A Writer’s Thought Process
By Eve Gaddy

 

During my morning ritual, drinking a cup of coffee and playing that ridiculously addicting online game, Mahjong Connect, while checking email, I tried to think of a blog topic.  I thought about the writing process and where we get ideas.  I remembered a conversation I had with my husband the other day as we were driving.

“Why does meth make people’s teeth fall out?”

Bob gave me the look that either means, writers are really weird or, you are really weird, I never know which.  “I suppose it has more to do with the gums and lack of blood supply to the gums than teeth.”  He then went into a more detailed explanation to which I paid no attention because I’d already moved on.

“You’re wondering why I asked you that, aren’t you?”

“Yes.”  Another mystified glance at me.  “I guess there’s some sort of logic to it.”  He sounded extremely doubtful.

“I’ve told you before, it’s a logical process.  You just can’t follow it.”  We’ve been married thirty-six years.  You’d think he’d understand by now.  “Would you like me to explain to you how I got there?”

“Okay.”  He didn’t sound at all sure but he knew he had no choice.  He was going to hear the explanation whether he wanted to or not.

“I saw the Tae Kwon Do sign on that building we passed.  I remembered how I took Chris (our son) there when we first came to town.  I have a friend who has recently gotten her black belt and it sounded like fun but I didn’t like that guy here much, so I guess I won’t do that.  Then I remembered a friend of mine had a nephew who had a brown belt but she said she was never sure how he got it because he was a wimp.  Then I remembered she’d said that a dentist had offered to fix his mouth because he’d kicked a meth habit but had terrible meth mouth.  Which led me to wonder why people’s teeth fall out from meth.”

“I always thought you just came up with this stuff out of the blue.”

“Of course not.  There’s always a convoluted logic to it.”  Always is a slight exaggeration but he doesn’t need to know that.

A few days later I was telling my daughter, Diana, this story and she said that she arrived at things that same way.  Doesn’t everyone?

“No.  I think it might be just women because my non-writer female friends don’t have much trouble following me.  Of course, I haven’t actually asked any male writers I know.”

“I agree,” she said.  “I think it’s women.  Of course, your logic is always a little more off the wall than mine, but it’s still similar.”

Off the wall?  Me?

“Which reminds me.  Why don’t you ever hear about women inventors?  Why are they always men?  If women think outside the box, you’d think there would be more of them.  Maybe there are and nobody talks about them.”

I probably won’t use what I learned about meth mouth in a book, although I write romantic suspense so you never can tell.  But a woman inventor sounds interesting.  In fact, I read something recently about Hedy Lamarr, a famous actress who invented the basics of WiFi during World War II.  Hmm.  More research coming up.