Category: writing

Pounding the Rock

I’m pounding the rock, you know?

Maintainin’.

Chillin’.

Keeping it real. Staying cool.

Tuning out distractions.

Focusing.

Staying the course.

That’s what’s needed sometimes. Sometimes it’s not a piece of cake, a day at the office, easy come, easy go. Sometimes the words are cold iron on the anvil. It’s like rowing up stream. Pushing a boulder up a mountain. One step forward, two steps back.

But I’m going the distance. The whole nine yards.

The whole shebang.

Playing for keeps.

I got my eye set on the prize. I’m ready to seize the brass ring.

I’m not just making promises. I’m here for the long haul.

All this comes, not from reading sports and political news, but from getting beached in a chapter. My head screams, “You’ve lost the plot,” but my tail shouts, “Stay the course.” I’m at a point where I need to go or get off the pot, know what I’m saying? I need to make the opportunities count.

So, after drifting through a QSM and an one point five hours of writing time, and editing, revising and polishing the chapter in progress to the point where I’m trapped, a decision is finally accepted.

It ain’t happening today.

Accepted, with a deep breath. The breath is not of relief nor regret, but simple acceptance that I want to move forward and I need some way around this obstacle.

So —

I write a note at the break: <TK: Bridge required.> That’s highlighted in yellow so I don’t overlook it. I use the <TK> format for convenience for anything that needs addressing. I write like crazy. In essence, that means that while I’m mildly mindful, I’m more interested in capturing lightning in a bottle and writing down the bones. I basically don’t want to be slowed down at that point, so I’ll set it up to be done later. Sometimes it’s research, or the scene needs to be cleaned up for clarification, pacing or continuity. Once in a while, I can’t remember a minor character’s name or someone’s hair color, or other small detail that I think I want to include. I put a note beginning with <TK and explain why it’s there. I also date these entries. Then, when the first draft is finished, I search for <TK, find them and fix them. I’ve usually fixed them before the first draft is completed because I hunt back and forth through the manuscript as I work, tearing out cliches and passive writing, looking for sharper and crisper descriptions, expanding on and subtracting from passages to better fit the narrative that has emerged and to accommodate the characters’ arcs. That’s necessary because my vision of the narrative changes as the story clarifies and evolves. As Bob Muslim noted in his post, “Edit Mode, Anyone?”, “As I write and the story comes alive, things change.” Right on.

This point today is a weird misery for me. A failure. It’s not the first time it’s happened but it’s not common. I don’t care if it happens to everyone, either. It’s personal.

I’ve been fortunate to be able to dial up a scene’s framework, sit down and beginning hammering it out, then shaping and re-shaping it later. It’s not always been that way, but this is what comes from establishing a discipline of writing, writing, writing, writing. Naturally, that’s what I attempted to do today — and yesterday, actually.

Some of this obstacle today is from impatience. I know how other scenes and action spreads out. They excite me, and I’m eager to get to it because that’s the fun part of fiction writing. This writing slowdown is also caused by real life bleedover. Personal matters, issues and problems arose that absorbed time, energy and thought, leaving the writer a little depleted in those areas. Hence the mock pep talk of cliches that began this post.

The thing about these moments is to not let them consume me. Andrea Lundgren had a post, “Do You Write Chronologically?” over on Ryan Lanz’s site, “A Writer’s Path” (which I highly recommend). Overall, I’m comfortable with jumping out of chronological sequence (especially in this novel, which has a, ahem, interesting chronological pattern). I think of it like other projects, like painting a room. The order that I write is only important as part of completing the entire project to my satisfaction.

Yet, yet, it’s not easy to decide, sometimes, to jump out of order. And this is because this scene is not quite coming to me, not in its entirety. And that vexes me.

So, let it go, for now. Let it go. Come back to it later. Maybe later, by the time the entire novel is completed, this scene will be overcome by events and therefore unnecessary. Maybe, even now, I know that, but I’m too intimate with it to say good-bye.

Whatever. When you’re given lemons, you make lemonade.

Or so I’ve been told.

 

 

 

0

Sat Down to Write

I sat down to write today after a pleasing session yesterday. The baristas had gifted me an extra espresso sized serving mocha in addition to my standard QSM. I sipped it down, delighting in the melange of mingling flavors, and I remembered —

A new character’s name is Ckyl. Came to me last night.

