However, I do use characteristics of people I know and experiences I've had as well as the experiences of people who populate my non-fiction life.
My brother told me a story many years ago of a miserable night he spent in a dumpy motel, broke and scratching out a living in his tile-laying days. At the time, I'm sure he didn't find the experience funny, but when he told me the story, I got a good laugh. I knew I had to eventually use it in a book.
In The Power of Love and Murder, Jake Winters is an ex-rocker, scratching out a living laying tile. I plopped him down in my brother's story at the beginning of the fourth book of my Love and Murder Series. It's one of those funny-sad scenes I love to incorporate in my novels.
In a half-hour, naked, he slipped into bed, opened his book,
and closed his mind to money woes as he began his ten-minute meditation.
Relaxed, he focused on the book.
Sometime later, he jerked awake and knocked the book from
his chest. He was freezing. Pulling the sheet and blanket over his head didn’t
stop the chill that reached all the way to his toes. Silence. No click, click,
bonk noise of the heater. He slid one arm out, brought his cell under the
covers, and pushed a button. Four twelve a.m. Reluctantly, he turned on the
lamp, shivered out of bed, and padded three feet to the heater. He leaned over
and shut it off then turned it on. Punched low, high, and fan-only buttons over
and over, then pounded on the plastic top. “Son of a…” Switching off and on once
more got no results. His toes were iced by the outside air flowing under the
door. He grabbed his jeans off the chair and stuffed them along the bottom of
the door then climbed back under the covers.
The thin blanket and sheet were no match for the drop in
temperature. After fifteen minutes of trying to think warm, he had an idea. Out
of bed, he jogged to the bathroom and turned the shower to hot, full blast.
Immediately, the air around him warmed. The chill on his skin subsided before
he headed back to bed and yanked off the sheet, blanket, and pillow. He slipped
on his shirt and underwear and carried the bedding back to the bathroom.
The floor looked kind of nasty, but the sheet, doubled over
next to the shower, covered the old linoleum. Wrapping the blanket around him,
he settled on top, bumped his knees on the wall, and hunched his shoulders to
fit. Good thing he wasn’t a particularly big man. His legs were long on his five-foot
ten frame and difficult to fold small enough, like a stork squeezing into a
wren’s nest. Hopefully, the running, hot water would keep him warm enough to
get a few more hours of sleep.
“Ass wipe.” The curse, directed at his shyster boss, muffled
into his pillow. Another curse at himself for all the wrong decisions he’d made
that landed him in this position didn’t fully form on his lips. Instead, he
recited Step Ten. Continue the personal inventory. What the hell…this might be
a crummy hotel, and he was cold and tired, but he felt every shivering, crappy
moment of it. Not that a shot of Chopin Vodka to warm him didn’t cross his
mind. He would’ve had several and a few snorts this time last year. And
wouldn’t have felt the cold…or the hard floor…or much of anything else.
Thoughts of a few nights in crummy hotels when his band, Flash Theory,
struggled to make a name for themselves played in his head. That brought him
wondering about Ian, the English drummer who shared his
arrest date. “Bugger you, Ian.” The profanity he’d adopted from the Englishman
rolled over his tongue with a smile. He hadn’t contacted his favorite band mate
and best friend since sobriety. They weren’t a good influence on each other.
Maybe one of these days…
About an hour and a half later, Jake woke, cold again and
his legs cramping. He pulled his knees to his chest and rolled toward the
bathroom door, glancing at the ceiling. “What the…” Strips of paint hung like
confetti from a New Year’s Eve party. Had the ceiling looked like that last
night?
He scrambled to his feet, tangled in the blanket, and
tripped on the sheet bunching on the floor. Catching himself on the back of the
toilet, his hip hit the bar on the shower door. “Ow!” After turning off the now
cold shower water, he extricated his legs from the bedding and surveyed the
ceiling again. “Ah, man.” Surely he hadn’t caused that. The place was a dump.
Yeah, probably already peeling long before he turned on the shower. The time
had come to flee the motel from hell.
After throwing the blanket and sheet on the bed, he brushed
his teeth, and smoothed his beard with a comb. He ran a brush through his hair
as he squinted into the cloudy mirror above the sink. Dark curls fell onto his
forehead in spite of his effort, and he shrugged, turning from the poor excuse
of a mirror. He stuffed his toiletries in the duffle, then loped to the door
and retrieved his jeans from the floor.
His frozen jeans. Damp air combined with below
freezing wind from under the door had rendered his pants stiff.
So, next time you're reading a book, you just might be getting a peek into the author's life.
You can find all of my novels at many on line stores, one of which is, of course, Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/Brenda-Whiteside/e/B003V15WF8/ref=ntt_dp_epwbk_0
Many of my books are on Audible now too:
Audible UK
Oh my gosh, your poor brother! Trying to fit like a stork in a wren's nest is a great image!
ReplyDeleteThanks, Dee!
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