Writing is rewriting. I know this, but I forget when it comes to my writing. The passageway into a new story is precarious and bumpy, full of potholes (to-do lists), wrong turns (the refrigerator) and distractions (the internet). But if you keep going, there’s a point where you’re in, which is no guarantee the writing’s any good or the story will work, but a door opens. The characters look at you and say, “Hello, we’re in the room.”

My favorite scene from Stranger Than Fiction is when Will Ferrell walks into writer Emma Thompson’s apartment. Standing face to face with her main character, she’s overcome and can barely speak. She scans his body from head to toe and says, “Your hair… your shoes…!”

This morning I woke up thinking of Marge, pushing wisps of brown hair away from her face while punching the buttons on an old, black 1970’s telephone. Lou, whose face I haven’t seen, only the top of his balding head, is frazzled, trying to meet the needs of desperate customers in the midst of a Vermont blizzard. And Greg (that could be his name but I’m not sure) is not fully embodied, but I know the inside of his car is blue, like the outside, and the buttons on his car radio are silver. His boots are black with laces, maybe with rubber around the bottoms, or all rubber like the ones we used to buy at the cheap department store that sold rubber snow boots with felt liners, essential for New England winters. He stamps them on the ground to shake off the excess snow while waiting outside the Bennington girl’s house. I’m not sure where this story is leading but I hang onto every detail like gold, like bread crumbs, following blindly into the unknown.