Drinking, Flirting and Machiavellian Pizza

I was going to tell you all about what I did today, but then I realised I’d already had that conversation. It went like this:

<insert here clever and fiendish scheming that makes me look smarter than I am>

Arkem: Dastardly 🙂
Me: Well, I am writing about Machiavelli again. It’s catching.
Arkem: Machiavelli was clever, I approve.
Me: I think so too. Although I think that bit actually might have to come later, otherwise the opening scene is a little too much drinking and flirting and not enough anything at all happening. Writing the opening/main characters meet for the first time/let me introduce you to the book scene is a delicate balance after all. There may not be room for Machiavellian pizza.
Arkem: I like drinking and flirting… you know, in theory at least. But Machiavellian pizza sounds like good times
Me: I think you like it in real life. Or at least you’d relate to this. Gray is a rubbish flirt. The book (at this point) opens with him getting a drink thrown in his face
Arkem: I’m also a rubbish flirt!
Me: See?

<insert here something where I complain about how my first drafts are terrible and anybody who set eyes on them would promptly demand that I give up writing and go and become a fireman or something for the sake of literature at large>
<insert Arkem reminding me that I have an ego the size of a house that does not need to be coddled and me demanding ego fluffling to make up for the career related soul crushing that’s going on in my search for an agent (read: no one has signed me yet)>
<insert Arkem laughing>
<insert me getting distracted by the book I’m writing. Yeah, no ego here at all>

Me: I think the pizza has to come later. In fact, I think the bit with the eulogy has to come later too. I think it has to be flirting, drinking and then explosions.
Arkem: Personally I drink before I flirt but I understand that my habits don’t directly translate into an effective plot. I could flirt before drinking but I don’t because I’m terrified of the explosions 🙂
Me: I think there was definitely some drinking before the flirting. We just don’t get to see it. Then there’s some drinking while flirting. And sort of the opposite of drinking… No, that would be throwing up not getting drinks thrown on one… Hm. General drinking accompanied by flirting and then explosions?
Arkem: It sounds like an entertaining mix, especially for people on the sidelines.
Me: Mn. Sidelines. The place Gray would much rather be. No sidelines for Gray.
Arkem: Sadness.
Me: Yes. Sadness. Otherwise known as ‘the point of the book’. Well… one part of the point anyway. The best part.
Arkem: Well, sure. ‘They all lived happily ever after’ is a terrible story.
Me: It really is. That’s why I don’t write fanfic. My idea of fanfic is to find the one point in the story where you can change the tiniest thing so that nothing bad ever happened. But then there’s no story.

And because the very idea of ‘no story’ made me sad I went away and got my characters drunk and blew things up. Because it was funny and it made me laugh.

Aren’t you glad I channel my enthusiasm towards fiction? Imagine if I took my sense of humour out in the real world.

* Also, because right now everything tracks back to X-Men: First Class if you do a Google image search for ‘Machiavellian pizza’ a picture of Charles and Erik is one of the things that comes up. Why do I do searches like that, you ask? Well what do you do on Monday nights when you can’t sleep?