Monday Mulligan Stew

I haven't compared writing to anything lately, and yesterday as the DH and I were trying to find tires to fit on two vehicles we are having towed away, I had an analogy moment.

The first problem tire was flat and it was tubeless. When we tried to put air into it the bead of the tire wouldn't seal and the air gushed out as fast as we put it in. The DH knows many things, and we scrounged up some old Murphy's oil soap and he loosened the tire from the rim and cleaned it. Then he poured the soap around the tire at the rim and aired it up. It worked! Sometimes when you're working on a story you have to improvise or concoct a subplot to make the main plot fully inflate and stand on it's own.

The second problem was finding a tire that fit on the old pick up. It had to be a five hole rim. We had five hole rims(What farm doesn't have an extensive pile of used tires from every vehicle that ever ran on the place) The problem was they were either too close together or too far apart. The solution: the DH got out the cutting torch and made the holes on one larger so the distance apart didn't matter. It isn't safe for the road, but we just needed the tires to work so the man from the wrecking yard can roll them onto a trailer. My aha moment here was sometimes you have to manipulate your story to make it work. Like tweaking a little snippet of history or changing a character's occupation or background to make the story work.

Have you had something in life that reminded you of writing or something that had to do with your occupation?