Real Life, Only Better.

Life. That thing that inconveniently steps in when you’re trying to write. The audacity of it, insisting it is more important than the next chapter, the current plot twist, or Edits, Round 10.

My litany of issues with Life this week include: Really, you HAD to break my washing machine AND my dryer in the same week? Coincidentally the same week that I needed to have the contractor out to do the bid on my stairs? And you couldn’t have pushed the brake repair on the car out a week? Not just for the money, but now I have to find time to get all this stuff done too? And still single-parent, cook, clean, cart the teen around…have you no mercy, Life?

Makes me want to swear. Loudly. In multiple foreign languages.

The suck truth is, Life doesn’t really give a crap about plans or schedules or ‘need-to’ versus ‘want-to’. It just is. And we have to pick ourselves up every time it happens and just keep doing what we do. Just how it is.

How come Life really doesn’t much get in the way in books? The intrepid sleuth never has a pipe burst in the basement when she’s on her way to track down the bad guy. And what would she do it she did have a pipe burst? It’s not like you can just walk away, let the flood happen, ruin all your stuff. Or could you? There’s a conundrum to anguish over….lose my shit, or let the bad guy get away. Five minutes to decide.

And how come the intrepid sleuth never has 18 of her closest friends over to dinner only to find the loin chops have gone off and she has no backup main course available? Or that the carpet has suddenly detached itself from her stairs, causing a guest to fall on his ass as he is attempting to leave after the loin chopless dinner? Causing a personal injury suit her insurance won’t cover?

Or am I just reading the wrong books?

I swear, I am going to inflict calamity after calamity on my main character, to the point that it becomes absurd. I bet someone will read my draft and say – wait, THAT would never happen. Sigh. Real life is definitely more complex than fiction, and yet, we have to write fiction like it is real life, only better.

That’s where I’d like to be today – Real Life, Only Better.

Only I bet Life is lurking there too and it isn’t really ‘better’ if you spend enough time there.

Hope Life is kinder to your schedule than it has been to mine this week. I’m off to write some more…unless something else breaks.

The Final Snippet: I just need to get past the crying babies. And the chewing. (I have nothing to add to this).

Deb Answers: Mary in Detroit: Inconsequential delusion. Really.