A man went walking every night just to gaze at the starry sky. He was so smitten by the beauty of the heavens that he never looked where he was going. One night he stepped into a well and fell in and broke his leg.
A passer-by (who was not a star gazer but some fellow on his way home from work) heard the moans and shouts of the man in the well and asked how he came to fall in. “Were you pushed by some robber?” he asked. “Did you jump in to escape a tiger? Were you guided by the hand of Zeus?” “No,” said the star gazer. “There was this shooting star…”
“Shame on you!” said the passer-by. “You are so keen to see the heavens that you don’t notice what is here on earth!” And he left him in the well.
And the moral is: If you cannot attend to the everyday things of life, you will not live long to admire the wonders of the world.
(But I think there is a second moral: People who have worked till nightfall are generally in a bad mood. Like those ants who pick on the happy grasshopper in that other fable.)
(And a third moral: If you want to star-gaze, grab a blanket and find a field. Duh.)
Anyway, that is a good old tale. But if Aesop were a modern slave to the written word, he might have called his fable, The Novelist with March Madness:
Note the laptop behind the PB jar.
A writer publically committed and internally promised to finish the first draft of a particular YA novel during the month of March as part of March Madness. She stuck with this commitment, drafting every damned day for hours on end. She was so smitten by her story and characters that she rarely cleaned her house or cooked a proper meal. Soon she was living in a pigsty with two children who played video games all day and ate Pogos for supper.
One day a visitor (who was not a writer but a clean freak) popped by. The visitor tiptoed through the Subway wrappers and PS3 controllers in the living room to reach the writer, who was glued to a laptop at the kitchen table, surrounded by banana peels, sandwich crusts, and dirty coffee cups. “Did a hurricane hit?” the visitor asked. “Are you ill? Are your children holding you hostage?” “No,” said the writer, typing in a frenzy, “The drug dealer’s been murdered and the police think my hero did it.”
“Shame on you!” said the visitor. “You are so keen on your make-believe world that you don’t take care of the world and people around you!” And the visitor left.
“Thank god she’s gone,” the writer thought. “Hey kids, why don’t you order a pizza?” she shouted absent-mindedly. And they were all happy.
And the moral is: Run with those heavy drafting periods as far as you can because they don’t last long and nobody ever died from a dirty carpet.
But I really must add a harsher fable, too, one more in line with Aesop’s, called, The Writer in Debt:
Once there was a writer who was so in love with her work that she quit her job and ignored her family and let her house fall apart and left her children to raise themselves. She never chatted with her friends, never made love to her husband, never played with her children, and never paid a bill. Eventually she stopped bathing, talking, or even looking away from her manuscript.
After months and months of this selfish behaviour, her husband took the children and moved to a new house. The writer was evicted from her pigsty and left to wander the streets alone looking for somewhere to plug in her laptop.
And the moral is: There’s more to life than books, you know.
And that’s it for this Friday’s fable.
Now I’m back to my draft. I’m almost done — and I still have a week of March left!
I love this! HAHA, that last fable was so good! I think you have a book for writers in there, you know. Put all your fables together and you’ve got a very marketable book, with a clear audience.
Thanks, Monique. Not all my Fridays are fabulous, so feel free to check in every couple of weeks. (I like the all-natural kind of PB on a bagel, but it makes lousy cookies so I buy the sugary salty kind, too.)
I know this is an older post, but I had to read it. This is SO funny! And true. I my goodness, I don’t think my sons remember what they had for dinner in April 2004, but I did write a great book that year and we all remember that.
I’m so glad you read it, Susie. My Friday fables are my favourite part of my blog. Glad you could relate to this one – some days the word “dinner” doesn’t really apply, does it?
A man went walking every night just to gaze at the starry sky. He was so smitten by the beauty of the heavens that he never looked where he was going. One night he stepped into a well and fell in and broke his leg.
And that’s it for this Friday’s fable.
Catherine Austen 
That is the funnest most fabulouso fable I’ve ever read! And YAY for Kraft peanut butter, my fave!
Thanks, Cathy! We go through those 2kg jars pretty fast around here. (I consider that a sign of a good work week.)
I love this! HAHA, that last fable was so good! I think you have a book for writers in there, you know. Put all your fables together and you’ve got a very marketable book, with a clear audience.
Hmm, yes, I have thought about that, Ishta, in a dreamy kind of way. So nice of you to say so. They are really fun to write.
OH – by the way, I gave you a blog award. You don’t have to accept it or pass it on, but your blog deserves some publicity, so I gave it some today. 🙂
Thank you! I need some more sunshine in my life right about now.
This was fun! I need to make sure to check in every Friday for a fable. My only quibble: I prefer the all-natural peanut butter, crunchy kind.
Thanks, Monique. Not all my Fridays are fabulous, so feel free to check in every couple of weeks. (I like the all-natural kind of PB on a bagel, but it makes lousy cookies so I buy the sugary salty kind, too.)
I know this is an older post, but I had to read it. This is SO funny! And true. I my goodness, I don’t think my sons remember what they had for dinner in April 2004, but I did write a great book that year and we all remember that.
I’m so glad you read it, Susie. My Friday fables are my favourite part of my blog. Glad you could relate to this one – some days the word “dinner” doesn’t really apply, does it?