27.8.09

9, 10, 11, 12, 1,000,000 stories to write?

Today is going to be rough. Lots of work to do.
9, 10, 11, 12, 1,000,000 stories to write?
I don't even know. By tomorrow, they have to be done. The world will end if they are not done.
Wait!
I'm done working in that miserable newspaper life tomorrow. Anything I don't get done, they really can't do anything about. What are they going to do? Fire me?
I want to leave on a good foot, I want to get all of this done. I just really don't think that it is feasible. I got piled on because it is my last week, and I feel that is unfair. I am not being paid to write the next three editions of the paper. I am getting paid to write this coming week's edition. That means I should not have to fill the pages of the issues to come and write more in a week than my lazy editor does in a month.
I am not saying that I am not up to the challenge, actually quite the opposite. During full weeks over the past few months during my tenure with these papers I have written upwards of 14 stories in a week. This was done with the knowledge that I would be able to slacken my pace and rest for the following few weeks. I do not think it is fair that I should have to allow someone in a position of authority (above me) the same slackened pace due to my dilligent work. That is unjust.
So, I'm going to attack today, and we will see what happens.
There was a day in July that I was working in Forest City and completed a record 11 stories before three in the afternoon. My publisher visited from Osage that day and was very impressed and expressed as much to me.
On my way home I felt gigantic. Like Weezy F. Baby said: "I feel big, not big in the sense of weight, like gaining weight or nothing like that, like colossal, ha."
I felt I could smash down on every farm I drove by and conquer the world. I let out a scream that would have shaken the foundations of the greatest buildings man has ever built.
I felt as though I had beaten the task, I had made it, and that is when I lost interest. I then knew that there was nothing they could put in front of me there that I couldn't do. That I couldn't destroy. That I couldn't make mine.
Now, they are asking me unrealistic requests in my final two days. However, when I hit 40 hours tomorrow, I will be done. I will be leaving.

....and what is anyone going to do about it?