Have you ever been riding along, minding your own business when someone jumps from the right or left lane directly in front of you without any kind of warning? Their inconsiderate, spontaneous action forces you to make a decision, hopefully quick enough to prevent the crunch of metal on metal and the deployment of airbags. The biggest aggravation is they do it without issuing a turn signal. That tiny little piece of their car that takes one or two seconds to activate. Just poof, they jump lanes and God forbid you're having a conversation with your wayward characters and miss their lane change.Just this week this happened to me on the thirty minute drive to work. Since I work twelve-hour nights, my commute to the hospital takes place during the evening rush hour when people are trying to get home to dinner or take the kids to soccer/baseball/basketball games. This particular day three people jumped in front of me on one trip alone. (Ergo the blog idea.) None of them used their turn-signals. I could blame it on them being teenagers, but they weren't. Maybe they were on their cell phones? Didn't look like it. Perhaps the kids were fighting in the back seat? Nope. No kids in two of the cars. Maybe their signals were broken? Possibly, but not very likely. It simply happened and I had to deal with it.
There's a line from one of my favorite movies, While You Were Sleeping, that stuck with me long after the movie's HEA. Peter Boyle plays Ox Callahan, the patriarch of the family Lucy (Sandra Bullock) falls in love with. (T
he family, not Ox.) It's a quiet Sunday morning and Ox is reading the morning obituaries because he's an estate buyer, a company he runs with his son Jack, (Bill Pullman). Jack brings him a box of illegal donuts not allowed on his low fat diet. Ox, says "You know, sometimes life is good. Everyone's healthy, everyone's happy, things are running smoothly." That's when Jack pulls a left turn and says, "Pop, this isn't one of those times." We know Jack's unhappy helping with the business and wants to build beautiful hand-crafted furniture instead. But poor Ox is clueless until this moment. No turn signal. (Although I think those donuts might've been Jack's turn signal for his dad.)
That's how life is. You're going along minding your own business and poof, some drama happens. A son gets engaged, a daughter says, "I'm pregnant", the dog breaks his leg, you're offered a new job you didn't know you wanted much less needed. You have your Ox Callahan moment. Your course is now changed. You must make adjustments in your speed or use your skills to maneuver around the obstacles.Writing is like that, too. At least for me. I've got my inciting incident, my characters are fully formed in my mind, or starting to gel quite nicely. T
he plot is taking shape out of that gray foggy mist I call plot-land. The letters and words are flying onto the pages, and poof, the heroine pulls a gun on the hero and says, "Get me the hell out of here." Okkkkkkkaaaaaaay... Never saw that one coming. Or the heroine is riding along tied to the pommel of her horse and poof, a cougar jumps from a cliff onto her and her mare. Yep, didn't see that one coming. Or the hero is minding his own business driving the sheriff's car around town and poof, finds a woman standing on a car riffling through the bank's trash dumpster. Okay, maybe I saw that coming, but he didn't.Even without those signals that a change is coming, life and writing's surprises can be rewarding. The son married a lovely young lady. Daughter gave me a beautiful granddaughter to enjoy. Dog made great photography with the lampshade on his head. Job turned out to be great fun and more money. The heroine with the gun? She was complex and dear to my heart. The heroine attacked by cougar, has great fortitude. The sheriff? Sexy, funny and worth the heroine's love.
So dear readers, have you ever had one of those no-turn-signal moments in your life? Or if you're a writer, in your story? Did it turn out worse or better than you imagined?
