A Rendezvous in the Dark...

At 5:00AM, Biker Dude flew down the Walnut Street hill past the train station. He got low and aero to pick up speed. He shifted into high gear and raced to stay ahead. He crossed the train tracks and then jumped up onto the sidewalk to let an impatient taxi driver pass.

When he'd crossed the river and reached a point just south of the riverboat casino, he dove through a break in the bushes, and after riding a dirt path through the grass for twenty feet, emerged onto the bike trail. He shifted up a gear. Dried leaves crunched under the bike tires as he sped southward. A crescent fingernail of moon hung in the eastern sky. The paved trail surface was alive with moving shadows and blowing leaves.

The trail ran past a grocery store parking lot before plunging into the heavily forested area south of route 20. Under a streetlight, its dim bulb swinging by its wires like a pendulum in the wind, a family of raccoons gathered around a rusty blue trash can that had fallen over. Huddled together in the midst of cans and shredded hefty bags, they feasted on the remains of a White Cottage pizza box. They scattered as biker Dude approached. He smelled rotting vegetables and rancid meat and almost gagged as he rode by.

Up ahead, on the route 20 overpass, a Fed Ex truck crossed the river and headed east. Biker Dude rode under the bridge and squinted. His eyes had not yet adjusted to the darkness. The gray moonlight through the trees barely illuminated the line where weeds bordered the trail on either side. A tree branch reached out from the side and scratched at his arm. He ignored the distraction and focused on steering down the middle of the trail.

A hundred yards ahead and to the left, a rock crushing factory rumbled and quaked. It's metal towers and buildings stood black against the sky like machines out of H.G.Wells' War of the Worlds. Biker Dude rode into shadow behind the wall separating the factory from the bike trail. He'd ridden this way for five months, starting in May, when there was plenty of light at this time of morning. Now in September, though sunrise wouldn't happen for another hour and a half, he kept his light off to save the batteries. He wasn't worried. He knew all the twists and turns.

Besides, nobody was ever on the trail at this time of day, except him.

Suddenly, a dark, cat sized shape materialized just six feet directly in front of him. Like India ink poured into black paint. No details. Just a vapor of something darker than the surrounding shadow. A black ghost. A striped tail shot upwards.

Oh no.

Visions of bathing peroxide and baking soda flashed through his mind. He saw people holding their noses when he walked by; giving him a wide berth. Then he had another thought.

"Nooooooo...," he cried out. But before he could steer around it or stop, he felt the pa-thump, pa-thump of his tires running over something soft... something furry... something alive.

His heart fell. Suddenly, he wasn't so concerned about getting sprayed. He turned around to look, but all he saw was blackness. He braked a little. The clicking of the rear wheel slowed. He debated. He stopped and looked back. He turned first one ear, then the other and listened. "Give me a sign," he said. "Snap a twig. Growl. Purr. Do something to let me know you're okay." But if anything was moving or alive, there was no way he could hear it over the sounds from the nearby factory.

He sniffed the air. Nothing. Just a smell of stone dust and diesel exhaust.

Years before, in the daylight, he had ridden over a squirrel that had darted across the path. In shock, he'd looked back expecting the squirrel to be lying there, its guts smashed, its eyes all bugged out, but no. It had gotten right back up and kept going. And skunks were more rugged than squirrels right? Well, they were bigger anyway. Biker Dude hoped that this skunk was, like that squirrel, tough enough to take on a speeding bicycle and live to tell about it.

Biker Dude got to work fine, but all day, he kept thinking. What if he had swerved. Why didn't he? Why didn't he have his light on? Would things be different?

He kept reliving the moment. He'd close his eyes and see the shape rise up, and then a tail, and then the sick feeling of a living being under the tires. He felt something on his arm and looked to see a two inch long scratch that he hadn't noticed before. Probably that tree branch that he had been hit by. The blood had dried and started to scab. There would be a scar.

He smiled.

Staring at the page...

I've been musing over what to write here and how to go about this blogging thing. I'm trying to figure out what's the best approach. Do I want to fictionalize everything? Do I want to start out with description of who I am and where I come from? Do I really want to do this at all?

It's not always easy to be creative. For me at least. The writers I've read in other blogs are good. Really good.

Do I really want to step out into a place where, once again, I'm a total newbie? A place where there's going to be other writers and most of them have been published, and I'm basically just someone who knows where to find the word in a dictionary.

Yikes!

An hour goes by.

Then two.

I'm sitting there in front of the computer, the fingers of my left hand tracing the rim of a cold cup of coffee. Just staring at the empty blog page, moving the mouse cursor around on the screen, tracing the letters of the alphabet one by one like I'm writing them in the air in front of my face. My brain a million miles away. A thousand germs of ideas mired in hesitation.

