It sounded like a genetically altered, monster-sized rodent trying to scratch its way through my roof in the middle of the night. I might have considered the many reasons this creature wanted to get through my roof and into my bedroom at 2:00 am, but my mind was too busy imagining other explanations for the noise that woke me up. Let me assure you that the noise was real. I know this for a fact because the dog barked and my daughter got out of bed to scour the outside perimeter of the house. She gave the all clear, turned off all the outside lights and went back to bed with the instructions to “take care of the boy” (the boy is my 19-year-old grandson) if anything did happen. My reply to her was, “He should take care of me; after all, he has all those knives (my grandson has a collection of throwing knives).”

I headed upstairs and made a quick stop in the bathroom where I suddenly remembered that there was a fire extinguisher and rope escape ladder in the closet. I decided to grab the fire extinguisher and take it back to my bedroom. It would make a great assault weapon in case a pack of marauding villains or a monster-sized rodent tried to get into my room. I crawled back into bed and sat looking out the window. I scrutinized my backyard, the neighbor’s backyard, and the adjoining golf course. After feeling somewhat satisfied that we had managed to scare away whatever caused the noise, I went back to sleep.

The people who are closest to me know a secret kept from the rest of the world- I have an incredibly overactive imagination. My friends would tell you that this is an understatement. I believe the words I have heard about my imagination include astonishing, bizarre, and unbelievable. Oh, and let’s not forget dramatic.

I admit there is truth in what they say. I have been this way all my life. My imagination was my salvation as a child growing up in alcoholic and abusive homes. It helped me work out the worst case scenarios in my head in order to survive when some of those imagined ideas became a reality. My therapist once told me that I needed this survival tool as a child, but that I might need to replace it with something else now. Although it may be hard to believe, I am much better than I used to be. I try to follow Pooh’s advice to Piglet: “What if it doesn’t happen; which is, after all, the most likely outcome anyway.”

Yet my imagination is still fully intact. This brings me to my dilemma; Why can’t I write a simple story for my fiction writing class? I have been thinking for a couple of weeks and can’t come up with a single good idea. Flying fairies, talking animals, alien invasions, cheating spouses and dysfunctional people have all been turned into great stories. I don’t know if there are any more original story lines out there. Maybe it is like American Idol when they tell the contestants to take someone else’s song and “make it their own.” I just don’t know.

I have another couple of weeks before the 5,000 plus word story has to be in a first draft form for review by the professor and my class. I know something will come to me. I just hope it comes soon. As soon as that story is revised, edited and turned in, there is another one due. I think that perhaps I need follow the advice of my favorite author Anne Lamott. “Almost all good writing begins with terrible first efforts. You need to start somewhere.”