The Writer’s Dilemma

I check the list of toys that came in today. Copy the SKU, paste it into the backend of the website. Check the price, update the inventory. If it’s a new product, I find it online, copy the relevant information and upload it. Onto the next item. One by one. Item after item. Every day a new list. It is mind-numbing tedium. You might think it was fun, being toys, but you would be wrong. The toys are fun if you’re in the store talking to customers or sampling a demo. If you’re uploading them to a website, they might as well be socket wrenches. Those of you wondering why this isn’t all automated are assuming the store owns technology younger than the 1990s. You would be wrong again.

I work from home, so take a short break to write a story — a memory that’s haunting my dreams or a moment from the day before that delighted me. I click back over to the toy list and stare at it for a moment or two. Click back into Word and rework a piece, making small changes, trying to make the story the best it can be. I know I should do the work that pays my bills. Instead, I work on stories that will live in my computer, unread, delighting only me.