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Nearly every winter I have had to trap a flying squirrel or two in my attic and send them packing. Fortunately, I have a walk-out attic easily accessible from my 13 year-old’s closet. When she was an infant, I went on a hunting excursion and learned a valuable lesson – Don’t walk on rafters in socked feet. Yup, I slid right off the rafter and ended up perched on a 2×10 with half of me in the attic and half of me in the family room. Two of my kids and my nephew were watching a Christmas special and all three instantly yelled, “We didn’t do it!” to my lovely wife who stood looking up at my dangling feet.

I’m not sure if I caught the little critter on that trip, but it did force a trip to the hardware store where Hershel works. Hershel is the best. He’s a little old guy who is slightly stooped from years of hard work. He can fix anything better than anyone who comes in the store, but he is never condescending about:

• a) your lack of knowledge or
• b) your stupidity for breaking whatever you came in to fix.

Hershel: Morning Mark, what can I do for you?

Me: I need some drywall.

Hershel: Big project? (His eyes light up! He loves big projects – not only because of what he can sell you, but he also lives vicariously through his customers’ building experiences.)

Me: Nah, actually a really small one.

Hershel: Well, the smallest we’ve got is 4 x 8. They’re in aisle seven. Follow me.

I don’t follow and he notices.

Hershel: What’s the matter?

Me: Nothing smaller? (I look down and estimate the size of my feet, adding an appropriate amount for overage.)

Hershel knows instantly: Where’s the hole?

Me (eyes still low indicating appropriate shame): The den.

Hershel doesn’t flinch or betray just how dumb he thinks I am. Telling me how much patchwork I have in store, he leads me to drywall area and loads me up with tape, mud, sandpaper, screws, and ceiling paint.

Hershel: Once Betty checks you out, go round back. Beside the dumpster, we’ve got lots of broken pieces of sheetrock. You just pick one out and take it with you.

Me: But I really only need about four screws. You sure this is the smallest size?

Hershel: We sell ‘em by the pound. That’s just one pound – smallest we got.

I wondered what genius came up with selling a countable product by volume, but yielded to Hershel’s judgment and headed home. A few days of work and the hole was patched – good as new!

This all leads me to the 4th of July weekend. We are updating the 13 year-old’s room, making it more teen and less little girl. This necessitated a few trips to the attic to store things. You guessed it, I missed a rafter.

Can a house really be considered a home until you’ve broken through the ceiling… twice?

A trip to the store. Hershel, slowed but still knowledgeable and helpful, stood leaning against the wall as I entered.

Herschel: Hey there, Mark. What can I do ya for?

I’ve long gotten over embarrassment over mayhem and destruction I’ve caused in my home. I confidently replied: I need some drywall.

Herschel: Where’s the hole.

Me: It’s in the garage this time. I’ve got the screws leftover from the last time and I don’t need your mud and tape because I don’t care how it looks. (I look at him pleadingly).

He knows what I want, laughs, and says: Sure, go round back and get you a piece… and be more careful next time.

Filed under: Dad stuff

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by Deren Hansen

[Several people who were unable to attend my presentation last week asked about the subject. What follows is one of the topics I covered.]

There is an eternal law, inscribed into the very essence of the universe before even the gods came on the scene, that any home improvement project will require at least three trips to the store.

Don't believe me?

Many creation myths show the gods making several attempts before we get the world in which we live. Even the book of Genesis has a do-over with Noah.

Why?

Many stories are basically a series of try/fail cycles.

Consider the archetypical home improvement project:

1. Having decided to undertake some repair or improvement, you go to the store and get what you need.
2. After working on the project for a while, you make another trip to the store to get all the things you didn't know you needed.
3. Finally, a few injuries and explicatives later, you make a final trip to the store to get what you really need (as well as to replace the pieces you broke).

Of course, there are times when you make one trip because you know what you're doing and what you need. The point is that you would rarely tell a story about that activity because, a, "This was the problem so I got that part I needed and fixed it," story is boring--in fact, it's not a story, it's a recipe.

For a story to be interesting, it must show how the protagonist triangulated on a solution to a difficult problem. It's like the process of artillerymen finding the range to a target: the first shot falls short so they increase the elevation; the second shot lands behind so they dial back, but not as much as the first setting; the third shot is much more likely to hit.

And suddenly, without trying, we've discovered the three-act story structure: try/fail (act 1), try/fail (act 2), try/succeed (act 3). Each try is a possible solution and each fail shows why the solution falls short as well as ratcheting up the scope of the problem. In the realm of DIY, for example, you fail to reattach the loose tile in the bathroom because the wallboard behind has water damage, but you can't just replace the wallboard because the pipe inside is leaking.

