"You're Gonna Need A Bigger Boat"

Last week I woke to find two feet of snow blanketing everything - that's right, feet not inches. It is not suppose to snow like this here – this is Washington not Wasilla (for which I am truly grateful). I stood in the window and watched the plow guy, normally he handles clearing the streets in our neighborhood with ease. I felt for him as struggled valiantly with the impossible task of moving that much snow. He eventually conceded to Mother Nature and left in search of better equipment, all I could think of was Roy Scheider's line in the movie Jaws after his first glimpse of the massive shark, "You're  gonna need a bigger boat."

If it was possible to be prepared for this unprecedented storm – I think I was. The night before, in case we lost power during the storm, I charged my netbook to full capacity; I downloaded my manuscript to a flash drive and downloaded an audio book– including an interview by a recent debut author - to my iPod. I made sure my Tether Berry connection was functioning so I could deliver my submission for the upcoming meeting of our Writer's Group even if our Internet provider was down. Second only to ensuring that my family, friends and neighbors were safe and secure, my next most pressing concerns were all literary. In order to survive the storm I had to be able to read and write. I heard someone one once describe a passion as something you can't not do. For me, writing is absolutely a passion.

A day later our streets were still not plowed, five uprooted trees lay across the road blocking all entrances to and from our neighborhood.  With no errands to run and no place I could go, all I could think was "Wow, now I've got more time to write!" I was just fine until the bigger boat (plow) arrived.