A scene I wrote in my head about the starship, River Styx, and its occupants and description.

And more details about tachyon syndrome.

Changes to Chor. I’d focused on sex and sexual preferences and choosing or accepting sexual identities, but I’d not considered some of the other matters available to my future people. So I’d overlooked that Chor is a cat person.

And Pram wonders why becoming a cat person is a popular choice. People don’t want to be dog or bird people, although he’d encountered some of them. He knew of a few who went the centaur route (with one also managing to incorporate a unicorn appearance). A small society of humans had transgened themselves into dinosaurs, and another group into dragons, and there are small knots of gnome, fairy, demon, and leprechaun peoples, but cat people were far the most popular and most frequently encountered. He was pleased, though, because he remained unique. There were a few Titans out there, and a cyclops, and a couple of Hercules pretenders, Minotaurs, Hulks, and Avatars, and super-heroes from ancient comic books, but he was the only Colossus, even after all these years.

Pram had not asked Chor about why she was a furry human Siamese with diamond blue eyes and a lazy, busy tail. Asking people about their choices is impolite.

Okay, now that I remember those things, my imagination is fired up. Time to write like crazy, one more time.

5

The Hip Bone Is Connected to the Tachyon

I’m having fun with science fictional physics, conceiving way out ideas for ‘Long Summer’, the sequel to ‘Returnee’. Part of this is playing with the chip. What’s a chip, you say? This is actually a chi particle. 

The chi particle is the essence of life energy, the spark that brings inanimate matter to life. In my grand theories, there is a formula of balance that I’m still working out involving the need for the universe to maintain an equilibrium between the chi energy and all of the rest. Most importantly for the entire balance of understanding, the chi particle begins in the realms of dark matter.

Additional characteristics for my grand particle begins with the hypothetical and unproven particle, the tachyon. Like the tachyon, the chip travels faster than light, traveling even faster than the tachyon. Its imaginary mass attracts tachyons. Tachyons become knotted with the chips. As knotting happens, the tachyon draws energy from the chip, slowing both the tachyon and chip. But the chip’s mass is not a direct proportion of the tachyon’s mass, but compounds the tachyon’s mass, adding to the knotted chip’s mass. As the chip-tachyon knot slows toward the speed of light, the tachyon gains more energy, slows more and degrades, giving up its mass to the chip. The chip, acquiring actual mass, begins a transition from dark matter to matter and acquires gravitons. The chi knot seeks the proper stew of atoms and conditions to develop and begins evolving as a life form.

This all is pretty preliminary. It has no math underpinnings, and no doubt many people will tell me either, you’re drinking too much coffee, or you’re fucking nuts. They’ll also grimace, appalled by my display of ignorance, but it’s fun for me, and provides further structure for developing my plot and writing the novel. I mean, this is why we call it science fiction.

Sometime, when I’ve advanced my thinking about it more, I’ll post a snapshot of tachyon telepathy. Remember, as Brett learns (eventually), what happens in stasis, doesn’t always stay in stasis.

I’m twenty-six thousand words into ‘Long Summer’. The summer’s computer issues threw me out of my writing – conceiving – imaging rhythm, and it humbled me. I gleaned how much I take for granted the ability and opportunity to sit down and write.

Got my mocha. Time to write like crazy, one more time.

9

Knots, Life Particles & Tachyons and FT…what?

So in thinking about ‘Long Summer’, the sequel to the science fiction novel, ‘Returnee’, much reading about theories of relativity and unified theories, tachyons, chronons and parity symmetry is being indulged. Fascinating that tachyons would lose speed as they gain energy…hmmm, which was a worthwhile direction for thought.And they travel faster than light, with their slowest speed being the speed of light. Hmmm…yes….

Meanwhile, watching the final final final ‘Inspector Lewis’ (and I enjoyed the ending, with its gentle knotting of different directions and issues), knots became key to me. I’d been thinking about matters in terms of valance and atomic structure, but there’s no reason for that, is there? Not when knots also exist out there as part of the interaction of existence….

