Do Writer's Get Snow Days?

There is a raging snowstorm coming down and the only sounds I hear are the tapping on my keyboard and the wind hitting the skylight over my hall closet. It literally howls and if you stand against the wall outside the closet, it sounds as if infernal creatures (and very large ones) are rearranging furniture on our roof.

Every once in a while, a plow will go by (on the elevated highway or  about 100 feet away clearing one or the other avenue, both major thoroughfares).

We have these chic wooden blinds on the window, and even closed I see the whiteout conditions on the other side, there’s a curtain of snow falling almost horizontally because of the wind.

The few cars that were coming and going earlier are gone and traffic has trickled to nothing. Sometimes a squad car or some other emergency vehicle will go by, above on the highway or below it. If their lights are flashing, you may see the movement from our windows.

It is quiet and peaceful, and it is warm and cozy in our place.

People pay good money to experience these conditions!

I’ve heard and read of writers that dream of hiding out in a little cabin in the woods, in a snowy place, away from everything – just to write.

The snow, the cold, the wind, the warmth of the hearth, all these things are designed to invite the writer to write…

But there is something hypnotic about watching snow fall, listening to the wind howl, getting under a thick blanket and getting your feet warm or fantasize about the dream you had the other night that reintroduced a character to your waking hours.

I could write about the isolation, cabin fever, angels falling to blanket us with love. I could wait a little bit and write about the frolicking kids (it will happen). Instead, I choose to go somewhere between aprés-skiing and hibernating, with occasional breaks to work on a remote project, take videos documenting the snow accumulation for friends who rarely see the stuff, and writing about not writing. I'll cook, make some ice cream, maybe a cake, stay in as I always do.

I know I need to write something, but I want a snow day! Don’t writers get a snow days?

Takes Two to Tango

We found ourselves with no Internet the last couple of days of 2015 and a better part of the first week of this year. At first, I was unhappy that I’d miss so much, but I readjusted to a Luddite existence quickly.

On the one hand, I missed the instant access I have to my friends across the globe (and I mean actual friends with whom I have ongoing relationships). On the other hand, there was an easy-going, peaceful aura about everything.

We lost the ability to stream and were suddenly stuck with bad TV we'd seen eons ago!—but even this was a source of giddiness and we laughed a lot.

I took the opportunity to do a little reading but I did no writing. I also did not edit or reread any of the stories going into the next collection, He Done Her Wrong. I was in a fairly festive mood and did not want to give any more thought to infidelities or its aftermath.

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In the next couple of weeks, I will return to the beat and have an interview to set up that will give me unprecedented access to the aftermath of an affair by a willing participant (willing to become part of my research, I mean).

Her first-hand experiences will serve as lynchpins to a story I wanted to write. The story itself may not belong in the next volume, but I am interested in a different perspective and it suggests not only this but a series of stories with a skewed perspective.

Is skewed the word I necessarily mean, though?

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It worries me, suddenly, whether I have been properly neutral in my portrayals or if I have allowed judgement to affect the storytelling. Judgement changes it. Judging makes it propaganda and that was never the point.

That some of the stories should have a distinct focus is one thing, but to participate in moral favoritism is just boring, and a little dangerous. It’s also uninspired and obnoxious. Storytelling should be more flexible or else it’ll miss the poetry of a moment.

Judgement belongs to (and rests with) the reader and, you could try to influence her, but if you use a sledge hammer to drive a point that matters to you because you feel it is the ultimate truth, then you need to be a preacher not a storyteller.

Then again, if you choose to preach, then you must live the word or forever be a hypocrite.

I am perfectly happy with stories that have no moral center and no message. I am happy to tell a story simply because there might be an instant that captures pure magic--even if there is no transformation beyond capturing the instant and letting it die in the tongue, the mind’s eye, or your gut.

Coming up, there might be a story or two where the protagonist is the one who perpetuates the infidelity and survives the moment to tell their story—whether defiantly or in penance. I’d like to affect the push/pull of a good tango but with words, that’s the skewed delivery of words I am chasing in my head. After all, it does take two to tango!

That’s the plan, anyway. What are your reading/writing plans for the New Year?