Truth is Stranger Than Fiction

In my newest book (Simon’s Mother), a character (Grandpa Will) shares a story of a time his truck was accidentally stolen. This is loosely based on a true story. I changed a few details to fictionalize it. The real vehicle stolen by mistake did not have a broken gearshift. That was a different true story. Sometimes the most unbelievable things in my books are the things I didn’t make up.

While I don’t currently have plans to use these ideas, I have observed things just in the last two weeks that may one day make it into a work of fiction. There is a house I pass regularly with a truck cab propped up on stilts in the middle of the large front yard. My kids have asked me what in the world is going on there, and I don’t know the answer. But I think I could have fun inventing a reason it’s there.

Another house has a line of cement blocks in the yard. These are not decorative stones – some are even broken – yet they are lined up on their sides like a giant is playing with dominoes. I can picture someone doing this as part of some sort of challenge. I can also picture someone breaking a toe trying to tip them over like dominoes, and then having to explain the limp.

I was driving home on a highway I only travel a few times a year. The name of my exit had been changed so I almost passed it. There are no numbers on this highway, though there is a toll. If I ever need a character to get lost or be late somewhere, this is now a plausible excuse. As is the indignity of paying a higher toll because someone randomly changed the name of a street.

I don’t even have to drive to see potentially funny things. I now know eight different ways teenagers can play with an old curtain rod. If a future character is ever mercilessly mocked for commenting that a tiny piece of trash “looks like fun,” or for saying “good thing that was plastic” right before sweeping up tiny shards of glass, it’s possible I didn’t make that up. And if I ever have a character who uses a horrendous mouse that jumps backwards every time she uses the scroll wheel but she’s so used to it she doesn’t really notice it until someone else sits at her desk for a minute and threatens to hurl the thing across the room… well, sometimes I need to pause to thank God my life has so much joyful inspiration.