The Triumph of a Third-rate Writer

 Dedicating your life to art wasn't all it was cracked up to be.

"Piss on it," I said to the computer screen, and then repeated myself, enunciating each word for emphasis. "Piss. On. it."

Six-hundred words short and three AM.  Name a more iconic duo, am I right, boys? My wisecrack and rictus grin earned thunderous applause from my invisible audience.  

In my defense, I was a third-rate, and I charged as such.  Surely my clients (such a lofty term for someone commissioning erotica!) understood that my prices were low because I was a shit writer.  No doubt they would be understanding when I explained to them that they were only short-changed due to my poor time-management skills.  I hooked my finger on rim of the laptop screen and prepared to abort.  

Something stopped me.  I doubt it was any sense of professionalism, but you never knew -- like a persistent rash, that thing came back to niggle at the worst times.  Let's just call it "cold self interest" for the sake of simplicity.  You know what they always say, "A hastily written six-hundred words still fulfills the letter of the contract, so they're less likely to chargeback their commission."  So I continued to squint at my screen like a troglodyte peering out of a cave into a revoltingly sunny day.

All parties involved (namely me and my landlord) breathed a sigh of relief when, half an hour later, the wordcount ticked over five-thousand.  A victory for moral rectitude everywhere.  Bleary eyed and quite out of adjectives, I submitted my "art" to ********.com and then submitted myself to exhaustion. 

As they say in trite stories written by third-rates: I was asleep before my head hit the pillow.