The Creative Process-- Send Help
Psst! This is just between the two of us, right?
See, I work at home. That’s why what you read here will sound less like journalism and more like the ravings of a sick mind.
Occasionally, I go into the office and try to write. I will look on the computer screen and see: Suddenly, I looked down and there was a ragged claw where once I had a foot . . . . If someone walks by, I’ll lean forward and try to cover up the screen because I’m actually embarrassed by what I write.
“Alice, why are you hunched over that?” Tom the cartoonist will ask.
“I’m not hunched, Tom. This is just the way my body is,” I say.
“Oh,” he says and pats my shoulder pad, giving me a quizzical look.
The thing is, I can’t write around other people. I can’t write when, at any moment, someone might look over my shoulder--let alone try to squeeze it. Other people are too distracting with their voices and their energy and their loose electrons orbiting around their hair.
But today, even as I write, there is a man right outside my window. Just inches away. When you consider that I am not on the ground floor, this is even more remarkable.
The man is dangling from a utility pole. Actually, there are two men. There’s the cute dark-haired guy in the plaid shirt and the cute blond in the blue shirt. They are there to fix the transformer that blew last night.
It was the biggest thing to hit this neighborhood since I moved in two years ago. Nothing goes on around here. That’s why I moved here. There is nothing to distract me from the creative process. Nothing stands between me and my weird thoughts. It’s a lot like being a mad housewife except that the kind of things mad housewives have been keeping to themselves for years, I am now sending out by modem to millions of people.
The event happened last night as I was reading an article about the Nazis to my daughter. There was a loud sizzle and a blinding flash of light. Then the lights went out.
This morning, my daughter told me that she and her new hamster, Sophie, were terrified. She thought the Nazis had something to do with the power outage. Sophie did, too.
A small fire started on the utility pole. A big fire truck arrived. And all the people on the street came out of their houses. My children were delighted. It was a chance to meet the neighbors and get out of doing homework. Power was restored just in time to go to bed.
Three utility-company trucks came this morning to fix things. The result is that the absolute peace and solitude of my creative environment has been shattered by the noise of engines, the sound of heavy equipment and the sight of two handsome guys in tight jeans dangling outside my second-floor window.
I went out and asked them how long they’d be there. “All day,” said the blond, his Robert Redford eyes thinly concealed behind the mask of sunglasses.
All day. Maybe I should make them lemonade and cookies. Do housewives still do that?
Sure, come on in, boys, for some lemonade and cookies.
Get them in here. Get them off their guard. Get them to spill their guts. They’ll think I’m just some bored housewife. Then, I start grilling them about their bosses, their co-workers, the weird things that happen on the job.
I write a major piece exposing dangerous work habits in the utility company. People see I really am a serious journalist. I win a public service award. The handsome guys lose their jobs.
And as I write this, the real handsome guys are climbing down from the “High Voltage” sign, their jeans glinting in the wind. . . . No, make that . . . their white hard hats blazing in the sun.
At any moment, one of them could make one false move and I’d lose my power. The computer would go black. And these thoughts I share, these thoughts that I would never write in an office full of people, these thoughts that I will be embarrassed to read in a newspaper full of informative stories--will be lost.
It’s a weird way to make a living. From my brain to my finger to my computer to my modem to your breakfast table. And I want you to imagine that it’s our private power trip.