Biker Dude comes up and says, "Just write something. Write anything. Here, give me that," he says as he shoves me aside. "I'll put something up first. It may suck, but at least it's a start. Otherwise, you'll be sitting there forever, and I have places to go."

"But, what if?.." I said, trying to reclaim the mouse from him. "Wait... don't you want to..?"

He pushed my hand aside and threw me a look that said, "Back Off."

So I did.

He gulped down what was left of my coffee, handed me the mug, and while I got up to make another pot, he sat down and began to type...

Obstacles and Distractions...

When it comes to writing, I've always had a difficult time coming up with conflicts and obstacles to put in the way of my characters. I struggle with making things difficult for them. I think the difficulty springs out of my natural desire, in real life, for things NOT to be in conflict. Some people thrive in the midst of conflict, hassles, trouble, and catastrophes. These people would make good emergency workers or generals. They bloom, they prosper, they thrive, they get more creative.

Not me.

I work better when there's a sense of peace; physically and especially emotionally.

And so in the writing world in my head, there's a hesitancy to introduce problems.

But, here in real life, especially when it comes to writing and finding time to do it, obstacles pop up like crazy. Like boils.. like zits on a teenager.. like squirrels after my bird feeder. I don't even have to try. They're a whole self-replicating and constantly mutating species. Ever evolving to find quicker, more efficient ways to create distraction. When it comes to obstacles, they spontaneaously create themselves. As if they step out of some other dimension into mine. They materialize out of nothing. Neutrinos can't even pass through them. They would survive a nuclear war.

It's like as soon as my hands move towards a keyboard, a switch toggles. A light goes on that tells a whole army of distractions to line up at the door and come pouring through into my life.


Today...
I went to work early. Wooohooo.. 30 whole minutes of time to write before work started.

And in 30 minutes, I didn't get a single word written. I didn't even get to see the keybord.
I turned the computer on, and then they guy here who's been telling every living soul all about his Ebay buying hassles came along.

Next thing I knew, the clock had spun a half hour ahead and the boss showed to ask me for the drawings I was working on.


Same at home.

Sit down to write and the phone rings.
Get up to answer it, wrong number.
Sit back down and then realize I left the wheat thins box in the kitchen.
Get back up because I'm starving.
Sit back down and the smoke detector goes off.
Get back up to fix it.
Sit back down and for unknown reasons, the internet doesn't work.
Get back up and fiddle with the internet router.
Sit back down and damn, I forgot my coffee cup next to the internet router.
Get back up to go get it.
Sit back down and spill it.
Get back up to get some paper towels. Trip over power wire, knock laptop on floor.

It's endless.

Obstacles and conflicts are easy in real life. They happen automatically. It's like I'm the only one at the office with a bag of chocolate and everyone is coming to my desk.

But only when I'm trying to write.

Argh...

Hey, that's an idea... I know a way to give my character some conflicts.
I'll just write a story about a guy who sits down and tries to write a story.

Cool. That'll work.
I sit down... get all set to write it and...

Hmmm... My sweet tooth acts up. Now I need to have some chocolate...

The new year's first official posting...

As usual, unlike Biker Dude, I struggle to get things done sometimes. I know, I'm kind of late with things. Not that I haven't been doing anything, just that I have been doing a whole lot.
I looked back and it's been over six months since I updated this thing. Sorry about that. But then, who really sees this anyway except for possibly my three friends, Cher, Hilary, and Jenny. Thanks you guys for your interest.

I've been mostly working on graphic design and illustrations, trying to realize a dream, and then I've been writing... just very slowly. Me, and Biker Dude, and a whole bunch of people here were very glad to see 2010 go. It was great as far as some things, which I will eventually be able to talk about, and really sucky as far as some other things.

The biggest sucky thing: One of our best friend's husbands died unexpectedly. He was a great guy and had a personality and presence that, though it's about six months now, we still haven't begun to forget. His name was Ken and I'll always remember him.

Members of our book club lost loved ones too. So truly, it was a downer of a year as far as losses go.

Plusses: Well, I finally walked across the Golden Gate Bridge. A "Bucket List" item that I have wanted to do for over twenty years.

And I'm on a pathway toward a degree in Graphic Design. So expect to see, along with Biker Dude stories, art and illustration items I've worked on.

I've been adding posts, sort of backwards in time though and retro to the day that things happened. It feels strange to have to do it this way, but it makes the chronology easier to keep organized, and I can write better this way.

So, a late Happy New Year to all. Hope to see more of you this year than last.