I’m writing about a narcissist, which means I’ve spent the better part of the afternoon trying to make a man take responsibility for his behavior, and apparently even fictional men would rather add another eighty pages to a manuscript than admit they’re wrong.

The surprising part is that, as I’m learning to write, the writing itself is getting easier. I can follow Sophia into a scene in The Other Species, hear the conversation, feel where something shifts, and finally understand what needs to happen next, which would be a lovely development if my actual life would stop approaching my desk with questions. I had assumed learning to write a novel would be the difficult part, but apparently the advanced course is getting everyone to let you finish a goddamn paragraph.

Sophia is beginning to recognize how thoroughly someone has rearranged her reality, and I’m following the conversation carefully because this is the moment when his charm slips just enough for her to see what’s underneath. I know what he’s about to say, I know why she’s going to believe him, and for once I can see exactly how to get it onto the page when Tom appears in the doorway and asks whether I want chicken.

I look up at him, apparently unaware until this moment that someone could walk into a psychological crime scene carrying a dinner option. Of course I want chicken, because maintaining a human body apparently requires me to participate in a food selection process every single day until I die. I had briefly forgotten about dinner while trying to understand how a woman loses faith in her own mind, but thank God someone is staying on top of the poultry.

I tell him chicken is fine, which I foolishly assume concludes my involvement, but he would also like to know how I want it prepared, and now we’re in preproduction. There will be a concept, a discussion of available ingredients, and possibly a location scout through the refrigerator before we can secure final approval on a meal I would happily eat standing over the sink if it meant I could get back to the sentence that was here before the chicken arrived.

Tom is being considerate, which makes it especially inconvenient that I’m experiencing his kindness as an assault on my central nervous system. He isn’t doing anything wrong, and I’m aware of that even as I stare at him with the strained patience of a woman being asked to choose salad dressing during a hostage negotiation.

By the time we establish dinner, I return to the screen and discover that the sentence has left without providing a forwarding address. I read the paragraph again, hoping it will recognize me and let me back in, but now all I can hear is a question about chicken preparation, and I’m fairly certain the narcissist is enjoying this.

What I need is for someone who knows how to do this to explain how you write a book while continuing to be a reachable, reasonably pleasant member of a family. There must be a technique, a sign, or a particular facial expression that communicates how deeply I love you while also making it clear that if you ask me where we keep the aluminum foil, I may have to leave the country.

Explaining that I’m writing seems to be interpreted as an update about my current seating arrangement, because I’m still here, after all, sitting in a chair in our house, which apparently makes me available for any matter that can be introduced as a quick question. I would like to meet whoever decided those were reassuring words, because the question may take four seconds, but getting my brain back into the scene requires me to rebuild the entire emotional atmosphere while trying to remember why somebody was standing near a window.

I can no longer remember whether she was about to leave him, confront him, or finally understand him, but I can now confirm that we have mustard.

Alice had the advantage of falling down a rabbit hole that physically removed her from the people who might need to discuss dinner. I go down mine while remaining visible from the hallway, which feels like a serious flaw in the design.

Then the phone rings, and it’s someone I love, so naturally I answer, because I want to hear from my family and apparently would also like to finish a novel sometime before my characters qualify for Social Security. We talk, I make a note of something I need to do, and when I return to Sophia, I find her waiting in the same awful situation where I abandoned her. At this point, I’ve left this woman alone with a narcissist so many times to handle household business that she should probably be questioning my loyalty.

I finally get moving again, and that’s when my bladder decides it would like a meeting, because apparently my own organs have been watching everyone else interrupt me and would like equal access.

Naturally, the line I’ve been struggling with arrives while I’m in the bathroom, because my brain is an asshole with a gift for scheduling. Now I’m repeating a sentence under my breath while washing my hands, trying to preserve its exact wording as though I’ve been entrusted with nuclear codes, when something outside catches my eye.

There’s a turtle, which means we must now determine whether a creature that has survived through millions of years of evolution requires immediate supervision from a woman who cannot remember why she walked into the kitchen.

The freshwater canal was supposed to be peaceful, but apparently I moved beside a wildlife channel with no ability to pause the programming. Something swims past, something lands, something rustles in the grass, and there I am at the window, investigating with the urgency of a detective whose only lead is a suspicious leaf. I would like to blame every interruption on other people, but unfortunately there is substantial evidence that I’m also a problem.

Still, surely there’s a way to learn this, because I’ve built businesses, worked in production, and managed projects with enough moving parts to require actual crews. I should be capable of arranging an hour in which nobody needs anything from me, including me, yet somehow that has become the most ambitious production of my career.

I’m beginning to wonder whether this is why writers go away to finish books, and whether those secluded cabins and remote retreats have less to do with artistic inspiration than with being somewhere nobody can ask whether the dishwasher is clean. I used to picture a writer gazing over a misty lake, waiting for the muse, and now I suspect she’s sitting there in yesterday’s clothes, practically weeping with gratitude because she has completed three consecutive thoughts without discussing a side dish.

I understand her completely, and if someone could forward the address before the next household consultation, I would appreciate the opportunity to investigate availability.

Just as I’m beginning to understand the appeal of geographic isolation, Tom receives a new sound system and decides this would be an excellent time to determine whether the bass can rearrange the internal organs of everyone living along the canal. Apparently, plugging it in and confirming that music comes out would be an insult to the technology, so we must now establish whether it can communicate with submarines.

