A Writer's Dilemma and the Muse

"Marion, if I eat anything more, I'm going to explode. Your burgers were great though. I don't remember having any this good before, but then most of my burgers come from Burger King."

She cocked her head at me.

"You don't cook for yourself?"

I shook my head.

"No. I'm usually too busy writing to cook much. If my microwave died, I'd starve to death."

She chuckled then

"I'll have to remember to feed you once in a while then. I like cooking for a man...among other things I can do."

I had to think about that for a while, so I took a drink of Corona. Marion didn't give me much time to think though.

"Don't you want to know what those other things are? You said you needed to know people before you wrote about them. How are you going to put me into one of your novels if you don't know about me?"

Well, before, I'd been worried that Marion might sue my ass if I did put her in my novel. Now, she was telling me she wanted to be in one.

"OK, what else can you do?"

Marion grinned.

"Do you want the normal things, or the other things?"

"I think the normal things to start out."

She grinned again.

"OK, but the other things would make for a more interesting novel.

"I can keep house and I can work to a budget. Bob made a lot of money, but it was me that saved so much of it. I don't go buying expensive clothes all the time and I always put a set amount of what he earned into savings. The only saving Bob did was his 401K and his teacher's retirement and that was only because the school automatically deducted both from his paycheck every month. He'd have spent every cent if I'd let him."

"It sounds like you were pretty much in charge of everything."

Marion looked at the Corona in her hands then.

"Yes, I was, except for what must have counted the most for Bob. I couldn't help it that I got bigger. It just happened and nothing I could do stopped it. I mean, how was I supposed to keep my boobs from growing like they did, and how was I supposed to keep my hips from getting wider after Nancy and Jack were born? I didn't get fat like some women do after they have kids, but I didn't look like I did when I was twenty anymore.

"I guess that's what Bob wanted. I saw the girl once. She didn't have big enough boobs to really need a bra and her butt looked like a boy's butt. I always thought men liked women with a figure."

I needed to leave, but I couldn't leave Marion like that.

"Well, most men do. I don't understand why he'd have gone with such a young girl. I've never had the urge to be with a woman much younger than I am, and after I was about twenty, those high school girls didn't do a thing for me."

Marion looked up then and smiled.

"So, what type of woman does do it for you?"

Well, here we went again with the questions I didn't want to answer because in my experience there was no right answer.

"Well...that's a hard thing to describe. I suppose it's about like when a woman sees a man she likes."

"What do you think a woman sees in a man that makes her like him?"

I shrugged.

"I don't really know. I just think it's probably about the same."

Marion drained her Corona and then said, "You didn't answer my question about what you like in a woman. You think about it while I go get us another beer."

When Marion came back, she sat my Corona on the table, sat back down and then grinned.

"Well, did you think of an answer that'll make me feel good but won't be committing you to anything?"

It was then that I changed the plot on my novel. Instead of being my victim, Marion was going to be a detective questioning suspects in the murder.

I shrugged.

"What I look for, if I was looking and I'm not, is a woman who looks good in her clothes. She doesn't have to be gorgeous. She just has to look good. She also would have to be nice to other people and she'd have to...well, I'd have to know that she likes me a lot more than she likes any other man she knows."

Marion chuckled.

"Well, that was a pretty good answer. You didn't say you'd look for a woman who looks like I do because I might think you were thinking about doing something with me. You didn't say you wouldn't like a woman like me so you wouldn't hurt my feelings."

It was about nine then, so I said I probably should be getting out of her hair. Marion just smiled.

"It's still early for me since I don't have to work tomorrow. It's also pretty warm and there's a full moon tonight. I think I'll spend a little time in my pool. Thank you for setting up my grill. We'll have to do this again sometime."

I couldn't help going upstairs to my writer's den when I got home. I didn't turn on the light. I just wheeled my chair over to the window to watch Marion.

