You Need a Plan to Survive the Next Four Years

I have one now – do you?

Photo by Nat on Unsplash

Since the election, anger, fear and grief have crowded out all my happiness and joy.

I’ve spent far too much time expressing these feelings on social media, and that’s not good for anyone. But along with my plan to save money and stock up on household necessities, I’ve come up with a more important survival plan. 

It involves writing

On my birthday in 2021, Google doc versions tells me, I started writing a novel with the working title The Mother. From time to time, I’ve returned to the manuscript, but many other projects and responsibilities kept demanding my time. Grief after a death in my family kept me from it for quite a while. I’ve published several other books and started this newsletter since then, but from time to time I try to work out a few plot twists in my head.

This morning, I realized I want to spend less time engulfed in my anger about the voters enthusiastically flushing democracy down the toilet. There is not much at all I can do about that now, and obsessing about it is only hurting me.

Creating something is a better use of my time and passion.

So: The Mother. It takes place in the near future. Elliott is a woman whose father was a multi-billionaire tech leader who left her an enormous fortune. What she decides to do with it is rather … unique. 

This novel combines my interest in income inequality, hatred of authoritarianism, my fear of billionaire tech monsters, my concern for where reproductive technology may go, my strong opinions about good parenting and quite a bit more. I don’t think there’s another book like it.

The word count is less than 6,000 so far; I expect it will take me another year to complete it. But I’ll share the first chapter as it is now. Don’t be surprised if it changes later. 

If nothing else, it might take your mind off all the terrible things that are happening. Yes, do what you can to get involved and stay informed, but you also need some peace. I plan to read more, write more, bake more bread, spend more time with friends and family, take more walks and try to sleep more. 

Here’s the first chapter of The Mother. Now I’m committed to finishing it!

Chapter 1 

Galileo

He was in trouble again. 

He didn’t want to do the stupid science experiment. Dr. Field had done his worst — threatened to tell Mrs. Walker — if he didn’t do the homework. He was supposed to collect samples from his bathroom counter, from under his fingernails and a few other places, and then seed a petri dish full of agar and then take notes of the different bacterias that grew there.

Nanny Mona had promised him secret chocolate if he did it, but he had still refused. The fact was, he didn’t like science and didn’t understand why he couldn’t play the piano, like Mozart. Mozart didn’t even like music. They’d switch places if they could.

“Come now. What will the Twos think if the Ones are naughty?” Nanny Mona had said, after she found him in Mozart’s piano room. The two of them had been banging on the piano, having fun, Mozart’s teacher having slipped out as he so often did. Mozart got away with murder; Nanny Taryn and Dr. Horvath were not as strict as Nanny Mona and Dr. Field were.

In the end, Nanny Mona and Dr. Field had forced him to do the stupid, boring experiment. He and Dr. Field had put the petri dish in its special place and would take it out and look at it every day.

He already knew it was going to grow gnarly stuff. That was the whole purpose of it. If you already knew exactly what it was going to do, that wasn’t science. That was playing. 

That’s what Galileo thought, anyway. At least he did get secret chocolate from Nanny Mona. She’d get in trouble if Mrs. Walker ever found out, but they were careful. They always tore the packaging into tiny, tiny pieces and flushed it down the toilet.

“Everybody needs at least one secret, Galileo,” Nanny Mona had said. “This one is ours.”

Mozart and Nanny Taryn lived next door to Galileo and Nanny Mona in Enlightenment with all the Ones, Twos and Threes, but the two nannies weren’t friendly. Nanny Mona thought Nanny Taryn careless. Galileo had heard Nanny Taryn call Nanny Mona the B word.

Galileo wanted to ask Mother if he could take more music lessons. Everybody had an hour of music a week, but he wanted to have music every single day. It was his favorite thing. Nanny Mona said she’d ask Mrs. Walker, but that he must not breathe a word about it during Family Hour. 

About Michelle Teheux

I’m a writer in central Illinois. If you like my work, subscribe to me here or on Medium. My most recently published books are Strapped: Fighting for the soul of the American working class and The Trailer Park Rules.