Storytellersunplugged

by Jeff Mariotte

Spring came to the Flying M Ranch before I was quite ready for it. One minute, nighttime temperatures were in the 20s, and the next daytime highs were in the 80s. It’s a heat wave; it’ll break, they tell us, in the next few days, and then there’ll be some more spring before it’s really summer. But the other, surer signs of spring are all there. The cottonwoods are suddenly bursting with leaves. The grass is greening, wildflowers blooming, as is algae in the pond. Crickets have begun to mysteriously appear on the family room floor, and since my office is at the far end of the family room, I have to run their gauntlet to get from here to the rest of the house. Moths, likewise, find ways to slip inside at night, strafing the light fixtures. We had a wetter summer than any in the last decade or more, and a fairly wet winter, and it’s going to be a banner year for bug life.

I’ve lived most of my life aware of the weather, but not connected to it in the way that I am now. In cities, it’s either convenient or it’s not. Rain snarls traffic. Sunny days invite walks outside, maybe yard work. Longer evenings suggest barbecues. “Put weather in,” advises brilliant mystery writer Joseph Hansen. It’s easier to do that when you know what real weather is.

Now that I’m living in the country, ten miles from the nearest town, weather is more apparent, more immediate, and more necessary. It helps, too, that the Flying M is located someplace where weather is more extreme. After more than two decades in San Diego, almost anyplace would have more extreme weather, but here in Southeastern Arizona we have tumultuous summer monsoon thunderstorms, withering heat, biting cold, snow, hail, and in every season, wind.

At the beginning of this year I accepted two tie-in novel jobs, with relatively short deadlines at the end of March and April. To do them, I set aside an original horror novel I was working on, because they promised immediate paychecks and the novel didn’t. By the time this essay sees (digital) print I’ll have turned in a novel based on the CW TB series Supernatural. I’m now immersed in one based on CSI: Miami. It’s currently the most-watched TV show in the world, but no pressure….

To get them done on time, I marked up a calendar, creating a schedule to which I would have to adhere. Three thousand words a day, five days a week. If I missed a day, or didn’t make my word count, I’d have to make up for it on weekends. Otherwise, my weekends were free to do other projects, like the original graphic novel script I turned in last week, or essays like this one, or promotional efforts for my forthcoming original novel. Or simply to relax, to enjoy the family, maybe catch the occasional movie.

Three thousand words a day isn’t punishing, most of the time. It’s ambitious, but I’ve done more words in a day before. There was a time, when I had a day job, that I could only write on weekends, and shot for five or six thousand words a day on those days.

The plan has worked so far. Even with a scheduled-in trip to the Grand Canyon, I finished the first draft of the Supernatural novel on the allotted day. CSI: Miami is proceeding according to plan as well.

At three thousand, I have time left in the day for other things. Sometimes that’s reading—as one of this year’s World Fantasy Award judges, I have plenty of reading to do. Sometimes it’s more promotional efforts for the book. Sometimes it’s the thing I’d rather be doing—working outside on the ranch,

It’s not a real working ranch; we’re not raising cattle or goats or chickens or anything like that. And it’s not a farm, growing vegetables or fruits. Mostly what grows here is what grew here before we came. With the exception of invasive plants like Russian thistle, also known as tumbleweed, most of what grows here is what grew here, as far as we know, before anyone came. Mesquite, creosote bush, various native grasses, and weeds. And the aforementioned wildflowers, which are just weeds with attractive reproductive bits.

But there’s much to do. Spring, between the wet winter season and monsoon season, is a dry time, with hot winds that sap the moisture from the land. It’s fire season (as is fall) and the growth that came up during the wet season has to be cut back, a fire break built around the house to make sure in the event of disaster, we’ll have a defensible perimeter. We keep a few patches of lawn, mostly for the enjoyment of the dogs, and those patches have to be kept relatively weed free. We have a lily bed that has to be tended. The pond needs to be maintained. Mesquite needs to be cut down so that it’ll be dried out and ready for next winter’s woodstove season.

Writing always seemed like all I would be good for, but it turns out that I have to spend more time than I ever expected working with power tools, or working with shovels and rakes and pitchforks, or cutting wire, or mending fences, or hauling rocks.

As physically demanding as that work can be, it recharges the part of me that can be wearied by a schedule of three thousand words a day, every day. The characters about whom I’m writing go outside with me sometimes, their problems kicking around in my head as the wind kicks up dirt and grass into my face. Other times, the process of changing into my work boots, old jeans, and cowboy hat chases them away and I leave the project completely behind, all my focus and energy going into the task at hand.

Every writer finds his or her own way to recharge, to set the reset button in order to go back to keyboard or page with a fresh perspective and a wakeful mind. Others have been discussed in this forum in the past. It can be a day at the beach, a night at the movies, a mani-pedi or a nap. To me, it’s not just a recharge, it’s as important to the work as the schedule and the discipline to stick with it. For me, working outdoors in every kind of weather connects me to the seasons, to the spinning of the Earth. Walking with the tracks of coyotes and jackrabbits, snakes and birds, occasional visitors like deer and javelina, brings me closer to the creatures we share our planet with (although I’d prefer that they, like the moths and crickets, remained outside the house). I write about the planet and the land and all its inhabitants, and I need to be in contact with them from time to time.

If I didn’t have that—didn’t have dirt under my nails and mud on my boots and sun on my neck and wind in my face—well, I’m sure I could still do the three thousand words a day. After all, that’s the job, that’s what you sign on for when you take money to write a novel.

But if I couldn’t get away from it and go outside once in a while, it might start to feel like work.