Purple Yarn

SPOILER ALERT: This essay refers to a major plot development that happens near the end of Clockwise. Please read the book first! If you don’t, a highly irritable ghost will come to haunt you.

My writer friend Heidi and I occasionally talk about the purple yarn in our work, meaning the strands from our real lives that find their way into our respective stories and novels. The phrase “purple yarn” comes from something I witnessed years ago and will always remember: a red squirrel bundling up pieces of soft wool that I had set out for the birds in March and bounding off for her home tree. I have no doubt that her babies had the softest nest in the neighborhood, with my yarn woven in among the grass and twigs. I think that purple yarn is common in fiction; however, being a first-time novelist, I probably included more of it in Clockwise than is typical. Like Claire, I was a college English instructor for many years, I live in a bungalow, and I love animals. Claire is not me, but there is a lot of me in Claire.

The similarities don’t end with our basic life situations. As I was writing the book, I was fascinated to see how some of my own experiences presented themselves as transformed parts of the plot, seeming to say, “Choose me, choose me!”

An example of this is the central role the cuckoo clock plays in the book. My husband and I actually owned two Black Forest clocks before I even thought of writing a novel, yet neither of them was right for the starring role in my book. I wanted a clock that was really unusual, one that people would respond to with surprise: “Wow, I’ve never seen a cuckoo clock like that before!” I spent quite a bit of time perusing websites where photos of these German-made clocks are displayed, and I saw a lot of beautiful clocks, from tiny ones meant for nurseries to elaborate ones that seemed best suited for the great room of a castle. The clock that I eventually settled on had three owls perched on a branch above the dial and two different types of song birds positioned on either side of the clock’s front surface. Happily, I dived into writing with that clock in mind.

A problem soon arose. I couldn’t keep the owl clock in the realm of fiction! I knew that it was for sale, and I wanted it—wanted it intensely. Finally, I broke down and ordered it from Germany, telling myself that I would hang it in the study where I was writing and that it would be my muse. My anticipation was intense. I awaited the clock’s arrival. And waited. Each day, the front steps remained empty. The last day of the proposed delivery came and went, with no clock. I gave it another day for good measure and then accessed the tracking information to see which stage of its journey the package containing the clock currently was on.

My blood ran cold. According to the tracking information, the clock had been delivered two days earlier.

Long story short, the US postal carrier had brought the package when I had been away from home all day doing volunteer work. The package was insured and required the recipient to sign; if no one were available to do this, the carrier was supposed to take the package back to the post office and keep it there until I could pick it up. Instead, he had forged a scrawling signature and left this large cardboard box with its distinctive customs’ stickers on the front steps.

You can guess the rest. The package had been stolen, leaving me feeling desolate, violated, and very, very angry.

My original clock was never recovered nor the thief identified. After a long period of communication between postal employees, the owner of the shop in Germany, and me, I received a second owl clock. It was beautiful, fulfilling all of my expectations. I hung it in the study, as planned. And eventually, I translated this real-life experience of theft and loss for Claire’s story. That process salved the wound caused by someone stealing my original, beloved German cuckoo clock.

I love that fiction writers weave their own life experiences into those of their characters. Purple is a rich, vibrant color, don’t you agree?

No Fair