It’s all coming together, stirring up that exciting stew of writing creativity. Of course, on the negative side – because, in this physical universe, we mostly live in a parity symmetrical existence, especially when dealing with social relationships (and marriage) – the positives and negatives directly affect one another and a balance is sought – I’m listing too far into the writing side, growing quieter and quieter, more distant to others as the stories unfold in the universe of my mind(s?). Greater attention and energy is needed to untangle the knots so I understand them, and then tangle them back up to make an interesting story.

Over on the sequel side of the Lessons with Savanna mystery series, things are getting darker. That’s giving me pause; do I embrace that darkness and run with it? My instincts urge me to go for it, and I usually give into them. That will make ‘Personal Lessons with Savanna’ a much darker novel than ‘Life Lessons with Savanna’ and ‘Road Lessons with Savanna’. Yet, that’s where the roads are taking me, so here I go. As I conceptualize it, the fourth novel in that series acquires greater structure, too.

Other tasks remain on the todo list. ‘Everything in Black & White’ is awaiting its publishing process. Love to get it out before the year’s end, and a dozen other books require editing/revising while more clamor in my head to be written. I’ve not really touched ‘Fix Everything’ since I finished writing it, what, one, two years ago? Poor ‘Peerless’ and ‘Spider City’ have been out there longer, awaiting editing and revising. There’s the whole advertising thing for all that’s already published, too, but bleah, and people asking, what’s going on with Lessons? When is the next book coming out?

Socially, in the real world, my walking is curtailed by smoke drifting in from the Gap fire down by Happy Camp, in California. The smoke is keeping the air temperature cooler, and gifting us with glowing red sunsets. I wish all the people and animals safe passage.

Visitors are coming, and the end of summer picnic is coming up with bullet train speed. Cats are sick, with some sort of flu like problem passing among them, Meep being the latest victim. Each have endured it by not eating and sleeping long hours, but it’s so worrisome when they go off eating. This smoke is affecting Tucker, too, and he’s very snotty yesterday and today.

I must also clean this laptop screen. Apparently I sneezed while eating or something, from the evidence.

Minor problems, fortunately, knock on wood, which I do. Life is so very knotty.

 

2

Signs of Change

We saw ‘Captain Fantastic’ yesterday. Although we’re Vigga M fans, the story didn’t draw us. However, the writer & director, Matt Ross, is an Oregon product, a graduate of a little town’s high school, so there was a lot of local hype.

I won’t say that ‘Captain Fantastic’ was enjoyable, because that’s not really a word (if you’ve seen the movie, you understand) or interesting, for the same reasons, but the actors were well cast, with excellent deliveries, and the story compelled me to follow and root for Captain Fantastic (Vigga) and his children, and wonder, what will happen? Some scenes caused post movie discussions. It was two well spent hours, and I recommend taking it in.

Afterwards, we went to Louie’s on the Plaza by the creek for food, as we’re both off the green cleansing smooths, where I enjoyed my first beer in two weeks and a wrap. My wife will continue on a modified cleansing smooth beginning today. I might do the same, something I need to decide later today.

There are sign that the seasons are changing and tempus fugit. Looking around, I’ve discovered we’re almost at the August’s finishing line. The schools’ marquees have announced the first days, and they begin tomorrow with new student orientations, full orientation following the day after.

My wife is planning an end of summer picnic in Lithia Park. We’ve scouted locations and brainstormed ideas. She checked a few schedules for vetting and then launched invitations. Friends are planning overnight visits, so an attention list has been compiled, that is, a list of things requiring our attention before they arrive.

Cooler weather is gracing us, and the temperature has stopped stirring itself past 95F. Importantly, the temps drop into the low fifties at night so windows can be opened to air us out. Most of our area fires are contained or out. We watch and worry about those in other areas, especially down in SoCal, which is suffering a terrible season.

But I’m on a treadmill, walking, writing, eating and sleeping, with ancillary tasks like cleaning and feeding the cats, and other chores, taken care of but not really my focus. Sable posted about his ToDo list and its lackings. Between that and Kate’s post about the business side and my awakening that time has pissed by without me really attending the business side, I’m creating my own Todo list for the business side. JR’s comments about not doing those things caused me to think more deeply about what I’ve done and not done, but more, why I’ve not done these things.

