Saturday, December 24, 2011

Countdown to more random fiction fun

I don't care, I'll still be writing during the apocalypse...

In 2012, my hard-core efforts will include (no worries, it's just a better word for "not quite jaded yet!"):
 Oh my God, I almost forgot Paperclip Safari—don't forget to spay and neuter your clips next year, everyone!

Sunday, December 11, 2011

New winter artwork

Phase One: create and upload the new artwork — complete.

Next... write this week's story, involving a woman who risks freezing beneath the Tidal Basin (near the Jefferson Memorial).

Monday, November 7, 2011

Text blocked... again!

(Insert awesome blog post containing a fantasy fiction story too long for a blog format that is supposed to help build my platform as a writer, here.)

:)

Wednesday, October 12, 2011

Party in Mount Pleasant




Jawbreak Blue, Chapter Seven: A Party on the Pleasant Mountain

When last we traveled with Gyra, Dansel Darrons and their Boatman Stinson, the three had just finished up a holiday at the biggest Red-And-Gold-Reserve any of them had ever seen.  Their time at the Anacostia River resort and casino had also refreshed them—happily—and refunded them a bit of tangible fortune—finally—such that they could continue on their adventure through post-apocalyptic 2012 Washington, DC…

Stinson, though he’d left their boat behind (and it also did possess a gasoline engine), still went along using the lone wooden oar as his walking stick. As they hiked up out of the Columbia Heights subway station, he ignored the swell of echoing young-people’s argument, or love spat, or God knows what it could have been coming out of Dansel and Gyra: 

“A gentleman will not insult me, and no man not a gentleman can insult me.”

“You already used that one back in Anacostia, Dansel—and what are you calling me now, a man? You’re such an ass!”

Wednesday, October 5, 2011

Revenge of the writer's block

Gah!  My mortal enemy strikes again... also, I've been busy creating the new Fall background.  But, at least one of the latest doctor cat comics made me a little happier:

http://doctorcatmd.com/2011-09-02/human-nurses-suggestions

Enjoy!

Wednesday, September 21, 2011

Random Skeevy Writing Contest vs NPR

Once upon a time, a long time ago, I decided to make a brave second attempt at submitting something of mine to a literary contest.  The first literary contest I'd ever entered was most likely a scam.

I had to send them my piece and then twenty dollars and then last year's winner would choose this year's and then I didn't hear back for several months after the deadline and the typeface on the rejection postcard was crooked, and by then it didn't matter anyway because the crying was already done—Oh writers!  We do get into our 'I NEEDZ PURBLISHED!' shennanigans now and then, don't we?  That stupid scam became the bad ex-boyfriend throttling my future shy attempts at contest-writing.

Wednesday, September 14, 2011

Empowering Pathos


When animals are sad

I know creatures who'd rather die before they wait,
I don't see them around anymore.

I know of a bird whose soul got so sad,
He lost his heart to open wings and soar.

And you don't know how painful pain is,
Till you meet a cat insomniac who won't take naps anymore.

Tuesday, September 6, 2011

Parents for your Protagonista


This is some freewriting I once did for another unpublished novel manuscript I have.  To get a sense of the protagonist Nirra's parents, I wrote them without her, alone in their own home--and then in two moods:  happy together, then irritated with each other.  I recommend this exercise to any writer who gets writers block whenever they try a scene with new characters.

Parents Happy

Zeersheba lay on the couch, fanning herself.

“I learned something interesting today, husband.” She lifted the fan over her dark face and let the large white feathers pause artfully in the air before she relaxed her wrist and they dramatically bowed under her gaze.  And his wife had impossible tiny braids woven in and out of a tight crown, almost an flute resting at the back of her head.  Her brow was a black egg.  Impossible, perfect.

Wednesday, August 17, 2011

A Day with Odeon, part 2


In which Grace still doesn't... get the whole were-horse dealie.

It was a rainy day when Odeon surprised Grace next.  She was busy picking apples, and saw him waving at her from afar.  He was drenched.  She was tempted to run, but even from at her distance, she could tell that he was shivering.  Against her better judgment, she invited him inside.

“Where is your horse on this day?  What is her name again?”

“Her name is Radiance.”  Odeon smiled.  “We decided on it after visiting you the first time—she just couldn’t stand not having a name like your horse.”

“Yes, Daisy has… a good name.  But yours is beautiful, Radiance.”

Radiance danced out of Odeon’s grasp a little, pleased at her ability to be so charming, she could get treated as well as any talking sort of animal.

