9 Days -- Deep Wells

Shhhh.... Here sits a working writer, working.

I'm not in the bathtub. I'm in the pink chair. But I covet this bathtub. I saw it at my friend Ruthie's house recently. We were fresh from a funeral, and everyone was somber, mostly strangers to one another, awkwardly shuffling around in the living room as the pot luck was arranged on the dining room table by too many helpers.

So I went to the bathroom, which is where I often go during awkward periods. It gives me something to do until the awkwardness passes.

As soon as I shut the door, I stuffed a EUREKA! back down my throat. Then I whipped out my camera.

I have been looking for this bathtub forever. It's deep. It's cast iron. It has a wide ledge on one side. It's simple. And I want one.

There is nothing quite so soothing to my soul as a good bath with lighted candles, a few drops of lavender essential oil in the hot sudsy water, and about six hours to kill. I do good thinking in the bath. Story knots come undone (I wonder if I can count this bathtub as a business expense?). Next to climbing Stone Mountain, the bath is the place I do my best thinking about story. (And the best thinking about nothing.)
I have lots of water-spattered notebooks from jumping up to scribble down a thought that came to me in the bath.

I bought this house almost five years ago, and I've been remodeling it, bit by bit. Now it's time for a deep bathtub. I've been waiting. It's past time, actually.

I don't want jets and whirlpools or air massage or chromotherapy. I just want a solid bathtub.

I don't care what else we do to the bathroom, actually, as long as I find a soaker tub. I'm talking DEEP. A 60 x 30 x 20 or 21 or 22"deep bathtub. And I don't want to spend $3000.

Where oh where? How oh how? I've been looking for months. Literally. It seems they don't make this tub anymore. I might be looking in the wrong places. If you know where I should look, will you tell me? I've tried bath showrooms, Lowe's, Home Depot everywhere, Craig's List, Freecycle, online sellers, ebay and more.

I wish I could ask you to do this with my novel. Where or where? How oh how? If you know how I can get to the end of my novel, will you tell me? hahaha. Not.

I used to put this Red Smith quote at the top of my syllabus for ECED422, Writing Techniques for Teachers, at Towson University: "There's nothing to writing. All you do is sit down at a typewriter and open a vein."


I want my novel to be like my dream bathtub: deep and beautiful, with a strong and sturdy throughline, a compelling story that readers (and bathers) will want to come back to again and again.

So I keep coming back again and again. I stare at the page, then stare into space, like I'm trying to see through frosted glass, into the unknown.

But I'm making progress. I'm bleeding across the page this afternoon.