Rain swept in this morning like unkempt cousins from out of state staying at your place for the weekend. A real gullywasher, filling creeks and overflowing gutters and battering the streets like a particularly nasty Evander Holyfield combination.
And it was a run day.
I’m past the point of rationality with my runs: I love running so much that not only is rain not a deterrent; in the right season it’s actually an incentive. Short of active lightning or sub-freezing temperatures, I’m more than happy to lace up in the wind and rain and take a beating from the elements. Makes me feel alive.
Apparently, I wasn’t the only one lunatic enough to be out in the squall, though.
I was running my regular route around the mall, picking my path among the parking spaces out back of the J.C. Penney’s, when I ran into a four-legged friend. A little box turtle, about the size of a a half-cantaloupe, parked in the middle of the second clockwise lane with his tiny little neck craning skyward as if drinking in the bounty of the heavens. In a prime run-me-over location.
Luckily, it was three hours before the mall opens for business, so I stumbled upon him first. Knowing that the average motorist around our mall pays about as much attention to his surroundings as a ravenous dog on a bone pays to the color of the wallpaper, it was obvious that I had to get the little monster out of there. So I padded over to his little orange shell and scooped him up — he withdrew head, legs, and tail with a tiny, perturbed hiss; I’m sure he thought he was about to become lunch for some gigantic predator — and spirited him away across the parking lot toward the woods from whence he must have come. (I would have taken a picture, naturally, but seeing as the rain was falling like Donald Trump’s credibility with women, I didn’t bring the phone with me.)
Plopping him down in the mud just on the other side of the chink in the fence, I resumed my run — sorry, my rain-frolic — and put in a few more laps around our local consumer mecca. On the next pass, he was still where I had left him. Obviously, he was a bit shell shocked (I am SOOO sorry, I regret it instantly). But by the time I circled back again, he was gone, leaving only a tiny mud puddle in his wake.
I’m not the kind of guy to call something like this anything more than a happy coincidence. Still, it felt good to know that I probably saved the little guy’s life. But one has to wonder: what the hell was he doing in the middle of the parking lot anyway? Was he turning his back on his small-town turtle existence and trying to make a go of it in the city? Was he tired of it all and looking for a one-way ticket to turtle heaven (and I ruined it)? Or maybe he was looking for me, trying to send me (perhaps through turtle telepathy) the message that me running was my best way of saving the world, one adorable little box turtle at a time?
I was sitting at work the other day, having just come back from one of several “important” meetings during my planning time, lamenting my general loss of productivity of late. It’s been an adjustment, getting back into the school routine: waking up earlier to get in my runs and workouts, bundling the sprouts off to germcare (sorry, daycare), putting in my time at school, coming home exhausted but still having to cook dinner and wind the sprouts down for the evening, and finally collapsing in a boneless heap to hope that the kids sleep through the night (they’re both in a bit of a midnight waking sort of phase right now, which is a real bummer).
As a result, I’ve lost some momentum on my writing front. I’ve dropped from writing about 800 words a day on my current WIP to 600 or so, and I’m down from five postings a week here at the blarg to three or four if I’m lucky. Which is frustrating. Toward the end of the school year, I was priding myself on those statistics.
Then again, when I think back on it, my workouts were suffering during that time. I was gaining momentum in one area at the expense of the other.
And then further still, I think back to the beginning of summer, when the routine of the workday disappeared and I fell into a funk and wasn’t accomplishing my workouts or the writing I wanted to. I did some, sure, but I just felt so wiped, so burnt out, so unmotivated. Did I need a bit of time to recuperate from the end of the school year? Probably. Did it merit the amount of down time that I took? Meh… I have a hard time justifying that.
And then, my brain flashed back to my time in college. This is a thing I tend to try to stop my brain from doing, because the results are rarely good. I loved my college days, but man oh man were some poor decisions made. And needless to say, the brain doesn’t flash back to the good things when it senses I need a good kick in the arse. No, it flashed back to a stretch of about a year and a half where I did little more than sit in my room and play video games for hours and even days on end. I failed a class, something I’d never done in my life. My other grades tanked. I packed on about fifteen pounds. I turned into a big old jerk (well, even more than normal). Why? I just lost the drive. I felt worthless so I was worthless. And in the depths of that toxic fog, a good friend of mine (who was somehow still my friend despite all my atmospheric jerkitude) came to me with a bit of advice: “The more you do, the more you can do.”
