I Can’t Explain

The thing about being a lifelong writer is that sometimes I don’t get a lot of say on how it’s all going to play out.

In early November, my sister sent me a text that had a nickname that she has always called me:

“Clit.”

Made me laugh at the time, but something clicked. Just a six or seven word text kicked it off.

That night, I wrote a few pages.

Set the story the night before the ‘Blizzard of ‘77’.

It snowballed from there.

Characters, plot line, the title and the main theme…

…it was all there.

Typed it as fast as it came to me.

There’s a long way to go, but it is just sitting there, and I visit it, an hour here and an hour there.

Over the weekend, I didn’t write anything new.

Just read what I had.

Another little trick is to make sure that I’m not mentally worn out when I’m putting the words down.

Reading it was good enough.

Woke up yesterday morning, not realizing that more of the story would be sitting there for me to grab.

As I made a long drive to the first site, I was TRAPPED in the story world.

No way out.

I wrote notes at red lights.

Was hit with more ideas.

Worked from 6:30 to 5:00…

…but knew that after dinner, I had to go back to the other world for a little while.

Pages.

Just enough to quiet whoever the hell feeds it to me, and I felt the pain that the main character was going through.

“You’re quiet,” Kathy said, at one point.

“Just writerish,” I said.

“I figured.”

Won’t be long now.

Haunted by the art.

And you want to be a writer!