While I Slept

When that imaginary yellow light bulb appeared glowing above my dreaming head. Like Gyro Gearloose who often times assisted by his Little Helper (or just "Helper"), who is a small anthropomorphic robot with a light bulb for a head and literally shines as both a loyal companion and resourceful assistant to the eccentric and often absent-minded writer. So intentionally nondescript in nature was this character that it never was given a real name in any official capacity, that was until I decided to call him My Little Writing Hamburger Helper. In its lifetime of just over five decades, it has been alternately.

Besides My Little Writing Hamburger Helper, Gyro also has a "thinking cap", a hat shaped like a combination of a roof-top and a nest, with three black birds living in it.

You can see how confused I must have been reliving that particular nightmare or dream that night to truly come up with the brilliant idea that I could ever write a book or even a short story. In my dream of dreams My Little Writing Hamburger Helper was telling us that I could be the next William Shakespeare, Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky, sometimes transliterated Dostoyevsky, a Russian novelist, Homer, Earnest Hemingway, Eric Arthur Blair, better known by his pen name George Orwell, Samuel Langhorne Clemens, known by his pen mame Mark Twain, or we would even settle upon writing like Walt Disney.

As you can literally tell I do have extensive reading experience for becoming a famous writer. The infamous mental  “thinking cap” seriously discussed the possibility of maybe us investing in a creative writing college or taking writing courses. There were so many to choose from like Antioch University Online, Drexel University, Full Sail University, Lindenwood University and a creative writing class called Penn Foster Career School all of which me or Gyro or My Little Writing Hamburger  Helper or “thinking cap” or even the 3 black birds living in that nest in my head ever heard of.

I say to them including the 3 black birds Heckle and Jeckle and Neckle what about typing because my penmanship is as bad as my signatures autographed pictures hanging on my bathroom walls I have of Francis Scott Key Fitzgerald, Charles Dickens, Jerome David Salinger an American writer best known for his novel The Catcher in the Rye.

We all know that, that’s a must reading for anyone who is interested in becoming a writer. Along with other suggested readings such as The Murders in the Rue Morgue by Edgar Allan Poe, Hamlet by William Shakespeare, Runaway by Alice Munro, A Perfect Crime by Peter Abrahams and The Oxford English Dictionary to name just a few reading you’ll need to read to be just like Mike.

Then The TV Show The Walton’s began to play in My Little Writing Hamburger Helper’s mind of John Boy (Richard Thomas) wanting to be a great writer, just like in the Movie It were he played a bestselling horror writer.

We decided upon taking a 4 week online writing course at National University.  The unaccredited University even gave us credit for being a veteran in the military that we never served in one Afghanistan day.

I could now visualize myself and My Little Writing Hamburger Helper and associates standing in front of a lot of jealous past winners of the prestigious Pulitzer Prize like: William Cabell Bruce in 1918, Henry F. Pringle 1932, Samuel Flagg Bemis in 1950, Jack Miles in 1996, T. J. Stiles in 2010, Jeffery C. Stewart in 2019 and many others while  excepting The Pulitzer Prize for Editorial that is annually awarded for Journalism by Columbia University in New York City.

What were we going to do with the $500,000 prize winnings? Could you actually see all of us on the cover of Times Magazine writer of the year? Then those crazy whispers started up again in my head while all along the flashing idea light beamed. Each one of them wanted a share of the credit for writing our imaginary book titled, A Mental State of Affairs: 190 Proof Vodka and their share of the prize winnings.

Gyro wanted a waterproof note pad because he believes his best thought’s came while showering or washing away all of his sins as the “thinking cap” would say. I didn’t realize he even wrote in the shower with all the off key of major singing he tends to do.

My Little Writing Hamburger Helper wanted a Transparent Book Weight. It took me a few dreamless minutes to grasp that need. Then it came to me it made sense for him to have a helper of his own to hold down his pages of a book.

The 3 Black birds only wanted a 3D Printing Pen in Red, Black and Green. You can tell how selfish sleeping entities can be, because none of them asked me what I wanted to buy. If I told them that all I wanted was to buy the ability to wake up they’d all mentally protest.

Many people think that it’s easy awake or sleep to write a book or short story. Forgetting about punctuation and sentence structure. I hear it all the time especially how easy it is to simply write, after telling the biggest fib in the world that I’m a successful and famous writer at any alcohol drinking hole. When they always ask us what do we do for a living I’m well prepared to tell them that I wrote two acclaimed books who made it on the Times Best Sellers list. White Fragility and Stamped from the Beginning. I’ll give you a few minutes to figure out why we chose to lay claim to their books. Gyro whispered maybe I just felt compelled to allow you to look them up and read them. Hmm…very interesting as Arte Johnson (aka Wolfgang) would say on the TV show Laugh-in.

I can hear a rooster off in the distance now. The 3 black birds are snoring in unisons like the Three Stoogies.

I’m still dreamingly trying to get pass my first line. Once upon a time in a mind that time has clearly forgotten. Then My Little Writing Hamburger Helper shouted over the cock-a-doodle-dooing have you ever heard of Reedy? I yawn and say yes! A Reedy is abounding in or covered with reeds, made of or resembling reeds especially slender, frail and having the tone quality of a reed instrument.

Heckle, Jeckle and Neckle awake and say no you idiot Reedsy! It’s free to join Reedsy and list your services on the marketplace. You mean just like where the 3 little pigs were headed. Gyro states that we could keep 90% of each project we work on (minus payment fees). Besides Reedsy only charges a 10% commission. How do we get paid I asked? When sending a quote to a client, we are able to create a payment schedule with multiple installments. I like that the “think cap” yawns and get this you sleepy heads every Friday morning, Reedsy sends a newsletter out that includes five themed writing prompts. Those five prompts will also appear at the top of a Reedsy Prompts page. Writers then have one week (until the following Friday), to submit a story based on one of their prompts. Each week, they pick a winner to be featured on their blog and win $500,000. Suddenly I awoke eager to get busy writing “me” a short story.