Passive Characters

As I begin to write about my middle aged woman living in NYC,  I have to force her to act! The word on the writer's street is that no one is interested in passive characters. A deeper question this morning is if people are interested in passive people, i.e. myself? The best fictional example of a passive character is Muriel's mother in the movie Muriel's Wedding. This woman is flat, large, and does not react to anything happening around her, even her husband's affair. We keep watching because the tension of the story is that something big is going to happen to change her and are not disappointed. When feeling like a nothing to her own daughter pushes her over the edge, we see her finally wake up and respond.

When I think about my own life, I find that action is the most energizing thing to contemplate. I love to run and talk about running. I love to relay what is happening in my kids brains and with their friends around our Co-housing neighborhood (always dramatic). I love to write. The act of pen to paper gives voice to what I care about, on days I am not stuck behind a Muriel's Mom complex of ennui or thoughts that I am powerless to choose my own adventure.

So it is Friday morning and I have two hours to write about anything. I wonder what my characters want? What they must go through to frustrate the hell out of all of us to the point that we jump out of our beds in the morning to respond to what our dreams tell us need our attention.

My dreams were about transvestite clowns running around an apartment complex while a camera followed them in hopes of capturing humor. Nothing funny was happening which created a lot of tension for the audience, i.e. me.

My morning conflict is this, pray that I can stay in bed for as long as I want or respond to the yells of my one year old in his crib saying, "Ma ma ma ma ma," on repeat from six thirty am on. [Special note here: If you ever want to come to my house and take my kids at 6:30 am, I will do almost anything in return!] Do I write about this character who ignores a baby for her sleep? I think my answer is to let her snooze for 5 minutes, scream in her head about the competing screams, then get up and respond. The action could be drinking the coffee, burning the grass in the backyard, running around our little road two times like it is the last chance you will ever get, and then snuggling all my guys and letting them into the spaces that make me come alive.

I would like to take my love of great conversations, good dark chocolate cocoa and tickle wars and combine them with a ten mile run in the woods or a sensual story I will write down later. To push the insert button and let those moments override my house chores and grocery trips to prepare for a house full of guests. I want to be the freedom girl who welcomes strangers, lets them rummage through her cluttered closets, without apologizing. I want to sweep out the passive work of solving everyone's problems and being the proper friend so I can freely "chew on pomegranate seeds" for ten minutes without caring that I am different.