How do You Know When There's Too Much Wind?

From my window where I should be writing, I'm watching a sailor.

He's hoisted his crisp white main sail, rimmed with a smaller triangle of ink--ten inches of black, like an IKEA dinner plate. Odd, being on the lake at full mast after dark.  He's losing wind fast during this static air night. I know he should consider bringing both sails down before dark, yet for some reason he resists and both are billowed full.

Just another boat, but this sailor caught my fancy.   While most of the windmen around here boast main sails bearing flashes of gaudy color, angular rainbow stripes and the like -- this one is remarkable.

The attire? Simple and clean. A garment Jackie Onassis Kennedy (or her sister) would have worn: not too much color, a subtle statement in a Walmart world.

An elegant dress for a windy day.

It reminds me of writing, how as authors we are tempted to pack our manuscripts with ancillary words, and how sometimes, we need an oddly placed reminder that one well-chosen word is better than many bright sails.

It All Happens in the Thinktank

Writing takes a lot of time.  So does laundry.  And cooking.  And cleaning.



I suppose I should toss in a couple of "real job" hours in there as well.

And Finding Things, Lost and Hidden.  That takes a lot of time, too.

What I need is a laundry knight, a self-starter with a bright shining team to swoop in, and not only bring the dirty clothes down from their smelly spot in the hamper, but sort and wash them in my basement laundry dungeon-- the room unabashedly known as the thinktank of this Sparkly household.  Hopefully, once done folding, mister fancypants will slip on those shiny *metallic is so hot right now* thigh high boots he's tucked into the laundry basket (see photo) and bring everything upstairs.

Until my chain mail'd dude in lather appears, or until my Badass Novel is finished, the piles reach epic proportions. I wonder if this has anything to do with my sudden yen to climb Mount McKinley.  I'll bring my gear and scale the mess -- tomorrow.  After I finish one more chapter.

Ladle Up a Steaming Bowl of Writer's Block Soup.

Sparkly Hubby walked into the kitchen this morning and sniffed. "What are you doing?"

"Making soup," I said.

He peered into the steaming pot, grabbed the spoon, stirred the carrots. Sampled the salted rice and onions. "You know, it's going to be eighty today," he said mid-taste, as though I couldn't feel the humid air flowing in from the kitchen window.

"I know."

"Having trouble with something?" he asked.

I nodded.  "Third to last chapter."

"Still?"  He closed the lid with a tinny clang.  "That's what I thought," he answered.  "At least the soup's good."

He was right, the soup's good. The writing? Not so much. Sometimes it doesn't matter what you do, the words don't flow.  Taking a physical break works for many writers.  Me too.  There's nothing like slathering a fresh coat of paint on a wall to dislodge the verbal logjam, but I can't do that today: I have a Frankenfoot.  A walking cast, the result of a nicely *don't ask* broken toe.

So today, instead of ladders and latex, a stainless pot would free my words.  Jerry Seinfeld would be proud, 'cause the guy, well he's funny, uses lots of words, and he likes his soup.

Beef with brown rice on the menu. I chopped veggies and mixed broth, all the while plotting.  "Do I really kill off  X?" I wondered to myself, "or will a nice maiming do the trick."  I continued my mental diatribe: "Will anyone notice if I switch point-of-view, because honestly, X's 'big scene' would resound so much better in first person, not third."  Important things, killing-off and point-of-view, at least to a writer; quandaries best solved over a glass of Cabernet, but not this early. It wasn't quite wine-thirty anywhere in the midwest.  Maybe in Germany, where they sip lager with their Goetta and eggs, but around here, I've got a rep to maintain. At least around my kids: no wine before noon.  Just broth.

Around lunchtime, the rice cooked al dente, the buds still firm but plump and full, we gathered on the deck in swimsuits, and ladled up a steaming bowl of soul-warming, word-inspiring soup.

Served best today with a glass of icy cold tea, because after all, it was eighty degrees outside.

All in the Name of Research.

As luck would have it, we'd parked the truck and its padlocked trailer right by the "No Overnight Parking" sign, safe and out of the way.  The accident happened at that marina, three hours from home after we'd spent the day Waverunning through the bayous and channels of Spring Lake Michigan -- research for my Badass Novel.  Car burglary? Nah. Fender bender?  Nope.

The accident was far worse than either of those:  You see, I dropped our keys in the lake.  It's a murky lake with zero visibility, but that wasn't the bad part.  The missing key ring, wedged somewhere in the muck and mire at the bottom of Mill Point launch, included two keys -- the ski trailer's padlock keys, and our truck keys.  Yes, the truck that would drive us out of the marina and back to our room promising warm towels.  Back to dry clothes.  Out to a nice dinner.

Black Keys, the band, not to be
confused with my keys in a black lake.

Did I mention GMC emergency lock-out service doesn't stay open past five o'clock anywhere in this world?

With nary a word other than, "I can't believe you dropped the keys in the water," which he repeated over and over, Sparkly Hubby searched for almost two hours, treading water and diving for stainless.  In the meantime, I pled with GMC on my cell to please find a dealership, locksmith, Harry Potter, anyone who could make our two keys magically appear.  I'd have settled for a time traveler even, a shape-shifter to help me backspace to the moment right before I lost my grip on the wet metal -- sunk in half a second with a sad kerplunk.  But alas, there was not a car dealer or time traveler available, perhaps because it was past closing time:  time traveler's must be nine to fiver's too.

Finally, as dark threatened, my friend Blackberry, not GMC, helped us locate a locksmith who could carve a truck key for just under a couple of hundred dollars. A key which he would personally deliver . . .  in the morning!

A frantic call to the harbormaster at our hotel secured a rare available boat slip for the night -- the Holiday Inn housed a marina.  In the dim light, we bid farewell to our truck and trailer, but first, we left a note under the windshield wiper, on paper bummed from a Good Samaritan, penned for the Spring Lake police, pleading to please not tow our stuff.

We loaded up shivering and bemused, yet in amazingly good spirits onto the Waverunner and idled up inky Grand River to the hotel.  Maybe this was how Ernest Hemingway felt coming in from the beach.

In the morning we climbed back on the Waverunner and met the locksmith at Mill Point launch.  Two hundred dollars lighter, we opened the door to the GMC.

The moral of this novella?  Every writer needs a terrific support system, and I am glad to say that my support system is unparalleled.  You may think you have a super Sparkly Hubby, but mine is the bestie-best.  Because he didn't kill, or even yell at me when I dropped the keys.  And he still thinks I am a good writer.  And today's his birthday.  Oh, and we found the perfect location for my story.

I need to find a way to write-off that two hundred dollar key as a research cost.  I'll reimburse him, just as soon as I sell my book.