A Question of Balance

Early on, I knew I could cross one potential career choice off my list. Sadly, I'll never be a tightrope walker. (I can barely even watch tightrope walkers!) It's something of a miracle I never broke any bones in the years I enjoyed ice skating. When I put on roller skates, everyone else in the rink risked injury. Notice a pattern here? When it comes to balance, I make Inspector Clouseau look like a prima ballerina.

No two ways about it: I'm a klutz. It's like walls are a magnetic force, drawing me close so I'll bump into them as I walk through a doorway. I am super cautious while walking on ice, walking up stairs, walking in general. I've fallen flat on my back, fallen down more stairs than you can shake a stick at - and I have the wonky knee and broken blood vessels to show for all the times I sprained and/or broke my ankles and tore ligaments in my knees.

I slipped on wet marble steps while wearing smooth-soled new shoes the time I had the worst break. A cat shot past me while I was carrying a load of laundry downstairs another time. And then there was the time I stepped out of the car smack onto a patch of black ice. My feet flew forward, the rest of me flew back - I think for a second or two I was suspended in air before I hit the ground with a very un-Lipizzaner-like thunk.

My mom blames it on my crawling, or lack of it. I was an early walker - I went from horizontal to vertical at about 8 months and I never looked back. Skipped crawling altogether - even then my knees were probably squealing, "Hell, no!" My mom read someplace that we develop our sense of balance as we learn to crawl, so she blames my general clumsiness on the whole no-crawling thing. Too late - I'm not going to try and rectify that now.

In this clumsy manner, I'm leading up to a related topic - finding balance in other aspects of life. Writing, for instance. I have a love/hate relationship with writing. On the one hand, I get antsy if I go for any length of time without writing SOMETHING. Once I get in the routine, I usually enjoy the process, even if the result rarely turns out the way I hoped/planned/intended. I have a slow learning curve, and I have a lot more experience in writing non-fiction than fiction.

Also, my brain is a little weird. I'm pretty sure all writers have weird brains, some more than others. To the extent that weirdness can lead to unusual story ideas, that's a good thing. Reining in the weirdness to keep an unusual story from sliding into the what-the-heck-was-she-thinking zone requires a fine hand and a sense of balance. I have to wonder - if I had learned to crawl, would I have an easier time keeping my stories on the somewhat straight-and-narrow?

One editor gently mentioned an issue of consistency in one early story, while another story had issues with tone. When reading thrillers - and when watching taut, suspenseful movies - I appreciate a shot of humor to give me a break from the tension, however briefly. The trouble is, when I try to do that in my own stories, the brief flash of humor tends to become a short trip to Bizarro World. I'll start yo-yoing back and forth between dark, sometimes even gruesome scenes and humorous (hopefully) antics that leave the reader going, "Whaaaat the...?"

Anyway.

I'm happy to say I haven't walked into any walls for some time now. Haven't broken or sprained an ankle in thirty years or so. Haven't even fallen on the ice in about five years, despite the many opportunities for that to happen. Maybe I'm more cautious now, or maybe I've developed a sense of balance after lo, these many years.

I hope this means there's hope for my writing. God knows, I have a way to go before I reach the level of proficiency I'm aiming for. (Don't get me started on grammar! Spelling? Nailed it. The rest? I do my best, and pray for a sharp-eyed and patient editor.)

Meanwhile, I'll take it in stride when my two-year-old granddaughter handles those slippery sidewalks better than I do. She did learn to crawl before she walked.