Writing Without the Me #7
Exercise #13 Associations
A few days late, but here I am again with another entry in this commitment to become a better writer. This week I was tasked to do a quick brainstorm session around “rainy day,” and then write a story or sketch. I’m assuming here, after a brief google session, that “sketch” is the nicest thing you can call a piece of writing that isn’t quite its own thing. You should not find it surprising that I have chosen to go with
It was hard to come up with ones that weren’t melancholy or just plain bad in some way
It’s funny that I call these “Writing Without the Me” and then am surprised to find I hit these walls when I try to get personal. I think I’m willing to be vulnerable in order to become a better writer but then I explicitly say in the title (though admittedly not intentionally) that I am taking myself out of the equation.
This is what “personal” looks like to me.
But there’s no denying these are just harder when (I feel like) they’re personal. I never know how close to the truth I should hew. Probably not very. Or not the details, anyway. Maybe just the feeling. These aren’t historical records. Maybe I should frame this as a short sample— more of a draft or a... sketch— from a book that may or may not exist one day (though it certainly doesn’t now).
So, may I present to you an excerpt from my yet-to-be-released autobiography, Nobody Wanted This- the Natasha Muse Story:
I was the kind of kid who would drive carelessly on the highway on a rainy afternoon, hydroplane and lose control of the car, which would then spin away from traffic, off of the road, and come to a stop after sliding into a shallow ditch.
“But that,” perhaps you say, “could happen to any stupid teenager, Natasha.” So let me add this: The car cost me $100. And I overpaid for it. It had no heat but it did have a radio— which did not at all make up for the heat. But!! I had to park at or near the tops of quiet hills because this car wouldn’t start the normal (boring?) way cars normally start. I would have to give it a little push, a little running start, before hopping in and putting it in gear as I silently coasted down the street. We called it “popping the clutch” and that is what took the place of the heater. Nothing like a spot of exercise and the thrill of potentially accidentally killing a neighbor to bring a little warmth to your cheeks on a brisk March morning in New Hampshire.
And I tell you all of this to let you know that by the time summer and its thunderstorms rolled in I knew all about this little hatchback, this little Ford Escargo, or whatever it was called. I understood its limitations. And still, I persisted. I drove too fast on that bright wet gray afternoon in June, like I did every time I took the 93. And ended up soaking from head to toe in a Structure, getting scolded by a cop for “leaving the scene of the crime.”
ngl, it’s hard to find a good picture of a place that went out of business in 2003
