The House of Writing Metaphors - Hell's Chimney

Part of the charm of having an old house is chimneys. Real brick chimneys that shoot straight through two floors of house, right out of the roof. But I've got one in particular that doesn't seem to end. This bugger has a locatable top (predictably, on the roof), but the bottom seems to keep on going... straight down to, uh, whatever is down there. Also, there's not a fire*place*, just a chimney. Yes, Mindy’s HoWM really is a quirky place.

As a writer, how often are you asked this question: "Where do you get your ideas?"

That's a tough one, 'cause hell - I don't know! Sometimes I can trace the origin back to a dream, or something I observed in my people watching that bloomed into a story. But usually I have no idea, and I don't question it. Inspiration is so fleeting that I don't search for the source, I'm grateful that it's there, and to whatever muse feels like I'm the right person to drop it on.

Much like Hell's Chimney, I don't ask. I just go with it, decorate around it, and watch what unfolds.

What's your source of inspiration?

The House of Writing Metaphors - The Prophetic Rot of A Leaky Toilet

One of the more endearing aspects of the Bathroom of Self-Loathing is the seashell shaped toilet seat. We all need to think about sitting on brittle pieces of dead mollusks in order to feel like going to the bathroom. How else to explain the popularity of such an unsightly object?

Not only is the seat a blight upon the eye, the actual potty part doesn't function all that well. Actually, it functions too well, constantly circulating water and not always doing the right thing with it. For example, it likes to take a fair amount of it and drip it down through the basement beams, which luckily have held for a century and might be able to take it until I do something radical, like call a plumber.

Our brains are like that, as writers. We're constantly circulating little ideas, drops of dialogue, splashes of scenes, and the occasional wave of a freshwater WIP. But do we do the right thing with it? Do we take that one second to jot it down on a piece of paper or email ourselves? Or do we let it slip away, drip down into our brain stem where it'll rot a hole in our spine and our heads fall off?

OK so that last bit might be a tad melodramatic, but it's important to write those flashes of inspiration down, because they are only brief flashes. And when they're gone, you're left in the dark basement searching for words, while cold potty water drips on your noggin.

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?