of flow may be a godsend for my productivity, but—the way all things seek balance—every other aspect of my life suffers because of them. I don’t sleep properly, I don’t eat properly, I don’t work out, and I don’t clean up. I never know how long these little strokes of genius last, which makes them all the more dangerous.

Waking up from one today, I expect a mess, but the house is irreproachably neat, as if I’ve been tidying up every day. There’s even food on the stove. In my mind drift vague memories of warm, tasty home-made food and Luis roaming around as soundless as a mouse.

Taking a quick look in the mirror, I discover I don’t look too bad either. I could stand to wash my hair and trim my beard, and the skin around my eye is still tinged with violet, but at least it doesn’t hurt anymore.

I hear soft humming coming from my bedroom, and I head that way. His back to the door, Luis folds my freshly-washed T-shirts. He seems to be in a good mood, swinging his hips to whatever music’s playing in his head.

“Hope you haven’t been sniffing my boxers,” I tease.

Startled, he whirls on his heels. At first, he eyes me warily, like he’s seen a ghost, but he quickly finds a smile. “You’re a day too late,” he says. “I did that yesterday.”

I hesitate. Did he really…wash my underwear?

“I’m kidding,” he adds when I take too long to react. “I didn’t actually sniff anything, but you were running out of clean underwear, so I did a load of that too.”

Equal parts tantalized and uneasy, I raise my eyebrows. “Wow, you’ve really turned into the head of the household, haven’t you?”

“I didn’t mean to cross any boundaries.

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