So with the signs of change taking place – the NFL season almost upon us, school starting, the leaves turning, the nights cooling, the World Series shaping up, Formula 1 moving toward the schedule’s bottom half, and eight out of the twelve months gone for another year – time to do more than just cross my fingers, write like crazy and hope for the best. I must work on the dreaded reviews, the dreaded marketing and advertising, and the dreaded website.

Time to begin addressing the business of writing.

1

Tying Lines Together

Again, so the lines follow the characters, or the characters follow the lines. First up is Pram, the Colossus, who is employed as a terraformer despite his wealth. That’s how he enjoys spending his time, turning uninhabitable planets into places where humans and animals can live and breed.

Brett has a separate story line, and we know how Pram and Brett’s paths cross. Now, we also know how Brett and Kimi originally interacted via virtual mail in ‘Returnee’, where Kimi explained their relationship to Brett as Brett coped with being shipwrecked on Earth, his lost memory and malfunctioning Backhand (who insisted on calling him Stephane, which actually made sense later). So that’s all understood. What must be sorted here and now (or sometime in the course of writing this mangled tangle) is what’s going on with Tauren and Kimi? (Keep in mind Tauren’s true identity, which Kimi suspects but can’t yet prove.) (Also keep in mind what Tauren did to Brett, although Brett doesn’t know that – yet, but that’s one of the things he’s to learn – need to define, refine and capture his learning process, too – do a snapshot.) What happens on Kimi’s mission on behalf of Tauren that takes him to Pram in search of Brett? (Oh, does he find out the truth? Interesting thought.)

Last, I must figure out the relationship between humanity’s increasing fear of death (even though they no longer die, because they’re continually resuscitated, thereby causing a proclamation that they’ve now conquered death and space (false and false)) and Tang, and his agenda.

(And what exactly did happen with Tauren? That must be clarified for myself. I need to write a Tauren snapshot. I see the need for several snapshots.)

And the next last is that other piece regarding Brett’s recovered knowledge (about the Willow Glen attack) and how that’s folded into the next sequel. (See, that’s another snapshot.)

What about the diamonds? Good question. Another snapshot is needed about them.

I think I’ll also create a snapshot of the terraforming process Pram follows so those details can be incorporated.

Okay, it’s all becoming clear-er-ish. Time to write like crazy, one more time, and see where these characters and their lines take me.

Giddy up.

3

Writing BIZ-ness

Just read Kate Colby’s post on writing every day. And I’m going to post an excerpt here from her:

And as an independent author, I mean B–capital IZ–ness. There’s a lot to do. I’m currently editing my second novel, plus writing and publishing a series of nonfiction booklets. Add in this blog, my author newsletter, social media, organizing promotional opportunities, emailing my cover designer … you get the point. There’s a lot of shit to do (I say “shit” lovingly – being an author really is the best job in the world to me).

So, can I find time to write every day? Yes. And you can, too. If you really simplify your schedule and overcome your laziness, you can write every single day. And we absolutely should. Every word we write makes us better.

And I’m like, yes, absolutely. My problem is the converse: making/finding/dedicating the time to the business end.

There is the website. Nothing done on it. Marketing. Well, I’ve poked a few FB ads, some Amazon ads, with a smattering of results. Haven’t pursued reviews, haven’t gotten more aggressive about it.

It comes down to this basic dichotomy within me. I enjoy reading and writing, and all the books out there are manna to me, but I dislike the grubby business side. I’m a retiring guy, self-effacing, who shuns the spotlight.

Yet I want the spotlight, too, want to be validated by other writers and readers as contributing something worthwhile to this eternal conversation about what is, was, might have been, and what might never be. Plus, my steadfast wife deserves rewards, like some payment back for the moody, snarling hours when she wants to do something — or say something — and I clip her with, HELLO, I’M WRITING. Even the cats are subjected to this response (although they, one, do not accept my response, and two, seem to know when I’m writing, like they’ve been put on alert to stop me). I’ve become better at not acting like this (because my awareness increased, not only of my behavior, but its impact on my life and relationships) but my writing brain never seems to be completely turned off. It – they – the writers, editors and readers within – are always pouncing on things seen, read, heard, thought, felt, and treat it like a gold medal starting gun, racing away.

