Winter is coming.
Not the good-fun winter with Jon Snow saving the day and Sansa coming home to Winterfell. No, the real winter is coming, with familial obligations, cold weather, and seasonal depression. Some people have claustrophobia and hate the feeling of the walls closing in around them. Cold weather and short days make me feel like I’m being wrapped in a mummy’s winding sheets, slowly suffocated by gray clouds and gloom until I’m buried alive under the weight of winter.
It’s an absolutely miserable sensation. Day by day I can feel the life being leeched out of me. I forget how to smile. Forget how to laugh. By mid-December every day is a struggle just to get out of bed.
There’s happy lamps for this. And therapists. And probably medicine In Alaska the doctor told me to take up tanning, a few minutes each week to get the light I needed (I didn’t so I don’t know if this works). I do have a happy lamp.
I also have comedy.
I love over-the-top cheesy comedy. The absolutely ridiculous scenes created to make audiences giggle or full on belly laugh.
This isn’t a surprise to anyone who knows me. My friends and family have all accepted that I will watch cheesy action flicks and heist films when I’m feeling blue. They also know that if I turn on a Vin Diesel movie I’m probably running a fever of over 103F. I save The Fast & The Furious for fevers over 104F when I can hallucinate through the plot holes. It works for me.
And bleeds into my work.
This week I had an opportunity to sit down with a publishing professional to talk about my career. We bounced around the idea of adding another book to a series, and discussed the idea of writing another thriller. My stuttered a little bit.
Could I write something violent and dark in the winter? How much of myself would I lose trying to deep dive into the fears and tension a thriller needs? It was self-preservation putting that idea on the shelf until spring.
I still needed to add a sixth book to a story arc though… Adding a book in the middle of the series made sense, but the middle of a series is a place filled with angst and frustration. A lot of things have to fall apart to make a good story. What’s the quote?
“A cat on a mat isn’t a story. A cat on the dog’s mat is a story.” – John le Carré
Plotting the story was like plotting most books. Villains. Rivals. Conflict. Lead up to a battle.
And then my main character gave me a look. You know the one. It’s the look that says, “Are we really going to do a space battle like every other sci-fi adventure?”
I looked back at my character. “What do you want to do?”
“Something wild,” he says. “Something that’s ME.”
“And what do you do?”
He grinned like the devil, whistled a tune, and went and stole all the enemy weapons.
I admit, this is very On Brand for this character. And it made me laugh.
The story could have turned serious. I could have tapped into the teachings of George RR Martin and started killing beloved characters. I could have ruined lives because the plot relies on the characters trusting each other and it would have been easy to use that as a point of conflict. I could have left everyone crying.
Instead I’m hoping the reader will walk away with a smirk. I want them to feel like they too could pull off the impossible. To know that the dream they’re reaching for can be reached.
There are plenty of books that will tell you that everything costs to much.
There will always be people telling you love and happiness can’t be found.
There are people who think Grown Up means Cynical and that Realism means Torture. It’s an easy philosophy to buy into when you read the news or see someone abusing their power. Its hard not to be a cynic some days. But cynics don’t get things done.
On the spectrum of emotions cynicism and bitterness are some of the easiest emotions to evoke and are equally the most childish emotions. Throwing a tantrum, grabbing your toys, and going home to pout is the MO of a toddler. An adult learns how to smile, how to laugh at mistakes, apologize and move on. An adult can see all the negative and still find something good to keep working toward.
For as much as silliness is mocked, it’s the realest part of life.
Life is ridiculous!
Real people do silly things! They spill their water when they see someone they like. They say the wrong thing when they’re tired. They stop to pet random dogs on the street. They pack bond with everything from cacti to strangers on the bus.
Humans are wild, ferociously loving, monstrously silly creatures.
The only way to survive is embrace the absurd. To laugh when plans change suddenly, and to keep loving the people and things you love through the good times and the bad.
That’s what I’m going to write. Because it makes me happy. Because it gives me hope. Because I want someone in the middle of the chaos to say, “This is going to be all right. I can make this work. I know how.”
You deserve that.
I deserve that.
We all deserve a chance to be happy.