Today's word count: 1,262
Overall word count: 61,608
Ugh, I feel like crap. I have a horrible summer cold. Sore throat, can barely talk, everything aches. On the bright side, that made for a very productive day today.
My wife, ever-helpful in my quest to write a book that doesn't suck, recently shared with me the following Buzzfeed article:
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If White Characters Were Described Like People Of Color In Literature.
1. He looked at her longingly, as he imagined her exotic, mashed potato skin laying gently against his.
2. She took off his shirt, his skin glistening in the sun like a glazed doughnut. The glaze part, not the doughnut part.
3. His eyes looked like eyes because they were eye-shaped, not almonds.
4. Mr. Darcy soon drew the attention of the room by his fine, tall-person, handsome features, and his crust of a Shepherd’s pie complexion.
5. “What’s your name?” he asked. “Mary,” she replied as the strap of her dress slipped off her marzipan shoulder.
6. She didn’t know it yet but the girl of her dreams had just walked in. Her eyes were radiant and her skin glowed with mozzarella undertones.
7. She was beautiful, elegant. Like a tall clear glass filled with raw pasta.
8. His body had the color and shape of raw ground beef.
9. He traced his fingers along her supple, cauliflower skin.
10. She stepped out of the car and and was delighted by the cool summer breeze that brushed against her legs. She had been sitting in the sun earlier and welcomed the relief of this fresh air on her mayonnaise legs.
11. She had brown, wiry hair and skin that can only be described as the color of the inside of an apple. The mushy ones not the cool, crisp ones.
12. She dove into the ocean, the blue waves enveloping her tapioca skin.
13. She was transfixed by the gleam of his uncooked chicken breast skin. So raw, so lumpy.
14. His bones were as brittle as a vanilla wafer.
15. Her beauty was indescribable, which means she’s white.
16. For the first time in his life, he found himself imagining a future together with someone. He was embarrassed to tell her this but he had never really been in love with the women he had dated. “Well who would play me in this rom-com of your life?” she teasingly inquired. “You have such beautiful olive skin,” he crooned, “so you can be a person of color or racially ambiguous in the book but definitely a white woman in the movie.”
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I laughed, then I cringed, then I went scurrying back to my work in progress to make sure I had done nothing so risible as the kind of thing being parodied here. I'm pleased to say, in 230+ pages of copy, that I only had to zap one reference to a character whose skin looked like "coffee with a splash of cream."
Until next time. By the way, if I don't feel better tomorrow, I'm calling in sick to work. I look and sound like shit. And in that case, I shall write a lot of words.