I feel the first vibration through my chair while I’m deciding whether to kill the narcissist or set myself on fire, and then I hear Norah Jones singing “Come Away with Me,” because my husband knows it’s one of my favorite songs and has apparently decided to make this interruption emotionally impossible to prosecute.

Had he played something I hated, I could have marched into the other room with a legitimate grievance, but now the inconsiderate bastard is being thoughtful, and I have to factor that into my response.

From the other room, Tom wants to know how it sounds, and I’m trying to find an answer that adequately conveys the experience of being married to a man who remembers what I love and would like me to appreciate it at the exact moment I’m writing about a man who weaponizes affection. It’s a fairly complicated emotional transition to make while the desk is vibrating, so I settle for telling him it’s loud, although I had hoped the movement of the furniture might have conveyed that without my needing to participate.

He adjusts something, which briefly raises my hopes until I realize we’re testing a different setting rather than pursuing silence. Apparently, my feedback has been received as a technical observation, and now we need to explore the full range of ways Norah can prevent me from finishing this book.

Subscribe now

I have spent forty minutes getting inside Sophia’s head, and my husband has just booked her a live performance.

Tom would also like to know whether I can hear the bass, which seems like a question I should be permitted to answer after my teeth settle. Somewhere beneath my feet, I assume the turtle is experiencing a change in water pressure, while inside the house I’m being invited to come away with Norah at a volume that suggests leaving is no longer optional.

The truly aggravating part is that I love the goddamn song, so now I’m listening, which means I’ve lost the scene, but I can’t even commit to being furious because he chose it for me. I’m sitting there with affection, irritation, and a fictional narcissist all competing for space in my head, while my husband is having a wonderful afternoon demonstrating the depth of his new speakers.

I get up and go to the doorway, where Tom is studying his equipment with the absorbed expression I had been hoping to wear at my desk. I explain that I’m trying to decide what happens to the narcissist, and after establishing which man I’m referring to, he reaches for a control and directs my attention to a part of the song he would particularly like me to hear.

I stand there while one of my favorite songs fills the room, looking at a man who has remembered something sweet about me and chosen the worst possible moment to turn it up. Norah wants me to come away with her, Tom wants me to hear the bass, and Sophia would probably like me to return to work before she has to survive the rest of this relationship without adult supervision.

What I cannot imagine is writing horror, because I’m already getting up from this desk emotionally aggravated by a man I invented. If I spent six hours convincing myself there was something breathing behind a basement door and Tom suddenly appeared to ask about potatoes, one of us would require medical attention, and the other would have to explain to the paramedics why dinner was involved.

At least with a narcissist, I know what the monster wants, although getting him to admit it could take the rest of the series.

Eventually I sit down again, read far enough back to remember where I was, and feel the scene returning. Sophia says something that surprises me, his response arrives immediately, and for a few wonderful minutes I’m following them without noticing the room around me, until Tom wants to establish what time I would like to eat.

I turn toward him with the expression of a woman who loves her husband very much and is actively pricing cabins, then ask for five minutes before returning to a fictional man who also believes everybody else should adjust their expectations around him. The irony is offensive, and I would appreciate some privacy while I write it down.

By this point, taking my work outside seems like a reasonable compromise, because surely I can put a little distance between myself, the music, and the ongoing banter without actually abandoning my marriage or applying for a residency in a lighthouse.

I head outside with whatever remains of my concentration, prepared to accept the peaceful embrace of nature, and a crow immediately decides this would be an excellent time to deliver an announcement at the absolute limit of his capabilities.

I don’t know what he’s saying, but judging by the volume and repetition, he either owns this property or has been trying to reach me about my car’s extended warranty.

I wait for him to finish, because apparently I have learned nothing today about the dangers of assuming an interruption has a natural conclusion. He takes a breath just long enough for me to believe we’ve reached an understanding, then resumes with the confidence of someone who has a microphone and no intention of respecting the program.

Inside, my husband is testing the bass, while outside, this feathered son of a bitch is testing the treble, and I have somehow become the unwilling audience for a sound check that now includes the entire fucking ecosystem.

I look toward the canal, where the turtle continues about his business without a phone, a dinner decision, or anyone asking him to appreciate a new speaker, and briefly envy a creature whose primary obligation is getting to the other side of something.

Whatever advice experienced writers might have about working through distractions, I would love to hear it on a day when I haven’t already been defeated by poultry, plumbing, wildlife, and one of my favorite songs.

For today, I’m giving up and leaving Sophia exactly where she is, because I have reached the point where a fictional woman trapped in a terrible relationship has had more uninterrupted time with her thoughts than I have.

I head back inside to find out what we’re doing with the chicken, because today is apparently not a writing day, and if the crow has an opinion about dinner, he can come in and discuss it with Tom.

By now, I’ve decided it’s time to mix a vodka cocktail and watch the iguana walk the seawall, because apparently I can spend the afternoon supervising every species in Florida except the one I’m supposed to be writing about. He seems perfectly capable of getting where he’s going without consulting me, which immediately makes him one of my favorite people.

And because my publicist would probably prefer that this afternoon result in at least one attempt to sell a book, here’s the link to Dressing Room Confessions, book one of the Shady Side series, which I did somehow manage to finish despite living in an environment where even the birds refuse to respect office hours.