Over at her blog, Zoë (Please Respect the Umlaut) Marriott has a RetroFriday post about removing cliches from your writing. It’s actually a really good and thoughtful post, for those of us who tend to fall back on cliches to express a concept (and for those of us who tend to write things like “and make a note of this, blondie, this line sucks but you need to move on right now”).

One of the things she says is: Not every shock that the character gets is going to be a your-friend-is-dead-emo-angst type of shock. Ranjit doesn’t need to double over with pain when he finds out there’s no coffee for his breakfast (although I might).

That got me wondering. What would my reaction to no coffee be? I actually had it this morning, when I realized I forgot my good coffee at home, and was going to have to drink the swill they call coffee at work, but that’s not really the same thing as stumbling into the kitchen, desperately in need of that rush of caffeine – the smell of coffee – and not getting it. How would I react?

What a great writing thought experiment, especially as I’m waiting to find out how much of a column I have to modify. So, I did. Why would I be up early enough that coffee was the only thing on my mind, and what would I do if I didn’t have any?

There was an insistent beeping somewhere, in her head but also to the left of her body. As the noise clarified to outside, rather than inside, her head, she reached for her iPhone, which functioned as her alarm most mornings.

Except this morning it was earlier than sin, and the alarm was silent.

Kelly sat up, blinking the sleep away and trying to organize her thoughts into something approaching coherence.

Cats. Right. Cats. That’s what those are at the foot of the bed. Making noise.

“Screw this,” she thought. “If they want me up at this ungodly, I-cannot-bear-to-admit-it’s-an-hour, time, I’m making coffee first.”

Pulling on her robe, Kelly stumbled to the kitchen, hand firmly braced against the wall. Gravity was not a kind mistress when her head was fuzzy, and coffee, caffeine, was all she could think of. “Water, grounds, go. Water, grounds, go,” Kelly mumbled to herself, victim of one too many mornings where one of those necessary three steps didn’t happen.

Stepping over the furry bundles pressed against her legs, trying to keep them out from under her feet, Kelly filled a carafe with water and took it back to the coffee maker, where she reverently poured it into the brewing reservoir. She pulled out the basket, tossed the old grounds, and reached for the bean grinder.

Empty.

Kelly deflated slightly. It wasn’t a big deal, she could grind more, but grinding coffee was a noisy experience, something better done later in the day when the sound didn’t feel like it was echoing in the space below her eyes. When she was conscious and thinking clearly and wasn’t so focused on each step of making coffee.

She reached for the can and it lifted towards her with surprising speed. The sort of surprising speed that comes when you pick up a plastic tumbler, thinking it’s glass. The sort of surprising speed that happens when the coffee can is empty. Kelly screwed her eyes shut, not awake enough to fully wince, and opened the can.

She peaked. A few lone beans rattled at the bottom.

She carefully put the lid back on the can, and the empty can on the stove behind her, pausing for just a moment to consider eating the coffee beans straight. Would that give her the energy to move beyond wanting to cry – a silly reaction to no coffee, but one anyone raised in Seattle would understand – and be willing to go outside?

She glanced at the clock again. There was a reason no sane human was awake at this hour, and this was it: the coffee shops were not open yet.

Ultimately, I decided that if I desperately needed coffee and didn’t have any, I would be way, way too tired to make the effort to double over in pain. You?

I recently discovered that Sarah, over at Smart Bitches, has a lot of the same taste in plots that I do. Two weeks ago, give or take, she was getting feedback via Twitter from folks about author pitches for reviews, and I joked with her that I knew the absolutely perfect summary to get her to pick up and read a book: “I’ve written a romance about a snowbound doctor – and the young man who steals her heart!”

Sarah, bless, immediately replied “Antennae just went all WHAT WHERE BOOK WANT WHAT IS THIS?”

And I thought, “well, why the hell not?” I’d originally planned on writing a chapter just to amuse Sarah, except then I had to go and make the bad executive decision to fall down a flight of stairs, and I opted for spending the weekend going “ow” instead. (Note: I did not actually decide this, so much as “discovered too late that I did not have on the socks I thought I had on.”)

