The Painted Into The Corner Approach to Deconstruction

This is not a great deal different than the Dead End Approach.

Basically, it assumes you've painted yourself into a corner with a window in it. If you didn't, you have some serious hacking to do, and the wrecking ball might be easier. But if you have a window, you're in luck.

While you're waiting for the paint to dry, hop through the window and do some research.

Very often when one of my books stalls, it's because I have nowhere to go (hence, the painted into the corner feeling). What I need is more information, more ideas (as in, where do you get your . . .?), more nitty-gritty first hand stuff.

When I was writing The Eight Second Wedding, I needed to know a lot about the rodeo circuit and the life of the professional rodeo cowboy, in this case a bull rider. While I grew up watching rodeos, and I had an uncle who competed in a few, I didn't know much about the whole lifestyle. And reading books and articles helped, but it didn't give me the detail that I wanted. Not the real life sort of stuff that would get me out of the corner and make the characters come alive.

So . . . I jumped out the window and found myself a bull rider who was willing to talk. Actually he was retired, but he taught bull-riding at that point, so he was a great resource. We talked. And then he had to go to the doctor -- an occupational hazard -- and I was supposed to call him back the next day.

Only the next day he was in Texas and I talked to his wife. And the week after that he was in Arizona and I talked to his father. And a week or so after that I talked to his mother, and to his wife again, and finally, as the deadline grew closer and I was still hemmed in that corner, I called back one last time and he was in Washington, I think.

So I asked the nice young man who had answered the phone that time, "Do you ride bulls?" and he said, "Yes, ma'am." And I said, "Will you talk to me?" And he said, "Yes, ma'am."

And he did.

And he was wonderful. A spectacular resource. So good, in fact, that he not only gave me lots of information about bull riding and the rodeo circuit, he went through the calendar and mapped me out a schedule of exactly which rodeos Chan would compete at during the Memorial Day to end of July time frame I had for that part of the book. He even called me once at 1 in the morning when he was fogged in at LAX so we could go over some details.

When the phone rang -- and we woke up from a sound sleep -- The Prof rolled over and said, "Huh?" and then lay there, basically lifeless, while I got up and went to listen to the answering machine to make sure one of the kids had killed, bloodied or maimed themselves.

When I heard the voice, I smiled and went back to bed. "Whozat?" The Prof mumbled. "My rodeo cowboy," I said. The Prof sighed. "Right." And went back to sleep.

Suffice to say, "my" rodeo cowboy was a great help. And when we finished talking the several times we talked, he invited me to bull-riding school the next time he taught near me. How could I pass that up? I went and got a whole new book out of it. That book, The Cowboy and the Kid, was a great example of a book with LOTS of detail and, because of the detail I had command of, there were no painted-into-the-corner feelings at all.

Just lately I've been thinking Spence is a painted-into-the-corner sort of book. While I got him from Montana to New York all right, and got Sadie there after him, it's the next bit I'm a little fuzzy on. What I know about private islands in the South Pacific is a whole heck of a lot less than I knew about bull riders.

But recently I hopped out the window and -- bless the internet -- I'm learning. The paint is almost dry now. We're ready to go back to work. I think Spence and Sadie -- and I -- are going to enjoy that island.

If not, I remembered to pack the wrecking ball.