Saturday, April 9, 2011

Dam: A Lesson in Fluid Dynamics


My inspiration is frozen like the ice building ever higher along the gutters under my house eaves.  My words, my story, are stuck, entombed within the winter of my creativity.  Ha.

Now is the winter of my discontent… 

Shakespeare really knew how to whine!  Damn straight I am discontent.  I have just spent the better part of three days embroiled in a battle of wills with Mother Nature for the possession of my roof and a petulant muse for possession of my creativity.  I have no idea what I did to piss those girls off but they are exacting their revenge in the form of dams.  My roof has ice dams.  Big ice dams.  Hoover ice dams.  My inspiration just seems dammed.  Or maybe damned?

For those of you not acquainted with ice dams I will explain these little winter jewels.  An ice dam is much like it sounds:  a large mass of ice that collects in the gutters of roofs.  As the snow melts water backs up behind the dam and comes into the house destroying the roof, the ceiling, the wall.  You name it – it’s trashed.  In short, Mama N. is threatening my comfortable life.
   
As for my dammed creativity, I believe the culprit to be a kissing cousin to Cabin Fever and Midwinter Blues: Restless Writer Syndrome (RWS).  I have seen it before and recognize the symptoms.  I am grouchy, cranky, distant and petulant.  My dreams are strange, full of fantastical creatures and complex plots.  Reading, my go-to self soother, is a hopeless act.  I can’t concentrate on a book long enough to reach chapter three.  I have trouble sitting at the computer unless it involves long hours of Facebook and Bejeweled.

On the home front, I feel the urge to reorganize my pantry, my kids’ lives, kids’ rooms, or silverware drawer.  Yesterday I found myself scrubbing the sink fixtures with a toothbrush.  Some may confuse this with spring cleaning or nesting but RWS is pure, unadulterated procrastination.   In short, I will do anything but write.  When I do manage to sit down with my manuscript the writing, well, it just plain hurts. 

“I should have been an accountant,” I tell my husband.

“You would hate it,” he says.  “It’s boring.”  This is his nice way of reminding me I can’t add two and two in my head.

I make a face.  “I would have a paycheck,” I say.  “I could work part-time and still be here for the kids.  We could afford summer camp.” 

“Yes,” he says.  “You could.” We have had this conversation before, usually over a beer and the want-ads.  “But--” 

I roll my eyes in interruption and take another pull from my bottle. 

But.”  He emphasizes the word but with a toast of his own bottle,   “You’re a writer.  You have always been a writer, even when you tried to be other things.  You will always be one.  Like it or not.  You cannot resist the Force young Jedi,” he smirks.

That smirk irritates me even more than his paraphrasing Star Wars.  At least it wasn’t Spock.  It’s only logical.  I might have hurt him.

“I don’t want to be a writer,” I whine.  “It’s too hard.”  I flop down on the couch.   My husband waits patiently.  This isn’t his first rodeo.  

I am wrong.  The most irritating aspect of this conversation is he is right, as usual.   “A new character introduced himself today,” I finally say, sullen and pouting.

“Oh?”  He says oh but it sounds like I knew it was something like that.  “Tell me.”  He sits on the edge of the couch, ready to retreat to higher ground if things get too hairy. 

“It’s complicated,” I groan.  I have been avoiding this conversation all day but I have to face it sometime.  “He’s a Collector.”

“Really?  What does he collect?” 

My husband is good at this part- the listening part.  He knows not to give opinions, try to help.  Writers hate that, at least this writer does.

“People,” I say. 

“Really?  Why?  How?”

“I don’t know!  He’s some kind of bloodhound, a human-ish GPS system.  Once he collects you he can find you anywhere.  He has to touch you, emotionally.” 

“That could come in handy with our teenagers.” 

“This is serious,” I say.  “I don’t know what to DO with him.”  I sink deeper into the couch, deeper still into my pout.  “There were two of them,” I whisper, like admitting to a dirty little secret.  “An older one and a younger one.  The younger one hadn’t collected anyone yet and the older one was giving him some speech about the futility of denying who or what he was.” 

