I have a new way to tell when I've been working too late. My computer's virus software is set to scan the system each morn at 4:00. I was sitting here, working on a script when it kicked in and I went, "Jeez! It's four o'clock in the morning. Last I looked, it was quarter to one."
Odd how time disappears sometimes when I get deep into a project. When I was 17, one of my first professional assignments was to rapidly ghost-write a cheap paperback novel…and it was one of those jobs where anything I produced would be good enough. If it was more-or-less in English and had punctuation marks sprinkled throughout, the publisher would have been happy, just so long as it was finished in the next five days. The deadline was way more important than any literary content…which was good because given my experience, my manual typewriter, and the limited amount of time I had to pound script, the literary content stood to be a notch below the instruction label on a package of suppositories.
My parents were in Vegas so I had the place to myself. Instead of bringing my girl friend over when the neighbors weren't watching — which is what I usually did when Mom and Dad went off to gamble — I sat down around Noon and began writing. The next thing I knew, it was 3:00 in the morning and I had about half the book piled up next to me. I'd stopped for a couple of snacks and bathroom breaks, but I'd pretty much worked straight through, losing all track of the hour. It was the first time I ever experienced that as a writer, and it was both exciting and chilling in different ways, maybe even better than sneaking in the girl friend. As I recall, I slept about six hours, got up and finished the book in two shorter spurts of maybe six hours each. I do remember handing it in a day early, which stunned the publisher…absolutely stunned him. He'd promised me a bonus if I was finished in five days, and I'd delivered in three.
Naturally, as rush jobs so often go, it turned out not to be the crisis he'd thought it was. The publication date was then delayed, and as far as I know, the book never did get printed. In a way, that was probably just as well, except I'd been in too big a rush to deliver so I skipped making myself a copy. At the time, the payment I got meant everything in the world to me. Today, I'd give it back with interest, just to have a copy of that manuscript. If something I now wrote evoked the comment, "This is the worst thing ever written," I could haul out the novel I wrote in 2.5 days, shove it in the critic's face and say, "Oh, yeah? Read this!"
The virus-checker isn't detecting anything and I'm going to bed. Good night.