I was surprised that when she came out to her pool with a blown-up air mattress, she was still wearing her halter-top and shorts. I figured she'd have changed into a swimsuit. She tossed the air mattress into the pool and then really surprised me when she walked around to the ladder, took of her halter-top, shorts, and panties, and then climbed the ladder to get in her pool.

I couldn't stop looking at her. Marion's ass was really erotic when she climbed up that ladder, and when she turned around, her heavy breasts swayed gently. I undid my belt and unzipped to give my cock more room.

When Marion got in the water, she didn't swim in circles like she had before. She climbed up on the air mattress, lay there on her back and just floated around.

I couldn't see very well even though my binoculars because the light of the moon was reflecting off the rippled surface of the pool, but I was sure I saw a patch of dark hair on her mound.

It got really interesting when Marion cupped her right breast with her left hand, squeezed it a little, and then closed two fingers around that nipple. She then stroked down over her stomach with her right hand. I watched that hand go lower and lower until her fingers curled between her thighs. Marion was fingering herself right there in her pool.

It was like watching a porn movie except porn movies are just acting and Marion was obviously not acting. She was consciously arousing herself. She kept moving the fingers between her thighs, and after a while she moved her legs as far apart as she could and still keep them on the air mattress. All the time, she was either stroking her breasts or stroking her nipples or pinching them.

I don't know how long it took her. I was glued to my binoculars and couldn't take time to look at a clock. I watched as she started to arch her back a little and then jerk when she pinched her nipple. I watched as her thighs quivered and then relaxed, then quivered again. I watched as she suddenly jerked her head back and then started rocking her hips into her fluttering finger.

For a while, Marion lay there on her air mattress slowly stroking between her thighs and occasionally fondling her breasts. From time to time, she'd make a little jerking motion and then smile. When that stopped, she rolled off the air mattress, walked to the ladder and climbed out of her pool.

She didn't bother with her panties. She just pulled on her shorts and halter-top, picked up her panties, and then walked back inside her house.

Well, Marion had said she did some other things and that those things would be more interesting. I hadn't found her nude swim interesting. I'd found it to be the most erotic thing I'd ever seen a woman do. Watching her give herself an orgasm was more than erotic. I didn't know of one word that described it, but I knew what it did to me. I had to make a trip downstairs to the bathroom to take care of what she'd done to me.

I did go back upstairs, but once I sat down, I realized I wasn't going to write anything useful. I couldn't get that vision of Marion out of my head, the vision of her casually taking off all her clothes like it was something she did often, then floating around on an air mattress and bringing herself to an orgasm. I finally gave up staring at my computer screen and seeing Marion in her pool instead of the last words I'd written on my novel. I was still seeing her when I went to bed and closed my eyes.

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It was Sunday afternoon when I next saw Marion. She came out to fill her birdbath and waved when she saw me washing my car. When she finished filling her birdbath, she shut of the faucet at her house and wound the garden hose up on a reel, and then walked over.

"Hi, Todd. I take my car to one of those drive-through car washes. Do you always wash your car?"

I grinned and said authors live on a pretty tight budget between novels, so yes, I washed my car myself.

"It saves me some money and it's not that bad a job, especially if it's hot like it is today. If I get too hot, I just hose myself down."

Marion laughed.

"That's another reason I started taking my car to a car wash instead of washing it myself. Bob always thought it was funny to turn the hose on me and soak me to the skin. I mean, I didn't mind Bob seeing me that way, but we had neighbors on both sides. I didn't want them seeing me like that."

I wondered what Marion would think if she knew I'd watched her the night before. I put that thought out of my head then because I was starting to grin. I quickly changed that grin to what I hoped was a normal face.

"Well, you have neighbors out here too, but I don't think you'd have to worry about Mr. Jenkins, your other neighbor. He's seventy-eight and probably past thinking about anything like that. You don't have to worry about me either. I spend most of my time writing, not watching my neighbors."

Marion just smiled.

"Well, I need to go do some shopping and I have to work Monday through Wednesday, so I probably won't see you again until Thursday. I uh...I might need you to help me on Thursday if you have time."

