Note Taking

I found this prompt today:

31. Take a small, boring moment that happened today and write as much as you can about it. Go overboard describing it, and make this boring moment exciting by describing it in intense detail with ecstatic prose. Eventually connect this small, boring detail with the grand narrative of your life, your bigger purpose and intentions.

I snake my hand out from beneath the comforting weight of my heavy  comforter and grope the corner of my bedside table where my phone belongs until my fingers close around its expensive flimsiness.

Why do we pay so much money for these marvels of technology that honestly, aren’t that necessary at all? I can’t answer that question right now; I have more pressing issues on my mind. I tap and swipe, tap and swipe, until  notepad opens.

The list of sandwich requests from Arby’s stares me in the face. I don’t need that anymore; I don’t remember what night we had Arby’s for dinner, but it’s not tonight–tonight I’m making chicken and dumplings. I press and hold; select all and delete.

And now the fun begins. I type furiously, thumbs softly tap-dancing across the tiny keyboard. What is this masterpiece? It’s the first outline I’ve ever attempted for NaNoWriMo. Tippity tap, tippity tap. I summarize, sentence fragment after brief sentence fragment. Details spring to mind right and left: add scene, add scene.

I’m excited; this is working out so much better than I had expected. I’m a pantser, I’ve always been a pantser. I don’t plan for NaNo–that’s crazy talk! And yet here I am planning instead of napping. It feels good. I’ll have no problem winning in twenty days or less, as is my goal this year. Maybe I’ll even finish this one!

I finish up my pseudo-outline; that was a lot of typing on my poor little phone, but I’m used to it. My finger slides up to press the lock button, and I lay my phone back on the table where I got it from in the first place.

I pull the cover back up over my shoulder and snuggle in as my hand returns from the table, sliding softly beneath my pillow, and I nap.

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