I’ve started reading a book about a family. The love of family is at this book’s core. The outer layers are its dysfunction. The different family members orbit around the family’s central core.

I dont read fiction very often. Perhaps for me that’s one of the effects of getting older. I can’t find a lot of fiction which I can relate to. In this way it feels as though I’m driving down a narrower and narrower lane.

Oh well. I can make peace with that. Truth is stranger than fiction anyhow. But every once in a while, while I’m reading, I feel like my little lane has a bend in it. The bend has a sudden turning, sometimes hidden by a hedge. One of those big Welsh hedges.

This book has caught me. I’m at another turn. It’s the pull to write differently. Stick to one topic and go dense and denser. Add character arcs, maybe a hero’s journey.

It isn’t the first time. Over the years I’ve written two book-long books. They didn’t go so good. No biggie; one was so fantastical, it just never really hung on the page. I guess I could spend more time re-hanging it. The other book I wrote was so realistic, it was too dry to swallow. Oops.

So now, I am reading this book about a dysfunctional, but essentially a loving family – and I feel it again. Oh boy. What do I write this time? Magical realism? Nah, I’m not in my twenties anymore. A book about my family which I embellish with dramatic truths? Not in my thirties anymore either. This would have to be the book for my forties.

Here’s an idea. I sometimes imagine years from now. When our teenage bear is no longer under the dreaded curse of having to hang out with her parents all the time.

I imagine her life in this future world. If she still means what she says to us about how lame we are. Or not. Time goes the other way then. I imagine myself at her age. I imagine saying the same things to my parents as she does now to hers. Except neither of my parents were listening much to me. They weren’t really around.

Uh-oh. Seems like a possible link here. I mean, I’m just exploring. And taking the hint, that should be fine. Teenagers on a boat sounds like a scary book title anyway. Back to the blog.