I was sprawled across the porch sofa, reading essays on animal rights. My legs dangled over the arm of the couch while my head was propped up with two pillows. The weather was warm but a balmy breeze tickled my hair as I breathed in the heady scent of summer. Brett was working in the garage, clanging metal together, or whatever he does in there. I turned to the next page of my book with great anticipation when suddenly, something cool and damp clapped down over one side of my face. My left eye saw only darkness as I registered the wet hand of a deranged killer grabbing for his next victim. I let out a loud, guttural scream. The kind of scream our caveman ancestors reserved for an attack on their rocky villages. I've never made such a sound before. I reached up to push away the sticky hand and run for it, and as I scooped across my eye, I felt no resistance. As I adjusted to the light, I saw my wet attacker flying through the air.
Brett came running from the garage, all puffed up the way guys do when they're fixing to partake in a physical altercation. My attacker fell to my feet. I looked up at Brett as he ran towards me. Both our eyes wide with concern. I looked down. My assailant hopped in frantic circles as it looked for a place to hide.
I sat curled in an upright ball on the sofa, humiliated by the scream. "It was a frog," I said shamefully.
Brett immediately depuffed and then became politely irritated with me. "You scared me," he said. "That sound you made..."
"Well it scared me! It leapt over my eye onto my face. It was sticky." I could hear the childishness as I spoke. "I thought it was a person!"
Brett looked at me blankly and then sauntered back to the garage without saying anything. I had to go inside to wash toad residue from my face. We never spoke of the outburst again.
Unrelated, I am 21,000 words into the writing of my first novel. It's a love story, which is odd for me. I don't read love stories or romance novels, or even many fiction books for that matter. So the main point there is, I don't know what I'm doing. A couple weeks ago I read The Notebook to see how a well received romance novel reads and I found it a little corny and embarrassing. The concept isn't lost on me but something about predicability and cliches cancel out the good bits. Which I guess is why I don't read romance novels.
What's been interesting about writing a love story is that I can't make it sound very intellectual. The things I read and think about, and sometimes even how I speak, are filled with philosophical questions, introspective considerations, and artsy metaphorical ideas. But when I sit to work on this book, it comes out rather juvenile. Since I don't like cliches I've been on a mission to make it "real." I don't want sticky flowery doe-eyes and cupcakes. I want the indecision and doubt, and the sick to your stomach with excitement and hopelessness of falling in love. Cause that's the real stuff. So when I write my character's inner monologue, it comes out just like people think and talk - which is with very basic human logic. Which makes for a book that I feel like anyone could write. Which makes me feel like a shallow writer. Of course no one falls in love in a dignified way (that would spoil the fun of it), but I was hoping to infuse meaty thoughts into a story everyone knows.
Maybe falling in love just isn't all that intelligent.
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