Writing Gives me Goosebumps

Everyone is where they should be today.

Isn't that a wonderful thing? Husband is at work. Three oldest kids are in school. Two toddlers are here driving me nuts! All is right in the Oshee household once again. To top it off, everyone slept through the night last night. Except me that is. I was up finishing up my homework.

I like having homework. I like having a fiction class. At this point anyway, I am so glad I have stuck with it and grappled with those fears. I am finding with fiction, unlike my personal essays, I am able to be a bit funnier. I can take it all a bit less seriously. I read this by John Salzi recently. In the essay he writes about the book he explains that for this, his first attempt at writing a novel, he decided to:

In sitting down to write the novel, I decided to make it easy on myself. I decided first that I wasn't going to try to write something near and dear to my heart, just a fun story. That way, if I screwed it up (which was a real possibility), it wasn't like I was screwing up the One Story That Mattered To Me. I decided also that the goal of writing the novel was the actual writing of it -- not the selling of it, which is usually the goal of a novelist.

Isn't that a great goal? The goal just to write to see if he could do it. Even more, he decided to write a story that allowed him the ability to let go and be okay if it didn't sell. I read the novel (go to the site you can read it too) and enjoyed it a lot more than I expected to. I have been reading Salzi's blog, Whatever, for sometime and while I don't always agree with him, I enjoy his voice and how he expresses himself. Right now, he is digressing down the road of taping bacon to his cat. I never quite know what to expect there. Can you tell who I've chosen to do my author profile on for my writing class?

After reading that, I have really tried to lighten up with my writing. Hey it worked for him!

Now to where this has been leading. The scene I finished last night is a puzzle. There is an incongruity. I am going to post the short scene here and while I know what I have planned as the solution to the puzzle; I thought it would be fun to see if someone else has a better idea. So, think of yourselves in this as my writing group. As this is a first draft, I'm not looking for heavy editting...just ideas for the solution to the puzzle. I hope you have fun with it!

“Bella, Bella wake up!” Joe shakes his wife firmly. She bolts upright startled, but hasn’t time for much more reaction as Joe rushes her out to the living room.

“Joe…Wha.” She pauses to yawn, “what’s going on?”

Joe pulls her to the large window overlooking the street. Bella struggles into her robe as she drops to the chair.

“Watch Bella!” Joe says and then points down the street.

Bella rubs her puffy eyes and squints in the direction of his finger. “It is past 2 am Joe, it is dark. There isn’t anything to see. Please, let me go back to bed.”

Joe peers intently down the street and then at his wrist watch. “Just a couple more minutes and you’ll see.”

Just then movement can be seen under the streetlamp halfway down the block. Bella frowns and leans closer to the window. “Who is out walking at this time of night?” she says.

“It’s that lady from that house across the street. I’ve been watching her, every night for a week now.”

“Mindell Jacobs? You’ve been watching her? Heavens Joe, have you been spying?” says Bella.

“Just watch!” he says.

The woman then steps out of the shadows and wobbly struts down the sidewalk. In one hand she clenches a insulated mug and her other hand is held delicately out, her palm down, fingers out.

“What does she have on her feet?” says Bella.

“That’s why I woke you. I swear she does this every night about this time. Leaves down the block one way and return back up the other.” Joe gestures to his left and then his right. “Always wearing the same thing. Big baggy sweats and those shoes.”

“They’re called stilettos.” Bella leans forward, wishing now she had brought her glasses. Her eyesight just hasn’t been the same since she hit sixty. “An expensive pair if I am seeing it right. They’ve got to be at least five inches high. Is she wearing any make-up? Her hair looks like it is pulled back but I can’t make out if she has another set of clothes under those sweats. Maybe our little mommy across the street has a side job we don’t know about.”

“Hell, I don’t know anything about make-up, but she doesn’t look like any hooker I’d pick up.”

Bella looks at Joe considering. “You’d pick up hmm?”

“You know what I mean. Her hair is a mess, and the way she holds that hand is more like she’s walking into my mother’s parlor than a strip club.” Joe says.

“You said she does this every night?” Bella says ready to change the topic back.

“Yeah, every night about this time. I noticed the movement about a week ago. I was watching the MASH show that comes on at 1:30. I pulled the blinds up to see better and there she was prancing down the sidewalk. I thought it couldn’t be right and when she was gone from view I stopped paying attention. But hell, she’s kept it up all week.” Joe said.

“Why didn’t you tell me before? It looks like she might just fall over in those shoes.” Bella said.

“She starts off a lot quicker and steadier almost like she’s wearing sneakers. You would have believed me if I mentioned it over brunch at IHOP?” Joe said.

Bella laughs. “No, that isn’t likely is it. Now let me remember, those two are married and have what, three kids now? The youngest is still in diapers.”

“How do you know all that?”

“Because I am awake during the day. I see her load them up in that minivan there every morning. She must work a lot because it is usually the dad that unloads them in the evening.” Bella says.

The lights switch off in the house across the street. “Shows over. So what do you think?” says Joe.

“I think our neighbors are much stranger than I have given them credit for. I am going back to bed now.” Bella stands holding her back. “Are you going to come?”

“No. I’m going to watch Matlock now.”