I said I'd be more than glad to help her. Marion thanked me and then walked back to her house.

I finished washing my car and then went upstairs to write. I changed my victim to a blonde who was a few pounds heavier than she liked, but that gave her enough size to fight back against the pool guy.

Then I turned Marion into a no-nonsense detective with ten years on the force as she and a younger, male detective named Ted England began investigating. My intention was to paint Ted as a guy who'd been a good police officer but had a lot to learn about being a detective. Marion, well, I called her Randy Draves, was the detective who was going to teach him the ropes.

It was at that point that I started having trouble again. I'd always written my characters based upon people I'd known in real life. Often I had to sort of dissect two or three and pick the parts I wanted my character to have, but they were always based on real people. That's really the only way to make characters seem real.

When I started writing about how Randy was teaching Ted what to look for, I was having trouble giving her a soft side since she was supposed to be pretty tough. I could write her teaching Ted as I thought Marion would probably act if teaching someone how to do something, but I couldn't keep her as tough as I wanted her to be in an interrogation room. Marion could ask some very pointed questions, but she was never aggressive about it like my detective would have been. If I tried writing her as a tough detective teaching a new detective, she kept coming out over-critical of Ted instead of helping him learn.

After four hours, I realize I couldn't make Marion into anything except what she was, a very nice woman who had been hurt by her husband but hadn't gotten hardened by that.

The writing went a little easier once I took Marion out of the novel. I went back to two male detectives, one the "good cop" who was an older man who'd investigated more murders than he wanted to remember, and the "bad cop" who'd seen enough murders to know what made sense in a crime scene and what didn't.

My good cop would try to empathize with each suspect they interrogated in order to put them at ease and get them to talk. He was everybody's Grandpa. My bad cop would take over as soon a the good cop caused the suspect to slip up and reveal knowledge of something the police hadn't released to the public. He'd be nice at first, but become more and more aggressive in hopes of frightening the suspect into confessing.

I'd written a couple thousand words about the investigation of the crime scene when I remembered that Marion had asked if I was going to put her into my novel. I thought I had just the place. She'd be Mary Conners, a crime scene technician who would arrive at the scene to collect evidence and then analyze it back at the crime lab. I could keep her as a nice woman of about forty who was divorced and looked pretty good to both my detectives. I'd also make her the one who found the evidence that resulted in the arrest of the pool guy.

I'd written in her arrival at the crime scene and had written that the younger detective remarked to the older detective that she was a real looker, when I realized I'd given Mary only a bit part in my novel. She'd float into the crime scene, gather her evidence, give that evidence to my detectives, and then disappear from the novel. I thought that would probably disappoint Marion.

I wasn't sure why pleasing Marion was important to me, but it was. I sat there reading what I'd written so far for two more hours before giving up and going downstairs for dinner.

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The good thing about being an author who has written and sold three novels is that the publishers are aware of you and are more willing to chance publishing the next one you've written. The bad thing about being an author who has written and sold only three novels is no publisher is holding their breath waiting on the fourth and no publisher has given you an advance with a deadline.

In my case, not having a deadline was actually a good thing since I was still muddling around with my plot and my characters. I decided I needed to just think for a few days about my original plan. Maybe that original plan was all wrong and I needed to start fresh.

That's what it was looking like the next morning, so I decided to take some time off. I saved my original file and then shut down my computer, picked up my notebook and a couple pens and went out to the lawn chair and table in my back yard.

I sketched out a novel on Monday that I thought would work. It was based on an actual crime that happened in the 1920's updated to today. Marion was going to be a uniformed patrol officer who responded to a 911 call.

On Tuesday, I sat down to start writing it and after four pages, decided I didn't like it. I couldn't fit what I knew about Marion into a blue uniform with a service belt, pistol, handcuffs, and a nightstick. That afternoon, I sketched out a second version of the same story. Marion would be an EMT who responded to the 911 call.