If you scrape away all the formal baggage around, "The Three Act Structure," it really is that simple.

[That said, like any good DIY project, there's a big gap between the theory and actually putting it into practice in the form of a finished novel.]

Deren Hansen is the author of the Dunlith Hill Writers Guides. Learn more at dunlithhill.com.

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There comes a time during every vacation when I decide I'm ready to go home. Vacation is great--new adventures are great--but home... It's just home. Home brings comfort and routine; I spend less energy at home and can focus on other things. Damn I love those mountains, but until I buy my cabin, home is in Lawrence.

On Sunday night in Estes Park, while packing for home, I sank into a recliner in our rented cabin. A heavy weight pressed against me--it wasn't exactly the "grief landmine" feeling, but something close. I suddenly understood the easy comparison between losing my spouse and homesickness.

The only problem--when your partner dies, you can't go "home" again. Not to the same home.

Aimee has been gone for nearly three months now; an eternity in some ways (half of Elliot's life), but a blink in others. The first few weeks of April were muddy and slow and painful. Part of May vanished beneath "endings" (school, soccer, etc., etc., etc.). June has clipped along with my deck building project, Colorado, camps, art classes, and trips to the swimming pool. Day by day, the new normal takes root. It digs deeper. But this isn't quite home. It's a new place. A move without moving.

Baby steps...

Yes, this is why you learned the Pythagorean Theorem in high school: so you could build a deck. It's also handy for laying tile. I'm well beyond this point (attached the joists today), but I thought my students need to know that math is real. Look--I'm doing math.  Math is helping me guarantee a square corner. Yay, math!

(Somebody tell me to bend at the knees next time. My lower back is killing me.)

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Now Playing -  I Put A Spell On You by Screamin' Jay Hawkins Life - After a weekend of work and a few touch-ups, our cute little shed out front that was mostly a dog kennel is becoming a retreat for me... and the dogs. So now it's a Dog/Kris Kennel. Yay! The shed was delivered and installed a month or so ago, and a few weeks after that I installed a simple window. I used it a few times, but

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June was my least productive month since starting to write five years ago. I managed to squeeze out 12,000 words on a so-so novel. Maybe it's better than so-so. I did manage to sub one story (which is being "held for further consideration"). But as far as write 1 / sub 1... I'm a failure. I'm suffering from a severe case of the blahs right now.

Have you heard of Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs? (here's the Wikipedia primer, if needed)

During the home remodel (and yes, it has spilled beyond the bathrooms), I feel stuck on level 2: safety.

Notice "creativity" falls under the top level.

*sigh*

My wife told me to go on sabbatical. I'm not going to do that. I love writing too much.

But for now, I'm going to spend a few hours on rebuilding my home.

How's the summer in your world?

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This is our main bathroom as of 7:45 PM last night. I've only written 600 words in the last four days.

I wonder why?

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Now Playing - Crickets in the forest behind my house Life - One of these times, I'm going to get to spend my days off doing absolutely nothing and going nowhere. But for now, I'll have to be content spending it creating a nice little oasis for us to spend the evenings. AA dragonfly on the inside of the screen We finally finished the painting on our back porch last night (sort of. We actually

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Now Playing - 40 Dogs (Romeo & Juliet) by Bob Schneider Life - Man. Work sucks. Which is funny, because I don't particularly hate my job, but every day the last couple of weeks has left me feeling burnt to a crisp. Dealing with upset customers, training a new manager, losing an old manager, picking up the slack from my current main manager, employees leaving, quitting, angry because of my boss,

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Now Playing - Nothing, Lindsay's asleep in the other room... Life -  Man has the weather changed in the last two days. Tuesday, I was wearing shorts and contemplating mowing my lawn. Wednesday morning, we got near-freezing temperatures and snow in the mountains, along with a good chunk of rain in the valley. My mom's house started leaking where a windstorm had torn off her sattelite dish and

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Now Playing - Nothing, wife is asleep in the next room. Life -  My first day off of work is always an interesting one. It's called a day "Off" but realistically, I worked the entire night previously, including around eight hours on my day "Off" so that first day can be spent one of two ways, sleeping the entire time, or attempting to enjoy it. Now, I have a tendency to not mess about when I

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Life -So... apparently, someone sneaked an Alice & Wonderland style mushroom in the tart we cooked yesterday, because both Lindsay and I slept horribly and had ODD dreams. Last night it was a real struggle keeping my eyes open... It was very delicious though, and we are already planning variations, hopefully ones sans LSD.After much struggling, cursing and braving of nasty spiders, my mother and

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