Today, I want to tell you about my friend Chadd. He's a brilliant thinker and storyteller and teacher, and for a couple of magical years, he was my across-the-hall neighbor at school. Every teacher knows how important it is to have a like-minded partner in crime to help deal with the daily bullshit that comes with classroom teaching. Chadd ranks among the best of these confidants.

Another great thing about Chadd is that he's missed his calling as a book editor.

That sounds selfish. I mean, of course, I'm sad for him that he missed his calling. However, I'm really happy for me because it means his services are cheap and available. All I had to do this time was show up at the local brewery of his choosing and open a tab.

And this is what he does: First, he says, "Give me a five-minute synopsis of your story." That's super hard for me to do, but Chadd is positive and encouraging. "Well, then this'll be good practice!" After that, we start with the questions. I've listed them in advance, and he answers them. We bat ideas back and forth. I leave with scribbled notes about which scenes to write next. Here are some examples of problems he's solved for me:

• Who left that threatening voicemail that we hear at the beginning of Minor Dramas & Other Catastrophes?
• Who is the antagonist in this story?
• What are these kids fighting about?
• What happens when this kid investigates that thing?
• I love this character, but does she have a place in this story?
• Does the protagonist have to be fighting with her husband, or is the rest enough?
• How can I connect these two, seemingly disparate storylines?
• Is this theme big enough? Who delivers these tough truths?
• Does this big moment happen in the middle of the story or at the end?
• What happens at the close of all of this? (This question is really, What HAS to happen at the end of this in order for the story to have integrity?) 

You can see how useful this is. It's like my own personal writers' room. He finds the best parts of my ideas and amplifies them. Very often, when Chadd makes a suggestion, I find the threads of that idea already written into my draft. I didn't even know the seeds were there. He's never read a word of my writing, except for my Listen to Your Mother piece. Incidentally, Chadd nailed the ending of that thing by making me cut a sentence that used to come after the last, best one.

Last week, there was an afternoon on which I couldn't find my door stop. It's the door stop I use at least five times per day in Room 111, so I was pretty irritated when I couldn't locate it.  I did a cursory look around my classroom and didn't turn it up. Next, I scanned the first floor. That's when a familiar-looking door stop caught my eye. It was wedge-shaped and rested in the middle of the hallway, two doors down.

If I'm being really honest, the door stop I saw was pretty much outside my friend Chadd's classroom. But, for the purposes of my story, let's just say the door stop in question was familiar-looking and far away from any specific classroom door.

I'm taking that door stop, I decided. I marched down to Room 116, bent over, and picked up the stop. As I was walking back toward my room holding it, another neighbor eyed me quizzically.

"I lost my door stop," I explained.

"So," said Christy, "you're stealing someone else's?"

As she said this, I realized that's exactly what I was doing. I was stealing my friend Chadd's door stop. Whatever denial I'd been exercising fell away. Still, I kicked the stop under my door and stood guiltily by as students began arriving. "It might be mine," I mumbled to Christy. She clearly wasn't buying it.

That's when Chadd showed up.

As he walked by, I blurted out, "I think I stole your door stop."

"What?" he said.

"I'm not really sure if it's yours," I said, too fast. "It might be mine. I mean, I found it outside your door."

The incredulity rolled off of my buddy, Chadd. I can't remember exactly what he said at this point, but it was along the lines of, "Give me my freaking door stop."  And I did. I did give it to him right away. And, I didn't even blame him when he took out a big 'ole Sharpie and emblazoned the door stop with a very clear 116.  "Yours is probably in your classroom!" Chadd insisted, waving his stop at me.

"It's not!" I said, but I was losing certainty. Sure enough, not ten minutes later, I found my stop (thinner and smoother than Chadd's, I'll have you know) behind my garbage can. In the days since this incident, I've endured accusations about kleptomania and dishonesty. That's #fakenews. I did have the inclination to steal, but I think we can all agree I was really bad at it and inherently honest. I'm a nice person and a good colleague.

The end.

Stealing Beanie Babies from Mac

Three stories about winning. One has stealing in it.

You might not have realized that I've been really working on my coping skills these last few weeks. It's been hard, and I've been soldiering on with very little sympathy.

Here's the story: two (TWO) of my closest pals at work have been out on leave. Robin has been gone for nine weeks already. First, she was waiting for her baby to be born, and now she's taking care of said baby. You know Robin and I actually teach a class together. We're co-teachers. So, now she's not here, and I'm still here. Plus, she's funny and nice, and she's my friend.

And not only that, Chadd, my neighbor down the hall and frequent hallway duty companion, also had a baby and went on paternity leave. He was gone for six (SIX) whole weeks. No hallway jokes, no talking about our novels in progress, no stealing each other's door stops and tape dispensers. Once again, he was gone, and I was still here.

Here's the deal, I totally support family leave. In fact, I wish we had more paid time available for workers to take care of their babies.

But (BUT) what about my loneliness and isolation?

Overall, I'm pretty proud of how I've handled this. I haven't even cried one time. However, today when Chadd came waltzing back into the building, I felt very happy. Fulfilled. Like things were once again right.

There might have been a group hug. They'll be an even bigger one when Robin gets back in two weeks. All together.

Just the other day, I wrote about how the solution to GCMB (Golf Course Murder Book) was going to be to write from the beginning, ten thousand words in a row.

But then, I had happy hour with my friend and story editor Chadd, and he told me that what I actually had to do was write the murder scene as committed by each of my seven suspects. He said, "Don't write this as Kathleen West, Author. Just write bullet points."

I did more than bullet points, but it's just an outside story about why each of the people in my novel would have killed Kit, how they got the means, and then what they might have actually done. Golf club to the head? Golf cart rolled back and forth over her neck? Shotgun from outside the fence? 

While I've been working, the exact place of the death has also taken on some significance. I might write some backstory today about Hole 6 of the Harmony Valley Golf Course. None of that, obviously, contributes to my first ten thousand words, but also? I'm learning a lot about the story. I think and hope all this thinking and bad writing will hasten my process down the road.