I was in a bar in a casino on the California/Nevada border a few years back and this laid back middle-aged couple from one of the Dakotas told me about this place that had a back room specifically for couples who wanted to go back there and have sex. No door, even. Fucking beads. So you’d be there drinking a Bud and listening to some woman getting the good and hard business from her man. I imagined them, of course. Bottle blonde in an orange halter and a fat, bald guy sporting an earring and leather vest. I didn’t give a shit about stories or writing or any of that at the time, but it stuck for some reason.
Nowadays I can see or experience something and wander off into a story that has to be written. I know the story, I see it so goddamn clearly that I know it’s going to happen. This kind of certainty is what drives me. I don’t know what will happen, but I know that it willhappen. I dive in to find out just how characters get from one point to another.
So this is a reminder: write that story about the back room and include a stirrup ride.