Chapter 19: Enjoy Life!

“I’m really pissed,” I said to God. We were back in God’s Favorite Bar with a pitcher of beer. “What a waste! Do you know how much work I put into those characters? Do you have any idea how many pages I wrote and edited and rewrote and threw away? Do you know how many hours I spent working on those subplots? How many endings to the big scene? How many pages after that that don’t make any sense any more?” “Do you know how to spell omniscient?” Asked God. “Or course fing I know. And I know you’re being a fing idiot. You’re an idiot because you know what to do about this, and you’re not doing it. Think about it!” I thought. Waste? An imagined term. I was making the Third Classic Blunder. I wouldn’t know that was what it was called until I’d written The Third Classic Blunder, which now appears on page 101, but even now I could see it was a mistake. Pages, hours? Yes, I’d worked a lot, but writing is work that I enjoy. Why was I getting upset? I thought some more. I’d enjoyed it when I thought of what I’d been doing as writing. And I got angry about it when I thought of what I’d done as waste. Waste was imaginary. Once again, confusing imagina­ tion with reality. “Right,” said God. “And because you don’t know how to enjoy wasting things.” “How can I enjoy wasting things?” I asked. “You can enjoy anything,” God said. “That’s why I invented sentient beings after I invented life. Non-sentient beings just live. Which is fine. Sentient beings are able to enjoy life. Which is better. I wanted someone besides Me to enjoy life. Every minute of it.” “How can people enjoy life all the time?” I asked. “Some parts of life really suck.” “That’s bullsh**,” said God. “Death sucks. Life never does. There are only three reasons that people don’t enjoy every bit of their lives,” said God. One: they’re ignorant; two: they’re lazy; three: they’re idiots. “And what am I?” I asked? “Ignorant,,” God said. “You’re so ignorant you don’t even know where you are, or what you are. And you don’t know what’s around you. If you did, you’d find it easier to enjoy life.” “I know where I am,” I said. “No,” said God. “You imagine that you do. You probably think you’re in this chapter. But you’re not.” Self-Referential Metanovel Writing for D*mmies