I don’t know if she plagiarized that, and I don’t care. Because it’s true. The mind is a weird organ. It believes what it wants to believe, often contrary to the empirical evidence all around it. That little aphorism led me to get back into my classes and write the first drafts of the play that would grow into Accidentally Inspired, the work that in no small way set the course for the next chapters of my life, and is still setting the course for me.
The more you do, the more you can do.
Momentum matters.
You pick yourself up out of the funk and do something — anything — take a walk around the block, scribble a few bits of dialogue on the page, bang out a few push-ups, chase your kid around the room a few times — and there’s pushback, sure. Your negative momentum holds you in place. But your brain also says to itself, “hey, that wasn’t so bad, we can do that again.” And if you’re smart, you do, and you do a little more next time.
If the me who heard my friend drop that little truth-bomb on me back in college could see what I’m up to these days — even in my current, slightly diminished and frustrated state — he’d have a heart attack. Married, two kids, full-time job, coaching soccer after school, working out five or six times a week, writing novels and short stories like it’s my job, operating a website… The me of the past didn’t believe he could do all that, so of course, he couldn’t. But little by little, he started to believe. Little by little, momentum grew. Little by little, his mind changed.
Were there setbacks along the way? No doubt. The road is neither straight nor level. But by taking on a little more at a time, slowly upping the ante, slowly turning up the burners, I was able to trick myself into becoming moderately productive.
Which reminds me, it’s time to take the kids out on a walk, and then come back and write…
This weekly Re-Motivational post is part of Stream of Consciousness Saturday. Every Saturday, I use LindaGHill‘s prompt to refocus my efforts and evaluate my process, sometimes with productive results.
It’s morning, and though the body and mind are refreshed, last night’s revels are too close to memory. I feel them creeping in and coloring my mood. I feel restless. I feel alive. The lump in bed next to me falls aside with a gentle push, and I quick-step to the bathroom.
I check my face in the mirror and find that the hair is a bit too disheveled from sleep, and with a brief calculated swipe of my hand I correct this imperfection. Further inspection reveals that the brows are rather furrowed, as if I’ve been brooding too long over dark thoughts and they have carved their implications into my forehead; with a smooth massage of my fingers, these lines disappear. The eyes: too narrowed, almost suspicious, and an altogether too menacing shade of brown; a pass of the palm and they are wider, friendlier, and a much more lovely shade of green. The lips of the mouth curl upwards at the corners with the hint of secret knowledge and vague amusement, punctuated by the razor’s edge of immaculate white teeth beneath. The hand moves again, and the sardonic bemused mouth is replaced by one that is sober, thoughtful, understanding.
The nose will do for today; I’ve always liked this one.
I go to the window and throw it open. The morning breeze hits my skin like spring water in a parched throat. With a shiver, I sprout freckles. I’ve never had freckles. Today’s a good day to try something new.
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Chuck’s challenge this week is to create not a work of short fiction, but rather a character in just 250 words, the characters to be used in next week’s challenge.
Here’s a character. I think his (or her?) skin could be fun to walk around in.
Our kids have recently gone into daycare. And there are a host of parental tribulations that go along with that. What will the children learn outside of the house that we don’t want them to learn yet? What if they get sick? What if they hate us later? What if a helicopter crashes into the building? (Some of the fears are more rational than others.)
For better or worse, our kids have been fairly isolated in their development so far. Sprout the First was in daycare or in the care of his grandparents for a couple days a week for a few months after he turned 1 — and he spent time with a few other kids, maybe three or four, during that time. And the kids have some cousins around their age, and some friends of ours (my wife’s and mine) have kids their age as well. But on the regular? It’s just been us.
Which is good and bad.
Good because, if they’re doing something, we can pretty easily isolate the cause. We know, for example, that when Sprout the First began telling his stuffed animals to “shut your piehole,” that we needed to start examining our, uh, turns of phrase around the boy. Good because, as a general rule, we can control the things that go into their tiny and developing brains.
Bad because, well, variety is the spice of life and all that. Maybe we shelter them too much. Maybe they need more interaction with kids their age. Maybe they need to hear the crazy beliefs of other adults in the world.
But I’ll tell you what’s definitely bad about sending them to daycare.
