A nice quiet room to write.

[inkydink]

For inkstains challenge 22
423 words
It's an argument with your internal critic, so it's a bit mpd-ish, is that a trigger?

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 Tsk.

There it was again, that  unmistakable, universal sound of disapproval, that of tongue going clack against the soft palate. It came from somewhere over my left shoulder, so it couldn't possibly have been an angel, unless it was the fallen kind. Nah. I was a nonpracticing Buddhist, and t didn't believe in those anyway.

 I stared harder at the computer screen every time I heard the 'tsk' or the 'uh-oh', but the only reflection I saw was the end of a bookshelf, nothing more, which made my hesitant to turn around and look. I decided to ignore it, and just  concentrate on my writing. I deleted a line and went back to my typing. 

 

 

 
Tsk.
 

 I deleted an entire paragraph this time, then another, then a sentence, faster and faster,  one after another trying to write and rewrite fast enough so there wouldn't be any time to make those velaric sounds that were getting really, really annoying.
 

 Nothing.
 

 Oh, goody, I outwrote it, I thought, then proceed to work on the next chapter.
 

 Then it came. Not a tsk, a click or a clack, but a long drawn-out sigh, the kind that comes from more exasperation than a mere ' tsk' can express.
 

 That was it. I lost it.  "What the hell is your problem? So you don't like my work, fine! Go away and leave me alone!"

 I wasn't really expecting an answer, except maybe the computer flying right through my or a dozen pencils pinning my bleeding carcass to the wall, like they do in fun Thai horror movies.
 

 "Oh no, I like your work, " the disembodied voice said. "Except..." 
 

"Except...?"
 

"Ummm, I'm not really supposed to tell you this, but ..."
 

"Buuuuut...?"
 

"Okay, it's like this. You only get to write ninety-three million nine hundred thousand and forty-seven words in your lifetime-- are you sure you want to waste them all on robot zombie pandas? “
 

If I had been younger I would have cried. Most likely deleted everything, swearing to never write again. But by now, I'd been through worse critics than this-- people who actually weren't me, so I kinda knew a bit about what to do by then. Don't cry. Don't scream. Don't bargain.  



I raised an eyebrow, and answer calmly. "You got any better ideas?" 



Silence. 



I typed one word, just to test. 

Nothing. 
 

I started typing  for real, going back to work, and I'm up to maybe 600 words  when I heard the voice, smaller, this time. “Uh,  sparkly robot pandas?”