Jane! Stop this crazy thing!

I’m so overwhelmed that I feel like George Jetson stuck on the dog walking treadmill at light speed.

As a writer, this feeling grinds my creativity to a screeching halt. My brain crashes like overloaded circuits in a computer. I start pacing through the house since I can’t sit still. I call this insanity the Fidget Fungus. Once it starts it keeps growing like mold and is very difficult to get rid of.

This latest fungus started growing after George had been sick for a week and I’d spent the week herding him to the guest bedroom and hosing the house with disinfectant. Once he was on the mend and I’d avoided (as my dad called it) the epa-zootick we were on a social whirlwind. By week’s end we will have attended an early neighborhood Thanksgiving party, a birthday dinner with friends, entertained the neighbor’s kids with an afternoon of making wood crafts and riding the 4-wheeler, and hosted dinner for out-of-town friends. Somewhere in the middle of this George is catching up on work he missed while sick, we’re finishing before-winter-on-the-property chores, and after finally finding myself (see last week’s post about getting lost in your own book) I can’t make my brain write another word.

The Fidget Fungus has overtaken my life and it’s time to bleach that crap clean!

How do you do that at 9 a.m. when it’s too early to drink? Honestly, it’s never too early, but I’m trying to set a good example here…therefore, let’s hit the Xanex!!!

Pills popped, it’s time to write.

            First, you write an email to the cable company telling them you’re upset that of the 400 channels you have, only 300 are porn channels. Now drive to the post office…ah crap, procrastination was so much easier before the speed of email…okay, hit the send button!

            Second task, you write Grandma a letter telling her every detail of the last week. She doesn’t have email so voila, you now get to drive to the post office and mail it. While out you might as well do some grocery shopping, browse the hardware store for a new color to paint the bathroom and grab some lunch with a friend.

            Third task is put your butt in the chair and write 500 hundred words before dinner!

There is no magic cure for Fidget Fungus. The best you can hope for is containing it. It’s going to escape on a regular basis and sometimes you’re simply going to have to let it grow unchecked. That’s life my friends.  Once I learned that demanding an 8 to 5 grind from my job as a writer was dumber than digging a hole to China, the creativity and words came easier.

I quit 8 to 5 because I hated it! Any job with time structure made my blood pressure and heart rate soar. I was physically marching in their step to an early grave.

I still have days where twenty years of structured 8 to 5 brainwashing makes me feel like a writing failure. Instead of giving up, I lace up my hiking boots and climb to the top of the mountain across from our house. From the top, I can see the other side of the mountain where thousands of people are punching a clock. I take a deep breath and with a smile on my face, turn and start the journey down my side.  

I like it on my side of the mountain, and it doesn’t matter how many outbreaks I have of Fidget Fungus I know the rewards are worth it.

The Ghost in the Rafters (No alcohol was consumed prior to this vision, however plenty was consumed after.)

The day started like all others. I wake up, trip over the cat as I run to the bathroom, then trip over the rug on the way out. I make coffee, feed the cat, and stoke the fire --- however today, after that everything got hinky.

The cat was sitting on the arm of the couch, meowing and pointing his head upwards at the 12-foot beams in the family room. I mistakenly ignored him, so he jumped on an antique table and tried to jump up the wall onto a beam. As I watched his aerial acrobatics I saw a large black diaphanous figure float along the top of the wall and disappear into the entry hall. The cat, feeling vindicated gave me his best, “I told you so” look and proceeded to curl up on my lap, burying his head in the corner of the couch. Chicken! Wimp! Pussy!  (That last thought got me a quick dig with his claws into my thigh.)

George of course, being the rational member of the family asked what size the “apparition” was and could it have been a bat?

A BAT! Is he crazy? The mention of bats requires at least three therapy sessions for me.

“NO! It wasn’t a bat.” I said. “I would have heard it fly by and it would’ve needed to be four feet tall.”

“Maybe it was a ghost owl?” George asked.

“Maybe you’re sleeping in the garage tonight.”

“I’m just trying to help.” George said. “And what the heck are you doing?”

“I’m bobbing and weaving,” I said as I moved to the kitchen to get more coffee. “I’m making myself a harder target to attack, in case it was a giant mutant bat from outer space!”

“Would you like the bug zapping fly-swatter for protection?”

“Great idea!” I got my coffee and picked up the Lysol spray sitting on the counter, making my way back to the family room.

George looked up from his I-pad. “Are you planning to disinfect the intruder before or after you zap it?”

“Don’t be ridiculous. I’m using the Lysol like bear pepper spray. If it tries to attack me, I’ll spray it in the face before it gets me.”

“The more I think about it, I bet it was the ghost of Aunt Betty stopping in to say hello. And she wouldn’t hurt anyone.

Two hours later the cat is curled in my lap with his head between his legs; while I’ve upgraded my line of defense to a baseball bat and am typing with one hand and holding an umbrella with the other.

I got lost in my own book.

Not metaphorically.

Not writer’s block.

Absolutely physically lost.

For the past 75 pages (or two days in the characters lives) the story has moved along so well that I got lost in an extremely remote part of the country. Characters kept moving, but I forgot to pay attention how far. Which has left me with the dilemma that before the characters can progress on their journey, I have to find out where they were so I can move them to where they need to be.

What this means is readers know exactly how far characters can travel in a day, either by air, car, bicycle, walking or crawling. So if the characters are driving for two days straight they better make it further than Dallas to Waco.

Lesson here is: 1) Never take me hiking as your guide in the backcountry, and 2) if you’re a writer keep very accurate side notes exactly where your characters are every minute, especially if the entire book is about a journey. Your job as a writer is to keep track of every aspect from color of characters’ socks to what they ate for lunch. Unless you have an eidetic memory it’s impossible to store and recall instantly all that information.

Now where did I put the map?

  

Winter arrived and so did the first Pass Pissed Off event

Winter arrived in its usual fashion last week. And so did the usual suspects who think they are such good drivers they don't need snow tires or chains.  Not having these is like trying to sail from Hawaii to Los Angeles in an inner tube. You can try all you like, but you're NEVER gonna make it.

This is what happens at the bottom of the Pass...

…when people break the law and drive without snow tires or chains at the top of the pass. Yes, those two cars with headlights are STUCK and blocking the road.

There were a dozen cars stuck and blocking the road by 7 a.m. This required the Pass to be closed until they could be towed out. FOUR HOURS those people in the above picture at the bottom of the Pass were left sitting in their cars waiting and not getting to work. Most are hourly workers and were losing money because of douche donuts who don't obey the Chain law (snow tires or chains required).

 I heard through the "snow vine" that a couple of the cars stuck were ones who get stuck regularly. I guess they are hoping that doing the same dumbass stunt over and over they will eventually get a different result. Mother Nature always wins on this Pass. And while snow continues to pile up this winter so do fines and tow-out bills these yahoos get. They could buy not only the snow tires required but also, a trip to Cabo and a year's supply of beer with the money they spend on fines and tows.

Call me crazy, but fines obviously don't work. So I'm proposing if you are stuck, blocking traffic on the Pass more than once WITHOUT snow tires or chains on the car, the fine is paying all the lost wages for those unable to get to work due to road closure you caused.

That just spewed out of my brain and is a freaking awesome idea. Goes to prove getting mad isn't worth the time, but getting even…a whole other matter. I'm pretty sure every one of the people in those cars above would vote for my law!