The Waterpump Girl
For some context, have a look, won’t you, at ’s post with prompt over on :
Now, I’ve tried writing while traveling several times, and it doesn’t really go that great for T. As much as I hate it at times, I am a creature of habit, and do much better in a fairly controlled environment. I have social anxiety, chronic fatigue, and perhaps just a disposition that is travel averse. So I’ve needed to learn how to create a fair comfy and stable ecosystem in order to thrive as a writer.
It took me a long time to accept this, though. I used to want to be able to write anywhere, any time. And so I tried it out.
The closest—and I suppose best—attempt was in 1994, when I was traveling with a college fellowship group through Western Alabama. I’d borrowed my sister’s microcassette recorder, and was trying out recording audio stories.
In 1994, I was, like seventeen. So keep in mind this was my first attempt at lots of things, both as a writer and just in life. I tried to fully produce the audio story as I was recording it. One take. It’s not too bad, if I may say so, given all that. But, due to a variety of reasons, I’m not going to share the audio verszh today. Perhaps that will show up behind a paywall in the not-so-distant future. But today, you get the written transcription. I’ll admit, it loses a little something this way, but c’est la vie.
I want to thank Alison for putting this prompt out there cos I had kind of forgotten about this story, and it is one of my very earliest, perhaps in the first ten or so. Something like that. And somewhat oddly, I went over to my mom’s after reading the Unschool post and bam. The short story collection I’d self-published in 1997 was right there on Mom’s dining room table. In fact, I’ve taken photos of the story as it appeared there, to preserve the vintage some.
Hope you enjoy this little piece of early TVS history. Hit me up in the comments.
Xoxo,
T
Oh, wait wait wait. You need to listen to Pink Floyd’s “Pigs (Three Different Ones)” off their Animals record whilst reading. Turn it down pretty low, so that you can only hear the highest guitar notes mostly. The climax of the story syncs up with the solo around 9:37. Okay, that is all.
