150th Blog: Writing What You Know

I'm sitting in a cafe named Fred. It's a pretty ordinary cafe, full of ordinary people, on an ordinary weekday morning. In the street, approximately two dozen joggers all dressed like Batman just ran past the café window.

Across from me is Caris, my ongoing POV protagonist from The Carousel. She sips her bottomless hazelnut Frappucino through a straw. I have an iced coffee, with enough vanilla syrup and milk to override the coffee taste. How one substance can smell and taste two completely different ways is a mystery to me.

Caris: So what exactly is on your mind, sweetie?

Me: I guess I've been having a little trouble writing lately. I feel like I'm forcing it in a way that I haven't had to before.

Caris: Well, you've gotten several projects in motion at the same time. You might be experiencing a second act slump.

What Caris knows, because she's a fictional character in my head, is that I'm particularly weak on second acts. Beginning a story is exciting. Ending a story is gratifying. But the stuff in the middle is where the work really feels like work. Writer's block is an obstacle that has many techniques to help one overcome it. But a slump is a bigger pain. Nobody can really help you with that.

Caris: Well if nobody can help you, what do you need me for?

Me: It's my 150th blog. I just wanted to do something a little different.

Caris: Like what?

Me: I don't know. I'm just feeling kind of blase.

Caris: I think a lot of writers usually take this point to have something unexpected happen. Like zombies jump out. Here, let me try something.

Caris stands up and and announces the beginning of a barroom brawl, and instantly the other patrons spring into violent action, sending every bit of Fred's furniture flying in all directions. She sits back down and looks at me expectantly.

Caris: Does that help at all?

Me: Not really. It's a nice gesture but it doesn't spark anything.

Caris: Well, why don't you try going back to basics? Just write about what you know?

Me: Because what I know doesn't strike me as that interesting, or particularly creative.

Caris: Isn't the interest level always something you add in the second pass at something. I mean, you have to build a home before you decorate it.

Me: Okay, this is me writing what I know.

I'm sitting in the couch in the den typing on the keys of my Chromebook, still experiencing the aftertaste of a handful of the olives I purchased yesterday. I'm about to type the letter q. There. That was exactly as life changing as I'd predicted. Knock knock. Who's there, you say? No you don't. Whoever you are, by the time you read this you would never have said that out loud, except now that I've made that declaration you might do it out of friendly spite. But as I'm still typing this, the only one reading it is me. So, no. You don't say 'who's there'. Nor did I say 'knock knock'. I just typed it.

Me: See? It's not really blog worthy.

She calls off the brawl and takes another swig of her beverage.

Caris: Let me ask you something. Why do you write?

Me: The same reason as anyone pursues a creative endeavor. They have something in their heads that they want to get out into the world.

Caris: So do you have anything in your head right now?

Me: No not really.

Caris: Then why are you trying to write when you have no motivation?

Me: That's actually a good question. I guess I swore I would take my blog seriously and put out something at least once a week.

Caris: So you think by holding yourself to a schedule you can force a level of quality?

Me: Isn't that the nature of discipline?

Caris: Absolutely! And what's the worst thing that happens when you fail?

Me: Nothing, except I feel like I've failed.

Caris: All right then. Time for a metaphor.

Caris retrieves a spelunker's helmet and a pickaxe that she's had stashed in hammerspace and proceeds to hack through the floor of Fred.

Me: What are you doing?

Caris: Searching for gems.

The other patrons ignore the destruction she's causing to the setting. She's through the floor now. I slide the table out of the way to catch sight of her head disappearing down into the tunnel she's so passionately creating.

Me: What makes you think there are gems down there?

Caris: No harm in looking, right?

Me: Except to the foundation.

Caris doesn't answer because she's gone. I've heard it paraphrased that fiction is real life with the boring parts edited out. It explains how she's able to move so fast. I drop into the darkness and wait for vague clarity. It comes in the form of an intricate series of passageways leading in every direction. Good Lord, she's been all over the place.

She appears in front of me again looking quite proud of herself.

Caris: I've laid out tracks.

Me: To where?

Caris: Does it matter? It's a ride.

We sit together on a wooden flat with wheels. It's quite a roller coaster she's built (at least I'm assuming she's the one who built it); it's almost like riding a magic carpet, but with the ever-present danger of splinters. And bats. And jumping the track. That last one happens quite a few times.

We roll through a narrow cavern, getting some air time on a succession of bunny hops, before emerging into a downward spiral over a huge chasm. The track corkscrews in six full revolutions before skimming the surface of an underground lake, complete with a thirty-five percent scale Loch Ness Monster. Caris pets the creature's neck as we skip past it.

We dock at the end of the shoreline and get stuck in the muck. But after a little wiggling and jolting we manage to dislodge the flat and go sledding down a mudslide. There are yetis in this area but they're significantly more sarcastic than the animatronic ones that tend to plague my nightmares. The first strikes a dramatic pose and belts out an A natural. The next wags his fingers at us with a mock-mocking 'nyah'. Another one doesn't even bother looking up from his newspaper.

We slide out of that room and skid to a halt at the bottom of what looks like a dormant volcano. Sunlight is hundreds of feet above us, and next to where we've reached our solstice is a still wet hand painted sign in Caris's handwriting that reads 'You are here'.

Me: Now what?

She doesn't have a chance to respond as the geyser directly underneath us erupts, sending us in the air. About halfway up, a strong gust sweeps us into an open chamber and gravity resumes its function. We go rolling through the terrain, eventually meeting up with another section of the track. The wheels find their guidance and we begin a slalom through the stalactites. From there it's across an overpass, around a bend that takes us behind the spray of a waterfall, and back to the cavern we first entered from the café above.

Me: So what was the point of that? We're right back where we started.

Caris: Does every journey have to have a point?

Me: Well...

Caris: You just took a ride that nobody else has taken before. Because it hadn't existed. What more point do you really need than that?

Me: I don't know. Substance maybe?

Caris: Substance is overrated. It's nice if you can work it in, but if waiting for it is keeping you from going on the ride in the first place then it becomes just another obstacle.

Me: So you're saying this is supposed to be fun?

Caris: I'm not saying that at all. YOU are.

I'm not sure if I'm satisfied with what this has been leading up to, but I don't really have time to complain about it as there is a violent crack in the ceiling overhead. Caris and I roll out of the way as Fred come crashing down through the rock. The patrons inside are as perplexed as one would be under the circumstances.

We cough at the onset of dust, and I don't have to remind Caris of what I'd said about the foundation earlier.

Caris: Oops?

Me: Well, reality beckons. You don't mind if I leave you to tie up the loose ends?

Caris: (giggling) You can leave. But I don't expect I'll be tying up many loose ends.

Me: I guess that's the way fiction goes.

I'm not sure if I've accomplished anything, or for that matter if I ever will (I also don't know what happened to my iced coffee, but I imagine it will eventually turn up). Still, I have posted 150 blogs to my site, and that's significantly more than I ever expected to. I have no idea where it's going, but maybe Caris is right. Maybe it doesn't have to have a point. Maybe it just needs to be something that hasn't existed before.

To the next one then.