And I know all of this about myself, see it as clearly the Perseids over Crater Lake in the dark morning’s softest hours, but I seem to be able to change it as much as I can change that sky.

Yet I know…I must. It doesn’t make me happy.

Yeah, in my dream world, I have dual, even triple lives, where I’m writing all the time, I’m published and receiving income and doing all the right accomplished author shit (borrowing from Kate), and yet I’m still living a full and healthy life as a functioning husband, and not a writing zombie.

Colby finishes her post with encouragement:

Editing counts. Revising counts. Outlining counts. Writing that dreaded book description counts.

The only thing that doesn’t count? Ignoring your book and denying the world your art.

There you have them, your marching orders. Now go move forward today.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, I read you, Kate. But for now, I’m going to drink my mocha – four shots, thank you – and write like crazy, at least one more time.

7

Pram

Pram is my new character. He emerged out of nowhere while I writing “Long Summer”, a sequel to “Returnee”. 

I love Pram. This is a guy who used modern technology to make himself into a replica of the Colossus of Rhodes, because he was fulfilling his father’s encouragement to think big. Remember, this is science fiction.

But Pram and his evolving story didn’t fit into LS. LS itself was losing coherency and consistency. Floundering, I was looking for a life preserver but today’s rough waters kept throwing me about. I couldn’t find any orientation. Change was needed.

I decided to jettison LS. I would instead focus on Pram. But what was Pram’s story? I have a character I enjoy with nowhere to go.

Donning my writing gear, I headed out. The coffee shop is two miles away, my normal walk. I’d been eschewing it with the 100+ degree weather these past ten days but today is cooler. The night fell to 52F and the day is expected to rise only to 93F. It was 70F when I set out. Walking always helps my writing, and I was desperately in need of something now. Instead of taking the direct route to the coffee shop, I headed in another direction, guaranteeing I was adding another mile. I needed it.

“What is Pram’s story?” became my walking mantra. “What is Pram’s story?” I thought of what I’d already written about him, and what I’d written about LS, and my original intentions about LS and why they were no longer working. Then I went back to Pram’s background and what I’d established about him, again, and back to LS. I wove back and forth across a loom, looking for the yarn. Then,

Eureka.

With a mile remaining to the coffee shop, direction pierced my fog. Suddenly I knew, ah, this is what happened to Brett, and this is how Pram fits in, and here is the novel’s direction.

So it’s cool for today, thank the walking and writing gods. Back at the kb, drinking mocha, time to write like crazy, at least one more time.

3

In Context

First, the preamble.

I was going to call this post, “The Cleanse”. But that has so many possible meanings. Some aren’t good. It depends on the context. For example, someone shouts, “I just got fucked.” The statement has multiple meanings, even, or especially in these days. If they amend it to, “I literally just got fucked,” we still don’t know if someone humped them or they suffered grievous injuries (emotional, mental or physical) from someone else’s actions.

Kind of surprising, context counts also for recognizing people. I said hello to my wife’s friend at the coffee shop, and she responded, “And who are you again?” She later told my wife she was embarrassed that she didn’t recognize me, but that I was “out of context.” Our assumption is that she only knows me in context, when I’m with my wife.

Okay, the importance of context sown, I’m working on a cleanse. No one is being harmed, as it’s a 10 day green smoothie cleanse, with recipes and process based on JJ Smith’s book, “The 10 Day Green Smoothie Cleanse.” My wife been on it, first completing 44 days, and then returning to begin another 10 day cleanse. Her cleansing is to help with her RA.

It has helped. All her test results show tremendous improvements, and she’s sleeping, moving and thinking better. Kudos to her.

Her results so pleased her, she hectored me to join her.

I was reluctant. My primary issues are number one, coffee, number two, beer, and number three, food. In conjunction with them, I like coffee, and my writing practice is anchored in hiding in a coffee shop with coffee and writing. As for the beer, I like beer. I usually drink it only once or twice a week. I’m more prone to have a glass of red wine in the evening, but giving that up little bothered me. The third issue, food, is that I like food. I take comfort in its taste and enjoy eating. I like eating sandwiches, pizza, pie, ice cream, cobb salads, avocado and arugula salads, potato salad (especially, my mother’s, which is the world’s best), pasta, veggie cheeseburgers, steaks, pancakes, bacon and eggs with hashbrowns or home fries, Chinese food, quesadilla, burritos —

I could go on, but I think the list has established my food attraction. The smoothie fast would negate eating, except for nuts, celery, and other crunchy green vegetables.

