Red and me

Cross-posted from Mystic-Lit

Countless travelers swirl through the airport terminal, delivering a sweet stream of inspiration for the thirsty writer inside me.

Bundles of babies wailing for attention. Big-bellied businessmen clinging to their Crackberries, getting in that one last call, that one last fix. Families in their fast food frenzies, counting on Sbarro to grease their traveling skids. It’s a world of worry and waiting, tinged with terror in all the wrong places. Anxiety runs amok.

A short, thick bald man with strabismus gives life to my floaty-eyed Allan in Plaid, the second novel I’m writing. I diagnose him with attention deficit disorder and decide he likes to read backwards. A protagonist takes shape.

And there's that tight-lipped middle-aged mama with four children. I turn her into a secretary named Red. She raises her hand to smack the kids a dozen times in ten minutes, but never follows through. She takes the news of a canceled flight surprisingly well. Red's been screwed way too often in her roller-coaster life, including once by her very own daddy. That's why she became a weight lifter, right there in Chapter 6.

Allan Tweedside. Red Jenkins. And me. Three of thousands, all on the way to somewhere else - and not one of us happy to be in that god-forsaken airport. Not even Red’s kids.

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Jesus Swept Publishing Update: I've begun to leak word of my contract on the blogs I visit, and have discovered I need to sharpen my explanation of the book. When other bloggers ask me for a hint, I usually share this paragraph:

When a back-sliding Baptist sees a sign from god wash up on the beach in front of her, she should know enough to worry. But with her passport to paradise having long since expired, this Sunday stroller wouldn’t know a sign from god if it bit her on the butt. Which explains why she doesn’t so much as flinch when the cold Atlantic brine crashes hard around her ankles. Doesn’t see the troubled twins who watch her from the dunes. Doesn’t stop to think. Doesn’t think to pray. Moving fast to break a sweat, moving slow to comb for shells, she tracks the scalloped driftline with abandon. She angles past a willet standing one-legged in the sand, its head tucked onto its back like a spoon. The whisk of her walking springs the bird to life. It skitters away with her thoughts. She spies a gleaming glimmer in a swirling tidal pool. She stops and stoops and reaches. She falls face first in the foam.

Truth be told, I find myself resisting the challenge of writing a synopsis at every turn. I think I think it trivializes years of hard work. Or maybe I just don't know how to do it.