past the computer desk, he picked up an empty mug.
Walking out into the kitchen, he touched the kettle. The kettle was hot. Mother drank coffee before leaving for work. Peter went to the bedside table, poured sugar and coffee into a mug, then poured hot water over them and mixed thoroughly. Then he took milk out of the refrigerator and added it to the drink, stirring it again, and putting the milk back on the bottom shelf.
Together with the mug, he went into the room, where he immediately turned on the computer, and sat down in a chair, placing the mug of coffee on the table. He leaned back and rubbed his eyes. The computer booted up.
At some point, Peter realized that he should wash himself and get himself in order.
Rising from his chair, he went to the bathroom, where he thoroughly washed his face and brushed his teeth. After wiping his hands and face dry with a towel that was hanging on a hook, Peter returned to the room and sat down again in his favorite computer chair. His room was somewhat reminiscent of an office, if you do not take into account the large bed standing near the window.
The computer has already booted.
Peter connected the Internet and opened a social network page. Sveta was offline. Having glanced at the news, Peter opened the office program in which he wrote the book, scrolled the text to the very bottom, and bent over the keyboard, trying to figure out what to write about.
Thoughts were difficult to get into his head, but what angered him the most was that these thoughts could be contained in two sentences. And I had to write at least three thousand words. Peter had no idea how to do this. It seemed impossible. He wrote one paragraph, a second, a third, covered a whole page, and then, looking at the number of words he had written, he discovered that there were only four hundred. But he had already run out of ideas; he didn’t know what else to write about. After all, really, what can you write about when a person sits at home all day, at the computer. Taking a sip of coffee from a mug, Peter decided that he needed to somehow diversify the life of his character. But it was very difficult to do this, because according to the plan, the main character was unemployed, he had no money, no friends, nothing that normal people had. All he had was the dream of becoming a millionaire. An unfortunate person, and who would want to read about such a person?
– We need to have breakfast. Maybe on a full stomach thoughts will come to mind better. – Peter thought, and abandoning attempts to write the fifth chapter, got up from his chair and went to the kitchen to prepare breakfast.
Having opened the refrigerator, he leaned on the door and froze, looking on the shelves for products that could be used to prepare breakfast. There wasn’t much choice. Or rather, he was small. You could make scrambled eggs with sausage, or dumplings that were in the freezer.
– Scrambled eggs. – Peter decided, and took out a package of eggs and one sausage from the refrigerator.
After crumbling the sausage into the frying pan, he took two eggs out of the package and put it back in the refrigerator, leaving the eggs on the nightstand.
– Scrambled eggs yesterday, scrambled eggs the day before yesterday, and tomorrow, probably, there will be scrambled eggs too. – Peter laughed. – I can imagine if you write a book about this. In each chapter, the main character cooks himself scrambled eggs. And also describe it in detail, savor this moment in order to feel the mystery of preparing this dish. I think the publisher will throw the book in the trash after reading the first two chapters.
The frying pan began to gurgle. The sausages began to shrink and darken. Peter took a knife and eggs and beat them into the frying pan. The frying pan began to gurgle louder.
– I wonder if my vocabulary is enough to be considered a talented writer? Or is my place among graphomaniacs? – thought Peter, crushing the yolk in the frying pan. – A paper scribbler, that’s what I am. Nobody will ever read my manuscripts, because they are simply uninteresting, boring, and monotonous. I use the same words, I repeat myself, I even have similar sentences in each chapter, not just separate words. And this volume, eight author’s sheets. Why so many, maybe I want to publish a small book, like that writer, Spaniard, or Portuguese, whoever he is, wrote a book, only one hundred and fifty pages, like, and a circulation of as many as sixty-five million copies. But I live in Russia, where can I go? There is only one publishing house, and it requires eight copyright sheets. No choice. Writers are doomed from the very beginning of their careers. No creativity. You can write a brilliant book with six author’s pages, but it won’t be published because that’s not enough. And then you have to figure out how to make the book longer. Ultimately, it’s just text, just a bunch of letters for someone to read. Seriously, who cares what is written in the book, if it is logical, then that is enough. You would think that in each chapter I will describe in detail how the main character cooks scrambled eggs. Yes, it’s repetitive, but that’s life. If this is the protagonist’s life, what can I do? I can’t write that he orders himself pizza and beer every day, when he doesn’t have a ruble in his pocket, because he is unemployed. It’s kind of creepy.
The scrambled eggs were ready.
Peter took a clean plate out of the dryer, put it on the nightstand, and turned the scrambled eggs into it. Taking a fork, he went to the table. Having placed the plate with scrambled eggs on the table, he took out ketchup from the refrigerator and squeezed some onto the scrambled eggs.
– But seriously, if you think about it this way, how many times can you repeat one word in a paragraph, from a literary point of view? – Peter froze over a plate of scrambled eggs. – If I want to write that the main character took a frying pan with scrambled eggs, dumped the scrambled eggs on a plate, then squeezed ketchup onto the scrambled eggs, crushed the scrambled eggs with a fork, and then began to gobble up the scrambled eggs on both cheeks. How many times have I used the word «scrambled eggs»? And how will the reader perceive this? Maybe he will throw the book on the floor, jump on it with both feet, and start stomping on it, shouting: «Cursed be the day I bought this waste paper!» That’s the problem. I am only a writer, I write because I feel like I see images before my eyes. And this, by the way, is a cool idea. – Peter put the ketchup in the refrigerator and straightened up to his full height. «I’m just a writer, and what I write is just how I see the world that surrounds me.» And if all my words fall crookedly on paper, then let it be so, because I’m not Shakespeare, I’m a worker of the pen. – Peter smiled. – Well, aren’t I a genius? Am I not capable of writing a work of genius? And isn’t what I write brilliant? No matter how I write it. Well, really, how do I know whether I’m a genius or mediocrity? Maybe I read my text, and it seems primitive to me, too simple, but in fact it is brilliant, this is the highest level of literary excellence, and all writers will kneel before me, praising my talent. How do I know that by describing in each chapter how the main character cooks scrambled eggs, I am writing a work of genius and not a boring graphomania? Okay, we need to eat.
Peter sat down on a chair, turned on the TV, and began to eat scrambled eggs. A program about travel was shown on TV. There was no series about witches. This upset Peter a little; he liked to watch a TV series about witches, in those moments when he went into the kitchen to eat or pour coffee. Although he also liked the program about travel.
After eating the scrambled eggs, Peter returned to the room, where he immediately sat down in the computer chair and took a few sips of the now cooled coffee. All this time, he continued to think about how best to write a book, and what to pay attention to, to actions, to a description of the area, or to the thoughts and emotions of people. Or did everything have to be in harmony?
– Shakespeare had no descriptions at all, only dialogues. But he wrote plays. – Peter thought. «But it doesn’t matter what you write, the main thing is that it sells well, that people like it.» Play, prose, or poetry. Although I probably went overboard with the poems. Poems will never be popular, not in our world. It is enough to remember the people you can meet on the street. But looking at them,