We finally agreed on a modified approach. I would continue with my coffee habits so my writing process isn’t interrupted, because it’s taken me years to develop this habit, and writing is my escape, but would otherwise follow the green smoothie cleanse. I’d try it for three days to gather impressions.

Today is day three.

###

So I have impressions gathered. One, it isn’t bad.

Smith’s book is well-organized, with a smoothie recipe a day for ten days. Smith also provides a nicely consolidated shopping list. We made a copy of it and off we went. I used pears instead of apples and most of my smoothies had slight pear overtures. One big smoothie is made each morning. The smoothie is then consumed as breakfast, lunch and dinner. Preparing it takes me about ten minutes, and clean up is easy.

How do I feel, you ask? Hungry, but otherwise GREAT.

It’s actually astonished by how much better, and how different I feel. I consider myself in good health, based on my lack of complaints, ability to bend, walk and lift without issues, and the lack of medications in my life. I’ve wanted to lose weight and was aware of that weighing on me (sorry) but also deal with a mild wheat allergy issue. Nothing major plagues me.

Yet, I’m impressed by how much better I’m feeling and sleeping in just two days, and my increased energy. I think the best analogy for illustration is that while I normally feel good overall, I had moments when it felt like my sixty year old ass was dragging an additional twenty pounds. Besides that, after walking three or four miles, my feet would hurt when I got home, and after hours clicking and typing on the computer, I felt it in my right wrist and fingers. Anyone dealing with computers who is sixty can probably relate. This ninety  to one hundred degree weather also often leeched huge volumes of energy out. I wasn’t used to that impact.

Now, after two complete days of the green smoothie cleanse, I have no pains. Seriously, and literally, in the traditional sense, NONE. To which, I’m like, WOW.

Yes, I’m hungry sometimes. It’s not a sharp hunger but a dull, slightly removed ache. Most intriguing, the smoothie awakened me to some zombie eating habits I’d developed. Like, I’m going to sit down and read a book, but first I’ll get some cheese and crackers, or some fruit. Or, I’m hungry, what time is it, what is there to eat? Or, let’s turn on the telly and watch “QI” or “The Night Of”  (since “Happy Valley” ended, and “Orphan Black”, “The Americans”, “Stranger Things,” “Dark Matters” and GOT are all on one sort of hiatus or another). While we’re at it, what do we have to nosh? Or, out walking and smelling food grilling, the impulse surges to act on an impulse to go have a bite and a beer. Likewise, on a hot day, ah, let’s have a cold one. But, no, the cold one must be a green smoothie.

So, it’s cool. I’m enjoying the cleanse. Yes, it’s modified, or I’m cheating, whichever way you prefer to address it, because I still enjoy coffee, but now, on the third day, I plan to continue for ten days, because the results impress me and I want to see what it’s like after ten days.

Now, time to have coffee and write like crazy, at least one more time.

 

 

0

At Night

I usually hear things at night but I didn’t hear things last night. I didn’t hear a window being broken.

I didn’t hear a neighbor screaming for help.

##

The dry day’s burning heat had carried into a hot night. Ninety at nine PM, I kept the windows closed and the A/C humping. My wife retired to read at 10:30, leaving me to finish watching Inspector Lewis (consultant) and Hathaway on my own. A cat joined me, per the Cat Rules. I settled onto the recliner. Tucker curled up on my lap.

Lewis ended. Silence ruled as I considered, “What next?” Then I turned on an old sitcom. They usually knock me out faster than light.

Noise arose outside.

That’s not unusual. Nature abounds, and with it, raccoon skirmishes, deer foraging, cat fights, dogs barking, or an infrequent bear or cougar. Besides them, people often walk up and down the street, talking and laughing loudly. That’s what this kind of noise sounded like.

Tucker jerked his head up to look. I muted the television and listened. “It’s Barb,” someone shouted. “Help.” The voice was outside my window and rising.

