The Scary Thing
Author: Jody Wallace
Original Publication Date in Love Notes: January 2006

The husband and I were just settling in for a long winter’s TiVo session when, from the 4 year old’s bedroom, we heard a rustling, some sobs, and a cry of, “Daddy! Daddy!” Daddy rolled off the couch and went to check on the child. She quit crying as soon as he showed up.

“I can’t sleep,” she explained, “because of the scary thing.”

That night’s scary thing was a long belt she swiped from my closet to use as a cat leash. The cat leash was not her best idea, but the belt curled up in the floor succeeded in freeing her from the confines of bedtime, however temporarily.

Since my daughter turned four, many scary things have prevented her restful slumber and, subsequently, my limited grown up time with my husband. The fact that the blinds aren’t completely drawn. The empty cup on the dresser. The stuffed possum in the floor. Ok, that one’s kind of scary. We’ve started leaving the hall light on and putting her to bed earlier, just in case her resistance to sleep is because she’s overtired. Read that crazy idea somewhere; so far so bad. We’ve tried letting her stay up later, limiting anything mentally exciting the hour before bedtime, though considering four year olds can find an empty tissue box mentally exciting with the right inducement, that’s a challenge.

Writers, too, can hit upon a variety of scary things that keep them from the task at hand—writing. And, to be honest, those things are about as scary as the belt in my daughter’s floor. As in, not. As in, an excuse to avoid what needs to be done.

Mine for the past five months has been a difficult pregnancy. I puke a lot and complain even more. This is my crowning achievement in the long list of scary things I’ve managed since I started trying to get published because it’s actually legitimate. I mean, I’m sick! Really sick! This article is the only thing I’ve written since, oh, yesterday, when I updated my cat’s blog, tapped out several emails, and another store list for my poor husband who’s doing all the marketing these days. Fact is, I can’t be creative when I’m nauseous. However, I’ve only been pregnant twice, and I’ve had scary things interfere with my writing for years.

Here’s some more of my scary things. My daughter. The weather. The need for a break, when I’ve done little but busywork on the computer all day. Cooking dinner. The few television shows I allow myself to watch (note: it’s MY definition of few, not yours, darn it!). Market research, otherwise known as reading. Various sewing projects. The grocery shopping. The weather. Updating my website. Updating the chapter website. Updating the cat’s website. Playing Candyland (see: my daughter). Reading blogs—all writer related, of course. Calling my mom on the phone. Writing reviews for a friend’s newsletter. Cleaning my daughter’s floor so she’ll have fewer excuses to avoid sleep. Did I mention the weather?

I don’t know why my daughter doesn’t want a good night’s sleep, and I don’t know why I don’t want to write my good book (tm Jennifer Crusie). My daughter wants to feel peppy the next day, and I want to get published. To achieve our goals, we must do what it is we’re avoiding. She must sleep, and I must write. But the scary things keep getting in the way.

The not-very-scary scary things. What are we scared of, really?

As a writer, I’m scared that when I sit down to write—and I do sometimes, I swear—what comes out won’t be worth a cow’s toot. My opening will info-dump and my conflict will come across as predictable or derivative. My heroine will be too mean (imagine that) and my hero too beta. My middle will sag in an alarming likeness of my physical body, post-baby, and the end will be far too rushed and clichéd. My grammar will be nigh-flawless, naturally, but my particular brand of humor will fall as flat as the Earth, pre-Columbus.

Most of all, I’m terrified that when I finish the book and send it to the appropriate editors and agents, I’ll get a bunch more form rejections because I missed the mark.

Yet again, I won’t know what I did wrong. Worse, I won’t know what to try next. What to change. I’ll have committed X hours of my life to another failure of a novel. Nay, X to the X hours, because, even when I’m so brave I can overlook those scary things, I don’t produce at the speed of Nora.

I wish I knew the magic answer, the perfect nightlight for writers like me, writers like us, who procrastinate their time away until the guilt constipates their brains. Fear begets fear and traps us in our ruts, or our beds, because the scary things on the floor might get us.

What type of GE bulb would illuminate the lumps and show us they are merely toys and discarded clothing? The bulb would need to be a soft light, something that wouldn’t keep us from the sleep we so dearly need. Perhaps a flashlight on the bedside table to shine on the spookier areas of the room, not to mention under the bed.

Best to break it down into small chunks. I’m scared of that lump, the one that looks like info-dumping. Oh, it’s a large lump, full of excitement about my clever world building and back story. Clever, clever, clever—and boring. So I’ll direct my flashlight at it and learn to chop out everything I don’t need. I’ll study how authors I admire disseminate information, how they give you the edges of the thing but not the whole mess.

And there’s that lump, the one that, I swear, is creeping closer every time I glance at it. In fact, it’s split into two lumps. It’s spawned! It must be…my characters. My handy flashlight reveals I’m writing mean heroines and beta heroes because I’m a mean, snarky lady and my husband is a long-suffering beta who likes me anyway. I need to write about people who aren’t me, perhaps. There are books about this, all that archetype stuff. I could use that.

Before long, there’s nothing left to fear and I’m excited about my novel. I have some ideas about the blobby middle and the plot that sounds overmuch like a television movie of the week.

For the rest of you who don’t have health issues, day jobs, and unavoidable responsibilities that suck you so dry your lack of production is more than just self-indulgent time management, here’s my question for you. What scary things are in your floor? And what are you scared of, really? Because it’s not the possum, no matter how realistic that sucker looks.

~ * ~

Jody Wallace has lost her inner Grammar Wench, as evidenced by this touchy-feely article, and will probably not get the Wench back until the child currently residing in her womb is at least
four months old. She looks forward to both having a second child and getting back on the writing bandwagon as she pursues publication. If only the same could be said of her cat.