“Mouse Vomit”
Last week I started doing something I’ve never done before. I started writing fiction.
I realize this does not sound shocking since I’m writing every week. My husband, Peter, says I write fiction all the time—every time I write about him. But the truth is, I have not written a word of fiction since I was in the second grade and wrote, “The 500-Pound Mouse.”
I can’t take credit for either the title or the protagonist, as they were assigned by my teacher, but I have to take full responsibility for the deeply disappointing conclusion of the story when our hero, the now very large mouse, threw up nearly 500 pounds of mouse vomit on the front lawn and was instantly restored to his original size.
You can now probably appreciate why I have avoided fiction since.
What happened last week was that I woke with a particularly vivid dream. I dream a lot and my dreams are usually weird, so this was nothing new. This time, it was a complete outline to a novel. This was also not a first. I have terrific stories plotted in my dreams and the moment I am fully awake they fall apart like cobwebs.
“Wait… was I on the couch or in a car? Was I rescuing my sister or a dog?” Poof! The idea is gone.
But this time, the idea stuck.
“Nonsense!” I assured myself. I decided to prove to myself what a really dumb idea it was by writing it all down. To my consternation, the idea looked better on paper than it had in my head. I promised myself I would let that idea slowly evaporate over the next forty-eight hours. I was certain there would be nothing left of it by then.
Two days later, I had characters jumping out of the woodwork and yammering at me night and day.
“Okay, fine!” I grumbled. I sat down and wrote 700 words.
“What the heck is that?!” I said to myself when I read it over. I generally think of myself as a fairly sunny person. This writing was dark, and ominous, and a little scary, and (at least to me) really funny.
So now it appears I’m writing a novel—with no training whatsoever, mind you, and no idea where I’m going. The story is spooling out faster than I can type it down and it doesn’t appear that I am inventing any of it. It feels as ...
