author: Nicole J. LeBoeuf

As Mr. Baty writes in No Plot? No Problem!, plot is simply the movement of characters over time. Therefore, if the plot appears stuck, let your characters get to moving.

And if you characters don't want to move, find some new characters.

Where do you find characters? You find them in real life. Go people watching.

I did a bit of that yesterday, albeit unhappily. See, the Denver RTD (bus) system involves a necessary evil known as the Westminster Park'n'Ride. It has platforms on either side of Highway 36. Getting back to Boulder from Federal and 32nd involves taking the #31 north to the West Platform, using the pedestrian overpass to walk across the highway, and then catching a westbound #B at the East Paltform – all the while hoping and praying that the B doesn't arrive while you're halfway across.

Part of this dilemma, I admit, I should have avoided by taking an earlier 31. Instead, I took the one scheduled to get to the Park'n'Ride at 10:12 PM. The B is scheduled to depart at 10:19.

I had my bike. But it had snowed, and the pedestrian flyover was treacherous with slush. If I'd tried to ride on the corkscrew ascent and descent, I'd have risked repeating the accident I had that morning on the eastbound Goose Creek bike path where it switchbacks to go under Foothills. (I'd post pictures of my face, just to get the point across, but you'd think I was just fishing for sympathy. So leave it at this: it's not pretty. No stitches, though. Apply hanky to bleeding spots and get on with the day. I was lucky. Wear your bicycle helmets, boys and girls!)

So I'm about 2/3 the way across when, yes, the B shows up. And me, I start hollering, "Stop that bus!" at the top of my lungs as the bus disgorges its passengers. One of them I swear looks up at me. But the B pulls away as I limp the rest of the way down to the platform.

And as a couple who got off the bus cross paths with me, doubtless on their way to pick up their car, I say to them, "I wish someone had told the bus driver to wait!"

And the look they gave me can only be described as, "Forgive me, but exactly what species are you?" Kind of a cross between "And I should care... why?" and "Funny, I thought I heard something. Must have been the wind."

It was that look that just devastated me. I swear, I sat down in the bus shelter and sobbed. Maybe I was just weak from gulping cold air and running as fast as I could, but I was a wreck. I sat there and just howled, knowing I'd be waiting half and hour in the cold for the next bus and that the people I'd appealed to simply couldn't be bothered to acknowledge my existence.

By the time I finished having my little tantrum, I had made my decision. These people were going to be in my novel.

I got to the IHOP Write-In a little late, where Kandybar and her friend Dana were already hard at work, and I jumped right into a climactic ending scene in my novel. Diane has just seen her Older Disreputable Boyfriend shoot her class mate (and evolving love interest) and drive off, and she goes running out in the street to try to flag down some help. That couple, those evil uncaring unsympathetic lizards, are driving the only car passing by. And they give her that very look. Excuse me, but... why should I care?

As writerly revenge goes, it isn't nearly as satisfying as the short story I just submitted to SciFiction, which story was "inspired" by the excreble behavior of a family of children sharing a flight with me from Phoenix to Denver. In that story, well-deserved harm actually comes to those kids, whereas in my novel, that couple are merely revealed as the rejects from the human race they truly are.

But still. It was sweet. And worth about 1,000 words.

Ha-ha. Off to take the car to the shop for its check-up now. I hope to get a good 'nother 1,000 words done in the waiting room. Talk to ya later...