The Daycare Demon.
The Daycare Demon goes to your child’s daycare.
He’s the first child whose name your bright-and-beautiful offspring learns, because it’s the name he hears the most.
He’s the one you can pick out without anybody particularly pointing to him, because naturally he’s the one hanging from the curtains with fingerpaint all over his face, brandishing a paintbrush like a rapier.
He’s the one you begin to hate from afar because you just know that, through toddler osmosis, your precious darling is picking up on his bad habits.
Our Daycare Demon is definitely not named Fred, but I will call him Fred for the sake of not calling him by his real name, which causes my blood to boil and my face to distort as if I’ve chomped down on an enchilada full of ground-up bulls’ testicles and not ground beef, as I had previously supposed.
Every day, Sprout the First comes home with nothing but Fred to talk about. “Miss Smith told Fred to sit down or he wouldn’t get a sticker.” “Fred was getting in trouble because he wouldn’t come inside.” “Fred said I’m a baby.”
Fred is the one who, the first time I dropped the kids off at daycare for real, came and laid a square solid tackle on my knee and grinned up at me like the Joker. Fred is the one who, now that I have to comfort Sprout the First when I drop him off (because he’s upset about not staying at home all day), sticks his nose into our business and asks me WHAT ARE YOU DOING until a teacher can snatch him away. Fred is the one at whose name I brace for impact: what has he done today?
And I know. I get it. He’s just a kid. It’s not his fault. But that doesn’t change the fact that Fred has become something of a magnet for all my unquantifiable but vaguely negative feelings about putting my kids in daycare. It’s comforting to think that I can ascribe all the negative episodes, the questionable interactions, the dubious phrases brought home, to some anonymous ragamuffin.
It’s become a bit of a running joke at our house, to ask what the Daycare Demon has done today. Sprout the First always comes home with Fred’s name on his tongue. And that makes us laugh. But then, when we ask Sprout what he did that day, or who he played with, often the Demon’s name will come out. And that’s maybe a little troubling. Sprout might be fixating on him because he gets his name called so often (even for the wrong reasons). Sprout might be fixating on him because he’s loud and has his nose in everything like a coked-up bloodhound. Sprout might just think that the Demon is cool, whatever cool means to a three-year-old.
Still, there’s nothing to do about it. Fred is gonna stay crazy. So, for way too much time every day, my kid is flying in the same orbit as the Demon. And maybe that’s not the best thing. But it at least reassures me that my kid isn’t the Demon.
So you wanna write a great ending. Look at the classics, right? Well…
It may or may not surprise you to learn that we watch a lot of kids’ movies at our house. Rather, it might be more correct to say that we watch a few kids movies a hell of a lot. Now, I love a good kids’ movie. In top rotation at our house are Frozen, Cars, Toy Story, The Lego Movie, The Little Mermaid, and an occasional Despicable Me or Aladdin (which the kids will suffer through only when my wife and I can’t stand another iteration of the first string). Now, those are all, in their own right, pretty good movies. Check their Rotten Tomatoes scores for that. But what I didn’t realize was just how good these kids movies were at endings.
Think about it. How many stories have you read, movies you’ve watched, TV series you’ve slogged through, only to get to the end and say “what a let down”? Fantastic premises can take you only so far. A good ending ties a bow on the story and sends you walking out of the theater or running out to buy the next book in the series buzzing with excitement.
As a general rule, any writer will tell you that you should never solve a conflict without a cost. For every step the protagonists take toward their goal, either the target should move or the zombies should snap at their heels. As a result, the story becomes a series of “Yes, but”s: Do the space pirates find the lost treasure of Kala-Zeron? Yes, but the ruins of the ship are filled with moon-vampires; or “No, and”s: Can the star-crossed zombie lovers find each other before the survivors hiding in the mall blow their brains out? No, and also, each of them is losing limbs at an alarming rate.
It’s not hard to find this pattern in any story. Good stories do this effortlessly, but what I’ve noticed is that not only is the entire plot of Toy Story set up this way, but the last ten minutes not only sticks to the formula, but cranks it up to eleven.
These go to eleven.
The characters go from ALL IS SAVED to ALL IS LOST again and again, and each setback is worse than the last.
Take a look at the last ten minutes of Toy Story to see what a roller coaster ride a good ending can be, and bear in mind that all of what happens below passes after the big bad has been dispatched.
