Three years ago, I was having a conversation with a March hare. It was a rainy September and he was rather despondent. We were both taking shelter under an overpass. He smelled of too much gin and the bitterness of the unwashed and despondent.
Apparently, it had been a bad year for him, which drove him to drink. He made passing mention of having appeared in a novel many years back in his youth. Flush with success at the time he had opened a line of credit, not realizing that fictional characters do not receive residuals from book sales. Ever since he had been hounded from one town to the next by creditors - with actual hounds.
"It's all crap." He kept saying between hiccups and pulls on a bottle wrapped in a brown paper bag; a bottle that smelled suspiciously of varnish.
"The world is crap... all it is..."
I felt sorry for him. I truly did. I'm not much of a fan of hounds, either. Especially when they smell blood. But, the simple fact of the matter is, at the time I hadn't eaten in three days. He seemed miserable enough company alive...
...so I pounced on his back and crushed his spine between my teeth.
After I ate, I was sick for three days. God only knows what he'd been drinking. I was desperate for water. I crawled out into the middle of the road, fully expecting to end it all.
Instead, I was fortunate enough to be picked up by a pair of passing motorists. Eventually, they adopted me as their beloved house pet. I've been living in the lap of luxury ever since.
Last week, I happened to remember the March hare. The dining room floors were being stripped. It must have been the smell of varnish.
I thought to myself, "That old March hare. He never did make much of himself - not even a lousy meal. And what have I done with myself in three years? Nothing, but grow fat on tuna flavored kibbles and the occasional jumbo shrimp dropped at cocktail parties."
Then, it occurred to me... I have a lot of stories to tell.
Fictional characters don't get residuals. But writers do. "Hey, it may not be much..." I thought to myself. "But maybe I could at least get that reverse-neuter operation I've been wanting and have some fun on my nights out."
So, I rolled off the keyboard, grabbed the mouse (for a quick snack), and did a google search on "best writing forums".
Gotta start somewhere, ya know... ;^)