My husband raises an eyebrow.  I feel a Spock moment coming on. 

“Please!” I say, holding my hand in front of my face.  “Spare me the movie quotes.”


My husband eyes the beer and the want-ads and gives me a wry look. 

“Very funny,” I sort of snarl at him and huff but I continue.  “I saw the older man’s face.  It was covered in tattoos- like spirals and circles.  He could make them appear or hide them.”  I pause, pulling the image of the man into my mind.  It still disturbs me, fascinates me.   “He wanted me to see what he was,” I continue, studying the man in my head.   “The tattoos were names.  Some were moving, like spinning wheels, some still.  They were names of all the people he had collected.”

I pull away from the dream and focus on my husband.  He just looks at me.  I hold my breath.  I can’t help it.  It’s times like this when I wonder if he is sizing me up for a pretty white jacket, weighing the pros and cons of having me committed. 

He furrows his brow a little, takes a sip of his beer and speaks.  “But why does he collect people?  How does he fit into the story?” 

Phew.  No nuthouse for me today. 

“I don’t know yet. I am kind of annoyed they even showed up. I have enough to deal with as the story is now.  And then there is the black dog thing.”

“Black dog thing?” he asks. 

“Ugh,” I moan and run my hand through my hair, pulling just a little to ease the ache that is building in my brain.  “Don’t ask.  First he was a college Joe, then a huge black dog with red eyes and then he exploded into a rainbow mist when the sun touched him.  It was disturbing.” 

“I’ll bet.  Kind of mixing your monsters there.”  He shakes his head.  “You and Stephen King should start a support group.” 

“Tell me about it,” I say.  “These dreams are doing me in.” 

Sensing the crisis is over my husband smiles and holds out his hand.  I reluctantly relinquish the paper.  “I will save it for later,” he promises.

“This sucks,” I say. 

He laughs a little and shakes his head.  “You’ll survive.”  He says and heads out to check on our roof.

“Doubtful.” I mutter to his back and trudge upstairs to write down everything I can remember about Tattoo Man and Dog Boy. 

I have survived, so far.  The roof has held, knock on wood.  I will keep working at both issues until there is a clear winner.  Make no mistake.  I fully intend to be the victor.

I suppose dealing with the process of writing as well as many of life’s problems can be compared to my struggle with ice dams.   The way I see it, there are two choices: 
1.  You can stare at said issue and pray it doesn’t get any bigger, turn messy.  
2.  You can climb up to the edge and start hacking away at said issue, inch by inch. 

Sometimes progress is painful.  You get ice in your eye, cut your hand, get buried in snow or fall off the ladder all for one lousy measure of progress.  Sometimes you take a half-hearted whack at it and whoosh!  Things break loose in one big rush and the problem is solved. 

Perseverance, Patience and Will- the three Muses no one talks about.  They aren’t sexy.  They aren’t full of flowery language, beautiful music and vibrant color.  However, you let these three gals into your life, with their sensible footwear and comfortable pantsuits, and they will pave the way for their flashier sisters.  Eventually momentum will kick in and the water (or ideas, or solutions) will begin to flow in the right direction. 
Conversely, ignore the elephant in the room or a monster in the closet and an inevitable torrent will find its own way through in the most inconvenient way possible.  It could, for example, let loose all over your brand new cashmere sweater in the upstairs closet and then ooze its way down the wall into the girls’ room and ruin a new iPod dock.  But I'm just guessing here.

On that particular want-ad, one beer evening I didn’t want to talk about plot or characters or writing.  I had been dreading it as much as I had dreaded spending my day up on that ladder, hacking away at the ice in my gutters.  But after a few rusty swings the dam broke and the story began to flow again.

As for my roof, tomorrow’s sun will help along today’s effort.  I won’t be up there.  I will be writing.  The Collector found me and I will give him some time but Dog Boy is on his own.

You can't wait for inspiration. You have to go after it with a club.   - Jack London, Author.

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