But on the way home tonight, I thought about the hook and decided to write a small bit, just for the hell of it – in part, just to write.

So here ya go, Sarah – this is for you. If I ever actually write the novel, I’ll be sure to dedicate it to Smart Bitches everywhere… and to send you a great pitch asking you for a review.

Theresa wound her way up the road, eyes firmly forward and hands gripping the wheel at the classic “ten and two” position. This was a familiar drive, and its familiarity is what led her to her caution; with the steep canyon walls and burbling river beside the road, and the snow on the ground, conditions were perfect for a deep, thick, enveloping fog. Theresa was looking forward to sitting by the fireplace with a cup of cocoa, watching the fog swirl through the trees and – if she was lucky – the Northern Lights peek down from above.

But the fog that was so picturesque inside a still cabin could be fatal on the two-lane mountain road leading there, and the region was full of logging trucks that took turns too fast and lost control. She had rotated through the regional emergency department last winter and seen the results of the reckless driving firsthand.

Glancing at the clock, she allowed herself a small smile. Her sister had bet her that she’d be on the road less than an hour before she was thinking about medicine, some way or how, and her sister had been right. …not that Theresa would ever tell her that.

The whole point of this retreat up to the family cabin was to get away. To get away from school and work and to relax, in the brief few weeks that signaled the end of her formal education. Soon enough, she would be back down the mountain, walking across the stage, and starting her residency. But after four long years of work, all Theresa wanted to do was curl up in the cabin, watch silly Lifetime movies, cook, drink cocoa, and read for fun.

The very last thing she wanted to do, she planned to do, was to think of medicine.

~*~

The cold, Ryan concluded, was a good thing. The cold meant he couldn’t feel what he was pretty sure was a badly broken leg. The cold meant that he could just lay there, cushioned by the drift of snow he’d apparently landed in, and think about the hell he was going to get when his sister found out he’d gone skiing off-trail. Again. Of course, all the other times, everything had turned out fine, and this was the argument he would use against her when she tried to pull an “I told you so.”

Of course, first he needed to get out of this mess, and shifting slightly confirmed that in the last few minutes of admiring the setting sun and the fog, his leg had not become any less broken.

“Lauren, if you have any bright ideas, I’m all ears,” he said, even though his sister was tucked away in her NYC office with no idea that he was even out here. It was worth a try, wasn’t it?

Nothing.

“Damnit, what’s the use of having a big si-“ Ryan blinked. Were those lights? Was he hallucinating? Gritting his teeth, he pushed himself out of the snowbank he had landed in and squinted. He knew there was a house around here somewhere – was this actually going to be his lucky day?

The beams of the headlights grew brighter as they neared. “Well, I’ll be damned,” Ryan grinned. Perhaps this evening wasn’t going to be so bad after all.

My family and I went to see the Oregon Zoo Lights last week. I was tasked with taking photos. (Tough task, I know.)

You can see the full album here.

stars fall which is much worse but that doesn’t make us fear…*

I flew home on a red eye over New Year’s Eve. I had been hoping to see fireworks from the air – and in fact, did, in all their tiny, bright, sea anemone glory.

But they were overshadowed, in fact, completely minimized, by our flight path, which took us over northern Nevada, Utah, and Colorado. Anyone familiar with that arc knows what it means: almost no lights below us, meaning the stars shone in all their crisp, twinkling glory.

And then the shooting stars started, and I spent most of the flight with my face and hand pressed against the window, watching star after star streak down and burn up and away into the new year.

It was a magical start to 2012; hopefully that magic extends the entire year.

Happiest wishes of the new year to you all.

iTunes has this song listed as “The Sky at Night” by Dave McKean, but I haven’t been able to confirm that via rapid Googling,… ideas?

If I had to sum up today in a picture, this would be it.

…as a matter of fact, that might sum up the PNW in general.