Ruby Drags Me Into Her Web

Cross legged, sitting on my couch I stare out at the swaying palms that flip about in the wind. A sudden fear rips through my body. Will I ever finish my novel? Ruby has gone through three life-times in three different versions of her life. She has traveled to ancient Mesopotamia, ate hot dogs at Ebbets Field and smoked pot, lost her virginity and channeled Mary Magdalena. Will I create the necessary plot points to make the readers glued to their seats? Is Ruby a schizophrenic, a prophet or just an average girl with a wild imagination? I twist and turn her body and mind and she twists and turns mine. She is under the bed, in the closet, jumping off a cliff. I am free falling with her, afraid that she will kill herself and grab my ankle so we both pummel into the abyss. I drop into despair, jump up in glee and wake up at night wondering if she will commit suicide or marry the boy next door…..So who is Ruby writing for? Why does she want to tell her story? Does she want to be on the top best seller list and have everyone know how crazy she is? Is it true if she self publishes her story that she really doesn’t exist. Why doesn’t she leave me alone?

Over and over she hears voices, “You can’t write for yourself. You have to write to get published. You are only an author if you get an agent.” Ruby doesn’t care; she just wants her story told. Unconscious arrows are slung at the her heart of her expression, “Too much dialog, too little dialog, too much narrative, not enough conflict… does the opening sentence have a dynamic hook? Ruby screams, I don’t care. I just want to be seen and heard.

“Do you want others to read your story?” I poke at her face.

Ruby breaks a chair. “I am living my life for me, not for you.” How high are the stakes if Ruby doesn’t follow the rules? She doesn’t care if everyone hates her, or that there is no happy ending. Doesn’t care if she speaks in metaphoric tongue. Doesn’t care if she has a climax. Well maybe she cares about having a climax, but maybe there isn’t any resolution to her climax… maybe the climax hangs in mid-air without a place to go. Eternal climax.

So will Ruby publish, perish or live her own damn life? Will she try to get an agent or be her own agent? Or will she drop to her knees and pray for an answer to all her problems. Ruby is alive and well and she doesn’t want to perish for sure, wants to be published, but it will take many prayers for it all to happen.

I am dragged through the sheets at night hoping that Ruby will tell me everything. I need to know about her… but I have to promise her that I won’t allow others to tell her who she is and how she wants to tell her story. I wonder. I cry, I eat three Hershey’s, a bag of chips, scream, doodle on my pad. Draw the shades and write.