that he would be able to write a book, that his book would be loved, and that he would be able to earn good money from it, which would be enough for him to buy a separate home, a car, and a girlfriend, whom he did not have.
– Okay. – Peter answered, pouring hot water from the kettle into the coffee and sugar.
The mother packed her things, took the keys, and left the apartment. Peter was left alone, with Motya, who climbed onto a bench in the corridor and, curled up in a ball, began to doze. She often did this, but as soon as some sound was heard on the landing, she immediately jumped up and began to howl, so much so that everyone immediately ran to calm her down so that he would stop barking.
Having stirred the coffee and added milk, Peter took the mug and stood in front of the window, watching the rare passers-by who went about their business. Peter felt a little uneasy because he had nothing to do. He felt like a parasite, a parasite, almost a scum of society. However, after taking a sip of coffee, all negative thoughts disappeared at once. He remembered the book and imagined that he was not a parasite at all, but a writer. Yes, he didn’t work, yes, he rarely left the house, yes, he had practically no friends, but all this did not stop him from living in his own world, which seemed to him much more interesting than the one outside the window. Although, it is unlikely that his world would find at least some understanding among people. He was unemployed, and this was enough to consider him unworthy of attention.
Together with the mug, Peter went into the room where he sat down at the computer. Placing the mug next to the monitor, he opened the office program in which he wrote his book. Scrolling to the bottom of the text, he wrote the subtitle: «CHAPTER THREE.»
– Can lighten up a boring text with some action? – thought Peter, trying to come up with a new chapter. – Let’s say Peter was writing a book, and then, unexpectedly, aliens fly to earth. Thousands of spaceships descend on the planet and hover over cities. This is an invasion, nothing less. Everyone is trying to escape, and Peter finds himself in the thick of things, he becomes a hero who needs to save the world from foreign invaders. Why not? But on the other hand, I’m writing a book about a writer, just a boring book, where a guy will write a book, why add to the plot everything that thousands of pages of text are already written about? Yes, bad idea. I’d rather not add anything fantastic and mystical. It was still not enough to insert into the plot about the writer, some vampires, or werewolves. No, it won’t be anything like that, just a boring book. The book should be boring, it’s not a movie. Also, what if I’m an intellectual and my book is intellectual? All intellectual literature must be boring. I don’t know what the reader needs. Maybe what readers want to read is a boring book with a boring guy doing boring things. I play roulette. I am writing a book, but whether it will be published and whether millions of copies of this very book will be sold is not up to me.
Peter threw all thoughts about aliens, demons and vampires out of his head, leaving only boring thoughts about the gray everyday life of a young man who wanted to get rich. He tried to imagine his hero, tried to get into his head, to understand what he could think about, what he could want, what he could dream about. In the end, Peter simply thought about what he himself was thinking about, thinking about his own dreams. After all, the main character of his book, in fact, was himself.
– How difficult it is. And no one can guarantee that anyone will read the book at all. I can sit on it for a month, or two, or six months, and then some unfortunate critic will say: «There are too many mental verbs in it, I don’t like that.» And it doesn’t matter who this person was, and whether he understands at least something in literature, he just doesn’t like mental verbs, because some writer said that you shouldn’t use mental verbs in books, that it’s bad, that you need give the reader a picture. Yes, I’m probably just not so brilliant as to convey all the thoughts of a character in pictures and actions. The book is about one person, only one, who writes a book, and how can one not use mental verbs? – Peter thought indignantly. All he had was his thoughts, and these thoughts needed to be reflected on paper somehow. – Well, it can’t be that I’m so mediocre! In any case, there will be someone who will like my boring book. Even if someone says that she is boring, I deliberately intend her to be boring. What’s important here is the story, not the events that happen in that story. Maybe my hero will spend the entire book sitting at the computer, what now? Such a book, such an idea, such a plan that the main character will spend the entire book in the apartment writing a book. It will just be a boring book about a writer.
Peter drank all the coffee that was in the mug in one gulp and, getting up from the computer, went to the kitchen to pour another one.
Going out into the corridor, he noticed Motya, who was lying on the bench. He remembered that his mother asked him to take a walk with her.
– Later. – Peter said quietly and walked into the kitchen.
Turning on the electric kettle, he poured coffee and sugar into a mug, took milk out of the refrigerator, and sat down at the table, waiting for the water in the kettle to boil.
Peter was thinking about the book. He was trying to come up with a plot for the third chapter. The idea came on its own, and unexpectedly. He simply decided to describe his day, just one day in his life. Write about how he drinks coffee, how he walks the dog, how he washes his face in the morning. After all, it was his book, and he could write whatever he wanted in it. Yes, he took a risk, because publishers love books in series. They love books that have an exciting plot, and the plot of his book was as boring as his every day.
The water in the kettle boiled. Peter rose from his chair, took the kettle, and poured hot water over the coffee. Having thoroughly stirred the coffee and sugar, he added milk to the mug. Having put the milk in the refrigerator, he took a mug of coffee and went back to the computer, promising Mota that he would go for a walk with her later.
Sitting down at the computer, Peter put the mug next to the monitor and, pulling the keyboard towards him, began to write. He started in the morning. I just remembered one day from my life, took some fragments from it, and began to write it down. Words began to appear on the monitor. One, two, a whole sentence, and then a whole paragraph, and now the first page is finished. It seemed that inspiration had found the writer, but, alas, after five hundred words, everything stopped. Peter re-read the text. It seems that he wrote everything he wanted, but at the same time, there was too little written. Only five hundred words, but the chapter needed at least two thousand.
All thoughts disappeared.
Opening the browser, Peter entered his social network page. There were no new messages, but in the news everything was the same as a month ago.
– What to write about anyway? – thought Peter, staring at the monitor. – Although, why am I, I can just take ideas from my life, take any ideas. And even more, I can invent things that are not in my life. For example, I can come up with a friend for the main character with whom he will go to drink beer. Or he will go to a restaurant to eat a hamburger. I can write anything. The main thing is that the events do not contradict themselves, and that it is not boring. But, stop, I’m writing a boring book, then I can write about boring, hackneyed, annoying things.
The door of the room opened. Peter looked down and saw Motya, who entered the room and sat down next to the computer chair.
– Okay, now let’s go for a walk. – said Peter.
Turning on the music, he got up from the computer and began to get dressed. He put on his pants, changed into his t-shirt, put on his shirt, then put on his sneakers. Approaching the window, he stuck out his hand to see if it was warm outside. It was warm outside, and
