Utah has the prettiest snow I’ve ever seen. Right now I’m staring out the window at large, fluffy flakes of snow billowing down to the ground. I’m still wrapped up in blankets but I’m positive that I will be back to optimum health within a week or so. I have the desirable (if you have a cold), but gross productive cough and I can feel my head clearing. I could probably use another bedridden day but that is not going to happen. My entire body aches, my eyes burn a little and it hurts like heck to move but I woke up this morning and that negates any misery I might incur today. All in all, life is good, even if I’m not feeling my best.

Last night was a rather fruitful evening of writing. The more I write, the more revelations I receive about why Kelly and Ian are not characters I’m endeared to. The backstory of their life is vital and I don’t think I’ve included enough of it in the novel. Ian is a laid off autoworker. This is significant because Michigan is a state of autoworkers. The demise of The Big Three shapes the present and future of that state. I don’t go into detail about what the automotive industry means to Michigan but I should. In order for readers to fully understand Ian and Kelly, they’ve got to have an idea of what the closure of auto plants meant for Michigan.

People hate when I say this, but it’s true. Unions pretty much own Michigan. The state watching industries grind to halt on a regular basis because of union protest and the protection unions provide. A few years ago laid-off autoworkers were told they would no longer be receive 95% of their salary as the unions negotiated years ago. There were protests but these demonstrations were a little bit quieter. Why? The answer was interesting and unbelievable for some. It was becoming apparent that this was not about corporate greedy as the unions had tried to convince everyone. Was it possible that the Big Three, the companies the region relied on and rallied against for pay increases for decades had run out of money? You have to be a Michigander to understand what that truly meant for us. The majority of people I’ve known throughout my life have at least one relative working for the Big Three. There were entire families who were on their second and third generation of autoworkers. I remember listening to the stories and thinking, what happens now? Families would go hungry, suicides were committed and houses in posh areas of the state became vacant and unbelievably cheap. Bread and butter can run out if you slice the loaf to thick and don’t spread the butter thin enough.

Ian and Kelly are experiencing this great loss of income but they are also watching the place they grew up and love disappear. The empty houses in West Bloomfield, Walled Lake and Novi echo of a loss they never thought would occur. There was a sense that there would always be more money to shell out even if productivity was not great. The unions would always be able to finagle more money from the auto empires. That was what many people thought but that was not the reality.

Now that I don’t live in Michigan it’s much easier to write about it. I am far enough away from the state to see it with clear eyes. What I wrote about Michigan in Lives Lived is accurate but there is more to the story. There are reasons why Michigan is the way it is and just like Kelly and Ian, I need to put more into what I’ve written about my home state. Michigan has a story all its own that needs to be told. I have two hours to write before work. Starting now.