Woody and Buzz and Sid’s toys best Sid in time to make it to Andy’s car before he leaves on his move across town. ALL IS SAVED! But Buzz, with Sid’s ridiculously oversized rocket still strapped to his back, can’t fit through the fence. ALL IS LOST.
Woody jumps off of the car to help free Buzz from the fence. ALL IS SAVED! Buzz is loose, but the car drives off just as they reach for it. ALL IS LOST.
Luckily, the gate strap on the moving truck hangs really low, and as it drives over them, they realize they can grab hold of it and get onto the truck. ALL IS SAVED! They catch the moving truck, but Sid’s dog (who was let out of the house earlier in their scheme) chomps onto Woody’s leg and he can’t get on the truck. ALL IS LOST.
Buzz is no slouch, and saving people in need is his jam. Just as Woody did for him, Buzz sacrifices his ride to launch a suicide attack on the dog, who immediately lets go of Woody. ALL IS SAVED! But, now, Buzz is in a tangle for his life with the dog. The dog whips him around and he skitters to rest under a car as the truck drives off. ALL IS LOST.
Woody is safe on the truck, but is now more determined than ever to bring Buzz home with him. He opens the back of the truck, quickly finds his buddy RC car, and kicks him out onto the street to go scoop up Buzz. ALL IS SAVED! But the other toys, distrustful of Woody after knocking Buzz out of Andy’s window in the first place, think he’s just tried to murder another of their friends. They toss him out of the back of the truck. ALL IS LOST.
Buzz, still on a crash course with the truck from Woody’s driving, plows into Woody and scoops him up. Now they race after the truck together on the remote controlled car (now driven not so remotely by Woody). ALL IS SAVED!
They catch up to the truck through some smooth driving, but they can’t quite make it onto the platform dragging behind the truck. ALL IS LOST.
Slinky Dog extends himself as a lifeline to pull them in. They catch hold of Slinky Dog, and it looks like they’ll make it into the truck after all. ALL IS SAVED! But all of a sudden, the car’s batteries start to die, and as the car slows to a halt, Slinky slips out of their hands and goes recoiling into the back of the truck. ALL IS LOST, for real this time.
This time, it really looks dire. RC is dead weight, and the truck has sped off into the distance. All seems lost, but then they realize that Buzz is still wearing the rocket, and Woody still has a match to light it. ALL IS SAVED!
Woody lights the match, but a passing car blows it out. ALL IS LOST.
Woody prostrates himself on the ground in sorrow. The light from the sun refracts through Buzz’s bubble helmet and begins to cook Woody’s hand. Woody, having earlier been roasted under a magnifying glass, has a revelation; Buzz’s helmet can function as a focusing lens. They can light the rocket. ALL IS SAVED!
They light the rocket, remembering an instant too late that rockets explode. But there’s nothing for it; the rocket ignites and sends them screaming after the truck.Their breakneck speed causes them to lift off as they close on the truck. Woody tosses RC car back into the truck with the other toys as the rocket carries Woody and Buzz soaring into the air.
It looks like they are well and truly fargoed. Either the rocket will blow them to bits, or they will smash themselves to pieces as they fall back to earth. Woody says his goodbyes, but Buzz extends his wings, shearing the tape. The rocket explodes in dramatic fashion as Buzz and Woody sail away on Buzz’s previously-thought-useless wings.
They sail through the air with the greatest of ease, passing the truck entirely. The ride ends as Buzz and Woody drop through the sunroof into the very car they were trying to get into in the first place.
Tracking the ups and downs is enough to give you whiplash, not to mention the callbacks to previously established arcs (Buzz’s determination to fly, Woody’s redemption in saving Buzz, Sid trying to blow up Buzz but giving him the means to save himself and Woody). This is a truly masterful ending. Now, if only I could get a fraction of that many twists and turns into my upcoming ending…
All screencaps are courtesy of Disney Screencaps dot com. Toy Story is property of Disney / Pixar.
Welcome. This is my page for sharing projects associated with my coursework in Media and Technology at the University of West Georgia. Assignments will be posted here as they are completed.
Their breakneck speed causes them to lift off as they close on the truck. Woody tosses RC car back into the truck with the other toys as the rocket carries Woody and Buzz soaring into the air.
Accidentally Inspired 