Steve - In Preperation

"Whatchadoin?"

The sing-songy voice almost made me forget the owner was a demon. "Writing." I replied.

"I've never seen you write like that." He said pointing at the spider web of words and ideas I had drawn lines and arrows between. "Are you sure people are going to be able to follow it that way?" He asked. He talked in a way that you could hear the smirk, even if you could not see it.

"This is just an outline. NaNoWriMo's in a few months and I thought I would get a jump on the story. Especially after last year's disaster."

"But you won last year, didn't you?" He made the feat sound so trivial, I almost forgot how I had felt when I had clicked that final send button, and saw the 'congratulations' message.

"Yes, and I intend to win again this year, but this time... yeah." I caught myself shaking my head again, remembering the debacle three days before the end of November, and three chapters before I had come to a stop.

"Why, what happened last year?" he asked innocently.

"You know damn well what happened. You put a great idea in my head for the story, but you waited until I was almost done!" I growled at the demon.

His tail snaked in and pressed the enter key just before I did, causing me to turn toward him. "I got this, really, you've done enough." I scolded.

"It was a great idea though."

"I'm not arguing that fact. It was, but it changed the entire story."

"Only a little."

"A little?" I rolled my eyes and began to come out of my seat. I wanted to reach out and smack the not-so little demon, and he caught that thought.

"Try it," he snickered, his tail snaking up, poised to strike.

I had seen him skewer an apple with it once, and I was not ready to feel its wrath, so I calmed down, easing myself back into the desk chair. "It was a major plot point. The major plot point!" I sighed, looking at the pile of drafts on my desk. "One of these days, you will go bug someone else and I will get to those."

I turned and resumed my focus on the web outline I was doing for my NaNoWriMo story. He wasn't going to get the better of me this year."