On Wednesday morning, I didn't like it either. I couldn't picture Marion with her hair pulled back in a pony tail, wearing a blue ball cap and after feeling the victim for a pulse, nonchalantly announcing to the detectives that the victim was dead as a hammer. I spent Wednesday afternoon trying to find a role in my novel that Marion could fill just like I saw her. I didn't come up with anything except the realization as I was lying in bed that the problem wasn't my plots. My problem was trying to fit Marion into my plots.

Thursday morning, I didn't try to think. I went to buy some groceries and fill up my car. When I got back home, Marion was out in her back yard with her garden hose laid out in curving lines on the ground. I put my groceries away and then walked over to see what she was doing. When I walked up, she frowned.

"This is harder than I thought it would be. You're supposed to use a garden hose to outline your flowerbeds. That way you can see how it's going to look before you dig anything up. I keep moving it around and then looking at it and deciding I need to change it, but it's hard to see since I'm running back and forth."

She smiled then.

"Would I be taking you away from your novel if I asked you to help me?"

I couldn't very well tell her I hadn't written anything usable in almost a week and that I'd decided the reason was her.

"I do take a break from time to time. What do you need me to do?"

What followed was two hours of Marion saying, "Move the middle part to the left...a little more...that's about right. Now move the right side a little more toward the house...no, that's too much. Go back a little".

It was twelve thirty when Marion was satisfied.

"I think that's what I want. Now all we have to do is drive in some of the stakes I bought so we'll know where to dig up the grass. I'll fix us some lunch before we do that, though."

Lunch was cold cut sandwiches and potato chips washed down with a soda. After that, I walked out to Marion's car with her. I should have known that driving in the stakes I saw in her trunk wasn't all she needed help with. In a box that filled up most of her trunk was a small tiller, except a tiller wouldn't have fit into that box unless it was disassembled. I asked Marion if she needed help with the tiller too, and she looked at her feet.

"Well, probably. I just didn't want to ask you for everything all at once."

Driving in the stakes was easy. In an hour, we had her flowerbed laid out and the garden hose put away. I went back for the tiller, horsed the box out of her trunk and then dragged it out to her back yard. It wasn't all that heavy, but it was awkward as hell because all the weight was on one end. When I opened the box, I decided I probably needed some tools, so I told Marion to take everything out of the box while I went to get them.

I took me an hour and a half to put the damned thing together. I figured my next task would be to dig up the flowerbeds, but I didn't have the slightest idea how to do that. Marion said it would be easy. All I had to do was fill it up with oil and gas, start it and then follow the stakes. The tiller would do all the work.

Filling it up with oil and gas was easy. Starting it was pretty easy too. It only took four pulls on the starter rope. That's when it got not so easy.

I learned that day that running a tiller with the tines on the front is like trying to ride a bucking horse. The problem as I saw it was that the tines didn't really cut down into the grass. They'd bite into it and then the tiller would jerk up because the rotation of the tines was designed to pull it forward.

I finally got the hang of adjusting the bar on the back deep enough to keep the tiller from lurching forward all the time, but I still had to keep holding it back and steer.

Two hours later, Marion's flowerbed was mostly tilled about six inches deep and there was chopped grass all over the place. She was happy though.

"This looks just like I wanted it to look. Tomorrow, I'll go buy my daffodils and iris. I'll also get some annuals because the daffodils and iris won't come up until next spring. Say, it's almost five. Want a burger for dinner? If you'll start the grill, I'll go get everything ready."

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By seven, we were sitting at Marion's picnic table and starting our third Corona. Marion poked the lime wedge down the neck of hers, took a drink and then smiled at me.

"So, how's your novel coming?"

I shrugged.

"About like they all have so far. I haven't written a lot. I haven't found my groove yet, I guess. I will one of these days and it'll go pretty fast after that."

"Am I in it?", she asked.

"Well, I've been looking at where you'd fit, but it's a difficult thing to do. I usually make up my characters out of people I've known in the past. I take a little from this one, something else from that one, and something else from another one. It's hard to fit someone I know pretty well into a character because characters have to end up being what a reader wants read about, not someone who's exactly real.