It's time to propose a new book.
This is the hard part, especially with life swirling around me. Kids need attention, son is vacuuming for me, mate is playing 90,000 versions of "Waltzing Matilda" on YouTube, dog #1 has decided he's hungry.... And I'm still hurting all over from a fall that sprained my ankle.
Not to mention we're in the "cone of uncertainty" for an approaching tropical system, and I've got to consider things like: getting propane, getting batteries...although emergency food and water are already in the house. We're in a no-evacuation zone, so that means we ride out the storms, like we did with Jeanne and Francis and other storms. That worry runs around in the back of my mind like a hamster on a wheel.
But I've been trying to get an idea for two weeks now, and all I'm getting are fragments.
First I saw a woman appearing at the door of Ransom and Mandy Laird's house. She's in poor shape, and when Mandy answers the door she asks, "Is this Ransom's place?" and then collapses.
Ideas float around, none that grab me.
Then a sentence pops into my head: "The man came from nowhere."
I decide to noodle that around a bit, and begin typing thoughts as they occur:
THE MAN FROM NOWHERE
No one knew where he came from or why. He just appeared one day and moved into the La-Z-Rest Motel on the edge of town, across from the truck stop.
Some thought, from his appearance and marked limp as he walked around town, that he might be a cowboy on the mend from an accident. Each evening he dropped into Mahoney's bar, had a stiff shot of rye, then left without saying the word. Walking, always walking on that painful-looking limp.
Finally he stayed long enough that the sheriff got his name from the motel register and performed a "wants and warrants" check on him. Nothing popped up. Nor did anything else, not even a driver's license.
The man seemed to have come from nowhere.
Well, now I want to know about him and where he came from. I'm even more curious about him than I was about the woman who still lies collapsed in the doorway of the Laird house. So I decide to leave the woman lying there with all the questions that surround her and focus on the man from nowhere.
But what to do with him? Who is he, why is he there, and how is he going to play a major role as the hero of the next book? Because he is the hero. I can feel it.
Now my son has moved the vacuum into the next room, "Waltzing Matilda" has fallen silent, and the dog is napping again.
What next? What next?
I could beat my head on the keyboard because the answers are out there...or rather in here, but they elude me. Like the rest of Conard County, I don't seem to know anything yet about The Man from Nowhere.
Stay tuned. This is the really hard part, putting together all the pieces that will make a gripping story.