Tucker and I leaped up. Someone hammered on my front door. I rushed out, flicking on lights as I went, unlocking the door and throwing it open to Barb, my eighty-eight year old friend and neighbor from across the street. Tears hiding in her eyes’ corners, voice quavering, she said, “A man broke into my house. He showed me his penis. I think he’s chasing me. I think he wants to rape me.”

##

My wife arrived from the bedroom. We hustled Barb in. I grabbed the house phone to call the police and headed outside, thinking, if he’s chasing her —

No one was outside. Dogs often bark well into the night. Nothing tonight. Reaching the police dispatcher, I stood on my front walk and began a dispassionate explanation of who I was and why I was calling, answering questions she injected them. As this transpired, astonishingly, a man left Barb’s house and trotted up the street.

I watched, torn between pursuing him and remaining where I was, deciding on the latter as I told the dispatcher what was happening. Moving out toward the street, I watched him go up into the darkness forty yards up the street. I swiveled back to my house. Our phone is VOIP and needs the Internet and the wireless connections. The dispatcher was telling me, “You’re breaking up, sir,” so I headed back for a better connection.

The streetlight up the street is motion activated. As I repeated where I thought the man went, I was looking in that direction. The streetlight came on. A second later, I heard running foot steps. Watching with amazement, I saw the intruder run back down the street and return to Barb’s house.

WTF?

I told this to the dispatcher. While doing so, the man left the house and trotted back up the street as I watched and relayed the information. He’d just reached the street light as a police car arrived. The dispatcher and I said good-bye.

By my guess about eight minutes had passed. How different it was from television and movies, the writer’s partition of me noted.

##

I told the officer everything and answered his questions. Another police car arrived. Spotlights illuminating the night, the second car headed down the street where I’d seen the runner disappear.

Amazingly, no other neighbors had opened their doors, turned on their lights or looked out. No dogs barked. No cars, runners or walkers passed.

The night remained quiet, save our ongoing drama.

##

The first officer took my statement, clarified information and then inspected Barb’s house, walking around it with a flashlight while I went back to my walk. Knowing the neighborhood configuration and worrying, I went into my backyard, turned on the outside lights and looked around. Finding nothing amiss in the backyard, I left the lights on. Returning inside, I checked our rooms and ensured all the windows were shut and locked. Then I visited with my wife and Barb. Barb was calmly telling her story. I headed back out.

The officer returned to me and asked to speak to Barb. I took him in. Barb gave her statement.

“I was in the bedroom, on my bed, with my check book, when I heard a loud noise. Not sure whether it was the television on or something else, I went out into the hallway.

“A man was walking down the hall toward me. He had his penis in his hand. I gave a little shriek. He said, ‘How would you like me to give you some of this?’ He waved his penis around. I looked him in the eye and said, ‘No, thank you. I don’t believe I would. I was married and my husband took very good care of that.’

“The intruder said, ‘Well, how about if you suck it for me?'” Barb said she replied, “I don’t want to do that, either.”

She said he then turned. Thinking he was leaving, she rushed about, locking doors. Then she heard a loud noise and realized he’d returned. Now feeling frantic and scared, she ran out the front door and across the street to my house.

##

They didn’t find the man. I guessed he was slender, wearing black shorts, white, with short dark hair, about five foot nine inches tall. I guessed he was in his twenties. Barb agreed.

While I stayed at home, the police, my wife and Barb returned to Barb’s house to determine if anything had been taken. Later reports said nothing was missing. A great deal of blood and broken glass was in the living room. He’d thrown a ceramic planter through a window and climbed through, cutting himself. Bloody palm and fingerprints were on several walls and surfaces.

The police recovered a cell phone from Barb’s backyard. Our theory is that the intruder left, realized he’d lost his phone, and returned to find it, but didn’t, fleeing again as the police arrived.

I’d called Barb’s daughter and told her what happened. She arrived about 11:10, about thirty-five minutes after it seemed to begin.

##

Barb accepted an invitation to stay the night in our guest room, and was shown to her room at midnight. This morning, talking over coffee at seven thirty, she was remarkably calm, cheerful and graceful.

It was all sobering, frightening, thought provoking. Barb realized she’d left her patio door unlocked, and that’s how the man entered. He’d later broken the window attempting to re-enter the house.

A lot of lessons were reinforced. Never let your vigilance lapse.

Never.

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