Fear and the Ringing Phone

Last fall, I wrote a line in a work-in-progress featuring two teenagers and what I thought was a phenomenon of the younger crowd: being freaked out by a phone call.

You know, just your average, out-of-the-blue ringing phone. The same kind of call we’ve had ever since Alexander Graham Bell patented the thing in 1876. Which also happens to be something today’s teenagers are pretty adverse to because they prefer texting to talking.

So, the scene went like this: My main character (MC) calls her best friend with good news and when her BFF picks up she immediately says, “Please tell me your dad didn’t get shot.”

No, the MC says, her father (a cop) didn’t get shot.

“Christ. Why the hell are you calling then? Wait, it’s not your mom, is it?”

No, the MC says, her mother (who has cancer) is fine. And then she finally gets to the exciting, story-moving news.

I was pretty proud of myself for that scene because I felt it was true-to-life for today’s teens. That it was something that set them apart in their life experience and I felt like it worked well.

But now I’ve developed my own fear of the phone.

Weeks after I wrote that scene, I got some really horrible, shocking news. By phone. Because it’s not something you’d text and the person calling didn’t live near me.

I’ve had a huge fear of unexpected phone calls ever since. Rather than being excited when my husband or my parents call, I freak out if they call without a warning text. My brain automatically flashes horrible images through my mind of something gone wrong—a car wreck, a heart attack, an accident.

I struggle to answer or I don’t answer at all. I don’t want to hear it.

Obviously, I’m hoping that this will change for me over time. But it got me thinking: As writers and readers, we’ve all read or written a scene that takes place over the phone. It’s a utility of modern writing and it’s often crucial to deceive or PI work. Many contemporary books will also include bits of dialogue exchanged in text. Again, this is useful and normal.

How do your characters communicate? What does it say about them? Or what does it say about you?

A Love Letter to Technology

I’ve written many times in this space about how I try to regulate and maintain my writing time despite having two small children, a full-time job, and need-to-do freelance.

I talk about it so much because it’s difficult.

And I know I’m not the only one who finds it so.

You’d think our passions would come the easiest, but instead it’s often easiest to push them aside for “real” things you have to do every day—pay the bills, make dinner, give kisses every night.

I wrote in January about how I’d started the New Year trying to write at least a hundred-word snippet each day, no matter what. It was my way to avoid letting a day go by where I didn’t exercise my passion, even just a little bit. (And I’m further motivated by a sticker chart…so WIN.)

And though I’ll talk in greater detail in an upcoming post about how well that resolution to myself and sticker chart have turned out, I thought today I’d talk about something that has made me much more successful in my writing goals than I thought I’d be back when I had my daughter in September: my phone.

I’ve had various iterations of a smartphone for years, and right now I have an iPhone 6 that I got just a week after my daughter was born. Obviously, these phones are amazing inventions—little machines that can do so many things, so quickly, that I have a friend who used to call them “God phones” because it seemed like there was nothing they couldn’t do. She was kidding, but you get her drift.

With the baby (who turns six months old today!), I spend a lot of time on my phone. Not only have I spent waaaaay too much time taking and posting pictures of her, I also have managed to squeeze in a TON of writing time on my phone.

The notes function I have is complete genius. I can type out dialogue a few key lines or even a whole chapter (yep) on my phone during stolen moments when I’m feeding the baby or in the middle of cardio at the gym, and it’s right there waiting for me when I want to revisit it.

Most of the time, I type things up at night or first thing in the morning and then open the same notes app on my Mac and watch it populate with what’s on my phone. Then, I type what’s fresh into my actual Word document (I could cut and paste, but you know from my last post that I like to revise as I go) and ta-da, instant forward momentum on a manuscript.

Honestly, if any of the three manuscripts I’m working on right now ever becomes a real, live book, I’ll probably thank the geniuses at Apple for helping me carve out writing time.

Oh, and though I do enjoy handwritten notes to myself on my work, I must say this is much more convenient and eliminates the chances that I can’t read my handwriting (which happens a little too often).

In what way does technology help your writing?