The House of Writing Metaphors - Wall Mounted Light & Partner In Crime, the Register

As mentioned before, there is a fixture trying to kill me in the Bathroom of Self-Loathing. And no, it's not the usual case of me being overly dramatic. This lovely little piece of business is a fan of being manually turned on, and its devastatingly understated buddy, Mr. Metal Register, is fond of just lying there and waiting for you to step on him. Together, they create an electric partnership that can quite literally, shock you.

Yeah, I know, there's definitely something not quite right going on there, and I should do the normal thing and call an electrician. Somehow it's more fun to explain to unsuspecting visitors the proper way to use the bathroom without being injured.

Also, when I first discovered this dynamic duo I didn't quite understand what had happened. In order for the circuit to be complete, I had to be barefoot, standing on the register, and touching the light switch. Some wild test runs that had me fearing I was crazy (and had the b/f totally convinced) proved that all factors had to be present.

Inspiration can be like that - fast, unexpected, and hard to recreate later. If you're lucky enough to have figured out exactly where your foot needs to be, what you should be wearing, and where to put your hands in order to get that imaginative electric shock, then you are one lucky individual.

Do you have an inspiration process? Is there a routine you keep to with your writing that helps?

The House of Writing Metaphors - Pretty Possibilities Hidden in the Barn

Once upon a time, I found a clawfoot tub in a barn. Yes, really. One of those cast iron babies that makes you wonder how one thing could be so impossibly heavy. I'm not exactly a butterfly, and even I could only raise one end off the floor about two inches, then the curled edge felt like it was going to take my finger down to the bone.

So I had a debacle. Leave this possibly awesome, yet horribly disfigured and grotesquely heavy thing in the barn? Or, make it what it's supposed to be. I chose the hard route (I'm funny like that), and coughed up the money to have it refinished, then a coalition of kindly farmers came over and moved it into the house and up the Staircase of Fate for me. It was a struggle (on their part - not mine, I had firm instructions to just stand there), and three very big men said very bad words by the time it was said and done.

But now it's upstairs, in the newly redecorated bathroom (and I mean down to the studs) that is right around the corner from the Superfluous Banister. I don't have the money for the plumbing parts yet, but I know that once this baby is finished it'll be worth the investment of time and money, and other people's physical strength.

As writers, there are ideas in our heads like that. We've got ideas that we keep re-shelving, telling ourselves we're not good enough writers to tackle that one yet, or it's too sprawling we don't know where to begin. For me, it's a piece of historical fiction that I'm not sure I've got the research cajones to do right, or the time to invest to do that research in the first place.

But I think we need to face those big projects head on, tell ourselves it's worth the time, the effort, and the heavy lifting. We might get something beautiful out of it in the end.

What's your big project? Have you got something you don't trust yourself to write just yet?

The House of Writing Metaphors - Ugly Bathroom of Self-Loathing

Today on HoWM (House of Writing Metaphors) my series continues with self-editing, and why my bathtub needs a serious Find+Replace run on it for "soap scum" and "scrubbing bubbles."

When I moved into my new HoWM I felt a little awkward using the bathroom. It wasn't my house yet, and I felt like I was intruding on somebody else's space when I took a bath. I got over it, but I still despise the downstairs bathroom for one very simple reason.

It's ugly.

Also, one of the light fixtures in there is trying to kill me, but we'll get to that later this week.

One trick about loving old farmhouses is that most of them had plaster walls originally, and when that plaster began to crumble, owners tossed up wood paneling. It paints up pretty nice, but I won't waste paint on that bathroom.

It's ugly.

I admit to not cleaning it often. Which truly, what am I thinking that will accomplish? Because dirty ugly is way better than clean ugly? Yet, I can't bring myself to get down on hands and knees and scrub that tub because...

It'll still be ugly.

So I shower in there, look at the rings on the sides and hate myself a little bit. Very productive.

The rough draft of an ms is like that - ugly. Sometimes we look at it and it doesn't seem to belong to us. That's why self-editing is critical, and like all important things in life, very difficult. It's easy to read that first draft and declare that you hate it. It's ugly. Give up on it.

Being ugly is exactly the job of a first draft. It's a basic framework telling you what your story IS, down in the bare bones. My ugly bathroom is for bathing and I can do that in there just fine, but it's not going to look good until I make it look good, and that means effort on my part.

So stop hating your first run-through for being ugly. Take out the steel wool and clean it up. 'Cause no one else is going to.

How do you deal with first-draft hatred? Do you take a breather before returning to the story for the edits? Or do you go back to page one with your red pencil right after typing THE END?