Samhain Publishing Ltd Weblog

I trip UP stairs, therefore I write

No, I’m not kidding. Most people fall down stairs, but not me. Nope. I have the unique and gravitationally challenging job of tripping up stairs. I’m also the yahoo who starts to eat her ice cream and winds up with it falling down between her boobs right before her boss comes around the corner. I run headlong into the door that is clearly labelled pull, holding a coffee. I stumble over a speed bump. I bend over on the first day of class and split my pants. Did I mention I’m the teacher? My mother often told me I was special…I just always felt like it involved the short bus.

So what, right? We all do it, you say. Yeah, but mine just seem a bit more spectacularly goofy. And I’m hit double than those around me, like I’m wearing a cosmic bull’s eye.

My life the sitcom.

I used to have a problem with this, but I figured it out. See, someday, I’ll do it to my characters. Once the sting wears off a bit, you understand. Then I get to tell the funny story and still have the hahas and snorts along with everyone else. My characters will hate me, but they’re imaginary. Right?

The first day I came to this realization I was on my back. And no, I wasn’t doing THAT! See, it was winter, my university is on a hill, there was ice and a couple of cute guys had just walked towards me. My attention was elsewhere, gimme a break. So of course I fell, slid to the bottom of the hill, and looked up at the door just before my backpack came tumbling down to smack my head. I thought to myself…I am so having one of my characters do this. Only for her, it’ll be the cute boy who helps her up, not the aging brittle professor you just pulled down on top of you. The professor was fine, by the way. I had a minor concussion because of the text books. World History.

So enters the first gizmo in my writer’s tool box, experience. Grant you, most of mine have embarrassment factors of ginourmous proportions, but there you go. I guess I could have talked about how I became a writer in the first place, but this kinda explains that too. With this much happening to me it was either this or become a stand-up comic…and the guidance counsellor didn’t have that on his list that day. *Taryn Blackthorne writes in between bouts of embarassing experiences, teaching and generally trying to keep her head down. You can visit her at “a link” www.tarynblackthorne.com