May 23, 2005
In the book "Wonder Boys," but not the movie, there is a lot of reference to the midnight disease. In the book this seems to refer to a writer's tendency to want to organize life the way fiction is organized, and if there isn't enough tension, conflict or plot coherence, to create it in your own life. I don't know about that, but I was walking Frodo today and thinking of the reaction I get when I tell people, "I'm a freelance writer." They invariably say, "Oh, what types of things do you write?" And I answer: "Magazine articles, newspaper articles, novels." I may say something about editing a technical journal and reviewing books, and I have to get over a sort of apology for the fiction writing that I tend to tack on, as if it's an embarrassment. "Well, most of my income comes from..." Speak it aloud and make it so, I guess.

I was thinking that a more amusing apology might be, "Don't mind the novels, though. That's just a disease I can't get rid of." Makes it sound like an infection--or a stubborn rash on some unmentionable part of your body--when in fact it's more like an obsessive-compulsive disorder. Yes, I spend a significant portion of my work day in the company of imaginary people! Don't mind me! I'm not really talking to myself! And that list I have of 43 different ways to murder people, and all that documentation on forensics and anti-terrorist activities, well, it's all research! Research, I say!

My wife and I used to joke, when my last neighbors put up a big satellite dish, then built a room around the pole (yes, a little odd), that they were really National Security Agency spies keeping tabs on my subversive activities.

Anyway, I'm afraid the disease has sunk its claws in and won't let go, even if I wanted them to. I wonder if it's infectious?

Best,
Mark Terry