Wish I Were Paul Sheldon

Paul Sheldon is the writer in Stephen King’s Misery, who was abducted by his number-one fan Annie Wilkes—a serial killer.

Paul Sheldon lives in hell because both his legs are broken; he can’t walk, can’t leave his room, and anything he says can enrage his captor, who can either make him drink from a floor bucket with chlorine, cut one of his members, or just kill him.

Annie Wilkes is far crazier than any woman I’ve met, but there is something good about this eager reader: she wants Sheldon to write a novel especially for her. Sheldon understands that the only thing in the world that will save his skin is becoming a modern Sheherezade—the legendary Persian queen who tells stories to king Shahryar in order to avoid being beheaded in One Thousand and One Nights—and so he writes and writes. He realizes he had never written so fast and so well in his entire life, and thinks this is due to his captivity: had he be free, he would have gone out, met a new woman or just drank his soul out every night. At the end, he completes his best novel ever.

That’s the only thing that I envy from Paul Sheldon: being able to write, and do nothing else.
My life is so full with things to do and all kinds of distractions: house chores, cooking, work, a wife, kids, friends, a psychoanalyst, a dog, a cat, Facebook, good TV shows, good novels to read, a forthcoming football soccer World Cup, a World Wide Web that can answer even my most stupid question, a low energy level, and so on. How will I find the time to write?

That’s why I say: wish I were Paul Sheldon.