On writing 50 words in an evening
"Most of writing is listening," he said to me, "the rest is just sweat."

Jake tapped his pencil off his desk as he turned to me. Half a paragraph sat on the laptop screen in front of him, and from the condensation on the bottle, I could tell that he finished his Rolling Rock not ten minutes ago.

"And what are you listening to right now?" I asked.

He looked back to his screen. "Nothing."

"What do you mean 'nothing?'"

Jake's eyes drifted around the room, and I could tell that he didn't want to answer. "Sometimes everything just flows. I can hear the words that I need to write. I can feel the story bubble up to me. I love those nights, and I'll stay up as long as I need to if it means getting the message down." I waited out his pause, and then he continued, "Tonight is not one of those nights. I write a line and erase it and rewrite and erase it and I feel congested, as if I'm intentionally blocking the thoughts I need to be having." He closed his eyes and put his hand to his forehead.

"So why push it?" I asked. It seemed a reasonable question. After all, the next flurry of inspiration might come tomorrow night.

"I need to practice listening, and I need to practice sweating." He opened his eyes and turned back to the computer. Nothing memorable was going to come of his efforts tonight, and we both knew it. But still he pecked at a few keys, held down the delete key, and sat for a few more minutes. Inspiration wasn't coming, but it didn't seem like he wanted inspiration anyway.

It didn't seem like he wanted a friend either, so I left him alone.