Write Way

I’ve discovered through years of trying that I write in two very different ways. Rarely, (like two percent of the time … ah damn it … math) stories come through my head and fingers as if I just sat down and read the book. Word follows word to form sentences and paragraphs and chapters. I can put it down and walk away (and it leaves me alone while I’m gone) then come right back and pick it up on the word I stopped at and go on from there. There’s no frustration or turmoil and these stories are a joy to write. I say rarely because it is uncommon for a story to come to me in this structure.

Normally, (ninety-seven percent of the rest of the time, leaving a whole percentage missing) there is a nugget of an idea (an independently wealthy detective who secretly runs a halfway house out of an old motor court motel for unsuccessful prostitutes) then scenes, settings, dialogues, characters and plot twists all start crowding into my head at the same time. Sometimes I can’t write fast enough to get it all down before I lose it and trust me, once I forget it, it never comes back. (Maybe that’s where my New York Times Bestseller List novel went.) Note: Please refer to the chapter titled ‘Outlandish Outlining’ located in this book. And it doesn’t stop when I need it to. I can be driving home from work in traffic when a voice will speak up from the backseat. (Just for the record, I’m alone in the car.)

“Don’t you think I’d look better dressed in jeans, boots and a really tight sweater instead of this three-piece suit? I don’t think suits are really my thing.”

“Look, I made you up and then dressed you in a very nice, very expensive suit that I really couldn’t afford, that shows you have money even though you’re working as a detective so how can suits not be your thing?”

“Do you know how many times the rich-guy-works-at-menial-job-to-make-the-world-better has been done? I just think I’d look better … and sexier (bribery) … in jeans that show off my butt. I could be the maverick that goes against the norm.”

“Being a detective is not a menial job. They work long hours dealing with the worst human beings can do for little pay and no respect and … okay, it is a menial job. And this is not a western. I don’t do westerns because I don’t know enough about them to do them and the research (and hours of watching Bonanza) would take too long. I haven’t written your butt so it does not exist … yet.”

Then from the front passenger seat a blond responds (I can’t see her but she sounds blond) voice. “I’ve done him and I’ve seen his butt and you always write men with cute butts and I hope you see that tractor and trailer. It would look much nicer in jeans.”

“The tractor and trailer would look much nicer in jeans and who the hell are you?” (I am not buying a bigger car for all these people.)

“His ex-girlfriend and I think …”

I answer and I’m pretty sure I sound stressed. “I don’t have a storyline (or room) for an ex and once past a certain age girlfriend just sounds high schoolish.

“Spell check says ‘schoolish’ isn’t a word,” he points out.

(Yeah, I can see that big red line.) “Well, it should be. You have exes?”

“Oh honey, everybody has exes.” Now he’s bragging. “If I didn’t have exes I wouldn’t be so good in bed. He’s signaling he wants over. If you didn’t drive so slowly, tractor and trailers wouldn’t pass you.”

“If I didn’t have imaginary non-existent whiny people in the car distracting me, I would drive faster. Don’t call me honey and there is no proof you are good in bed.”

“No, she wouldn’t. I’ve ridden with her before and she always drives this slow.” I hear sounds of popping and finally identify it as bubblegum. I’m wondering just how far in the past she’s his ex. “He wasn’t that great in bed until I taught him a thing or two.” A loud silence comes from the backseat. “And there is no good word for girlfriend. Lover makes it sound too strong, partner makes it sound too gay, fiancée (how do you make a computer type that little thing over the e?) makes it sound like slavery, soul mate makes it sound too wishy-washy spiritual (and permanent), life partner is just hokey and domestic partner means he didn’t wash the laundry. I think you could work me in, in a flashback.”

“I hate flashbacks and why would you be riding with me if he didn’t exist before you came along to be his ex in the past in the first place.” I’m getting a headache. Time warps and flashbacks always give me headaches.

“They give you headaches because you don’t know how to use them properly.” He jumps back into the conversation after the blow to his sexual prowess just to be criticizing and I think he’s reading my mind.

“Of course, I’m reading your mind. I live in your mind. A good flashback can …” he stops talking as another truck blows the cigarette ashes off my side view mirror (don’t ask).

This is the end of the end. A character is giving me writing advice.

“Sort a like you and condoms,” says bubblegum blonde.

“What?” he asks, expecting another shot at his manhood and he would be right.

“You didn’t use them right,” she accuses.

“You’re the one that put it on me that night at the bowling alley. You’re the one who pretended to be pregnant.”

“I wasn’t pretending.” Now she offended. “I was mistaken. You couldn’t detect your way out of a …”

“No, you were wrong. Anyone who trusts the pregnancy test they bought at a dollar store.”

“Is that where the condoms came from?”

“Excuse me.” That’s me trying to regain control. “What does any of this have to do with my story? Bowling alley? Even I’m not kinky enough to imagine having sex in a bowling alley. They sell pregnancy tests at the dollar store?” I shop there but haven’t had need of one of those for awhile, emergency or otherwise (and that’s not because of my age).

“Speed up. That light’s about to change and you can make it.” Him again being a man and a backseat driver.

I stop at the yellow light, turn the music up loud to drown them out, hope no one in the car beside me heard the conversation through the open window and if they did they thought the reason my mouth was moving is because I am singing along with the song.

*
“Can she hear us?”

“No, but keep the emotion down or she will pick up on that and she’s about to get on the interstate and you know how much she hates to merge.”

“I hate rock. Can’t you get her to switch to country?”

“No.”

“Is all you can say is ‘no’.”

“No.”

“Wait. You run a what?”

“What?”

“Back up there on the first page of this blog …”

“Essay. Chapter. Installment. Think piece.”

“… Blog. It says you run a halfway house in an old motor court motel for unsuccessful prostitutes in parentheses.”

“Before moving from Vice to Homicide, I got drawn in with women trying to escape from that way of life. I bought them the motor court where they live and run a custodial company where I am a silent partner and my ladies don’t do parentheses.”

“The one writing this does. I’ve never seen so many. Maybe she’s trying to separate herself from us with little miniature fences.”

“Little and miniature mean the same thing. She’s trying to let the reader hear the writer’s hidden thoughts.”

“This whole book is her hidden thoughts so why hide them. Probably won’t sell. You took women away from sex for money and gave them cleaning toilets for money? Yuck.”
*