July 19: A Day in the Life of a Writer (Who Has No Friends)

Good morning Hank, it's Thursday, congratulations on your song yesterday. It was your best song ever.
Hank, a couple months ago I did a video that was about, like, a day in the life of a writer. And it was me, and Scott Westerfeld and Maureen Johnson, hanging out in a hotel room and writing. And that was really fun. So I thought I would do a follow up called A Day in the Life of a Writer, uh, Who Doesn't Have Any Friends. So now that I've moved to Indianapolis what happens every morning is that I get up and I sit down in this chair, or possibly outside, and the first thing that I do is, uh, I listen to, uh, your song.
(Accio Deathly Hallows plays) God that's a good song. So after I've listened to your song I spend about 30 minutes missing my old writing friends from New York. So I'll say to myself, I wonder what Scott and Jacine are doing today? They're probably having fun. Probably having a fancy lunch. Maureen's just gotten back from England, I bet she's having some fun. Probably writing a funny blog post. I wish they were here. It's kind of boring. This room echoes. Echo. Echo. I'm lonely lonely lonely lonely (mimics echo)!
Hank, after all of my warm up is over I proceed to do, uh, this: (types). And that goes on for about seven hours. The funny thing about writing is that whether you're doing it well or doing it poorly it looks the exact same. That's actually one of the main ways that writing is different from ballet dancing.
Today I've been working on a part of my new novel that's about a hundred and fifty pages in, but I thought just for fun, I might read you the prologue, since people in My Pants have been spending so much time debating what my book is about, I thought maybe I would give them the slightest hint.
The way I figure it, everyone gets a miracle. Like, I will probably never be struck by lightning, or become the dictator of a small nation in the Pacific islands, or contract terminal ear canal cancer, or spontaneously combust. But if you consider all the unlikely things together, at least one of them will probably happen to each of us. Admittedly the world contains a lot of people. But it also contains a lot of unlikelihoods. I could have seen it rain frogs in my home town. I could have stepped foot on Mars. I could have been eaten by an Orca. I could have married the Queen of England, or survived months at sea. But my miracle was different. My miracle was Margo.
Hank I'll see you tomorrow, and since I won't have a chance to speak to you again until you're finished with Harry Potter, I just wanted to say I hope it lives up to your every expectation. I mean if the book is as good as the song you wrote, then it's gonna be one heck of a book.