YESTERDAY – February 17, 2011

Yesterday I found what makes my fiction unreadable. I should be happy with this realization and fairly skip to my computer with a newly found desire to write. But no. I realize my fiction was not true – sounds like an oxymoron; true fiction, but my fiction was not true to human nature. You see, in my 2nd book, my 1st adult novel, Eve, my main character, becomes locked in a room over her garage – a room that, years ago had been a refuge from an abusive husband and even more ungrateful sons. Eve proceeds to slowly breakdown – ending in a terrified night of darkness and sounds of menace outside the locked door. At the end of her head-banging breakdown comes Paul. The man who manages to put things (including Eve) to rights.

Yesterday morning, early, I found myself locked out of my house – on a second story deck off my bedroom. I normally don’t feed the wild birds in the morning as it’s all I can do to get myself together for my part-time job and get my cats fed. I’m not sure what possessed me. Maybe it was the hour; before seven, or the temperature; above freezing or both of these combined with a bright and welcoming sun. I do know that once I opened the door, my cat, Ms. Piskins was there ever the predator in spite of her cuteness. So, I pulled the door behind me never thinking it would continue to that heart deadening click – informing me I was locked out and the closest person to let me in was 90 miles away. Immediately I thought of Eve. I had time to allow myself a small chuckle as I realized I certainly couldn’t sit down on the frosty deck in my ratty nightgown and slam my head into the wall hoping some man will save me. Instead I sat in the cold patio chair and looked at door thinking of all the things I could do to open it; I needed a credit card but I don’t usually carry one when I (rarely) feed the birds. I spotted my cat mocking me from the other side of the glass I told her that unless she could find some opposable thumbs she should shut up. She did close her mouth but her tilted head seemed to scream, “fat-lot-of good opposable thumbs are doing you right now!” She was right. The sun vanished as I stood up to take action. Maybe, I thought, if I could wave my arms wildly enough a driver could spot me and stop. I thought I saw my neighbor go by, I waved frantically but my deck is at the rear of the house making observation possible only with expert 50 mile an hour peripheral vision. Screaming was of no use as my closest neighbors are one half mile away on three sides and one of the three sides is a cemetery – my screams were sure to fall on deaf ears there. I became serious when I realized I’d have to break an insulated, tempered, double-paned 65 X 28 piece of glass. I kicked the center of the glass but my slippered feet could not get enough sustained power to break it. I picked up the deck chair and slammed it s light-weight metal legs into the glass several times to no avail. There was nothing else to do. Fear crept over me when I realized I would not be free until 6:30 that evening. Part of me, like Eve, wanted to cry from sheer frustration. I looked around the deck railing searching for a rope of some kind to climb down to the lower deck. That’s when I spotted the big, steel C-clamp holding the birdfeeder platform to the top rail. I loosened the C-clamp hoping the wicked birdfeeder would fall to the ground. It didn’t – out of spite I’m sure. I slammed the C-clamp into the window and watched as the frosted veins grew into an eerie giant glass web – before falling to the floor.

Why couldn’t I have drawn Eve as a more capable woman? Why couldn’t Eve with my own life? Why does the frightening sound of shattering glass remain in my ears reminding me of this crime scene of my own making? Yesterday I learned what caused Eve to fail as a character. Today, questions remain as to what can make her succeed.