Wednesday, August 10, 2011

Yet Another Day with Odeon

Your favorite deranged were-horse is back!

Odeon looked at himself in the mirror.  It felt good to be a man.  It had taken him months to perfect the transformation, and now, he felt that he had finally reached the peak of his powers.  Awkwardly, he stretched and flexed the many muscles in his hands.  To have hands… that was how men were the masters of things.  With hands, one could scrape, claw, and slash.  Hands could grab hold of something, or wield a weapon, pull reins on a horse.  Trembling a little with the new feeling of reaching for something with a forelimb, Odeon now grasped the mirror with a tinge of relief.  He held it in a stranglehold, fearing that he might drop it at any moment.  The precious platinum filigree intertwined in branches and flowers along the mirror frame.  The silver surface beamed bright sunlight into his face.  The delicate metal pinched his fingers, and he relaxed his grasp, though reluctantly.  He had no idea how much force it would take to manipulate something so fragile.  But then, he realized his own careful hold could damage the object as well.  Slowly, he eased his grip.  It amazed Odeon how the tips of his fingers embraced the object as easily as if it was a natural extension of his very ethereal will.

“So this is the magic of using tools…” Odeon thought aloud.

“Maashterrr.” An inhuman growl filled the open doorway.  Odeon turned to his servant, a pig turned man.  The spotted swine had been a farm animal until he and some faithful companions made the daring move to help the Lord of Beasts.  Odeon’s hooves had been chained to the ground, his mouth gagged with a bit that made it impossible to move his head where he would have wanted.  Odeon had been at the mercy of men, and the swine, more populous than their human keepers, overwhelmed the men one day and helped Odeon to escape.  Eventually, they swore their lives to him and his cause.  Odeon shared his powers with them, teaching them how to speak like men, and transforming them so that they could use fingers as men did, and be swift on two feet.  When he learned to speak, the black and white spotted swine said the farmer had called him Jasper.  Jasper, one of few guards who had names, was Odeon’s head guard. 

“You must be more careful to pronounce your “s”.”  There is a difference between “sh” and “ss”.  Do you hear it?”

Jasper twisted up his long snout thinking about it.  Then he growled shh and sss over and over until he realized the difference.  “Masssterr.” He tried again.

Odeon did not laugh at the animal’s primitive efforts at speech.  Learning to speak again was a noble effort for all animals, and he intended for every animal to regain this capability, as he had, so that they could put aside their savage bestial differences and remake the world as it was.

“Am I convincing, Jasper?  What do you think?”

“You look more better than the Farmerssh.”

“Farmers.” Odeon said, enunciating the s at the end.

“Faahrmersss.” Jasper repeated.

“Good, then.”  Odeon rose from his seat at the vanity and faced the pig man.

“My goal is to look like a powerful human.  I believe this form is best.  Too many muscles make me look a brute, but this figure…”  Odeon smoothed large hands down lean stomach muscles of his long torso, lengthened the look of his narrow hips in the mirror to make his point, “I like this take best.  This is lanky,” he nodded with emphasis, as if teaching Jasper a lesson.  “A human man of noble birth might have this jawline as well, and this smooth brow and a long, straight nose.  Like mine.  Like mine?”

“Only maybe I like it.  All humansss be ugly to me.”

“No--All humans are ugly to me.  And it’s damned better than Odentalis once was, that’s for sure.”

Jasper repeated the correction, and Odeon chuckled.  It was a hearty, booming laugh.  Jasper flinched. 

“I do not like that sound.”

“I think I do.  It feels good to laugh… perhaps this is how a dog feels when he barks?  But, it’s peculiar.  It’s not offensive, is it?  It’s an expression of a shared positive emotion.  It is good to make and hear.  I wonder how other humans will react to it.”

“You need clothes.” Jasper grunted.

Odeon agreed.  He pulled a long, wavy, silken lock from over his shoulder.  His hair was black, oddly black.  Blacker than a starless night, than ink, than a raven’s feathers. 

“It has an odd quality to it, doesn’t it?  I have seen stone like this… obsidian I think.”

Jasper grunted his approval.

“Thank you Jasper.”

“You are welcome, Master.” Jasper rubbed his snout against his brown tunic, and turned to leave, but Odeon grabbed his shoulder.

“Use words.”

“I will go and fetch you clothing, Master.”

“Good.  Bring clothing of the same color… it is important what humans wear.  I have spent a long time watching them.  Bring as many pieces as you can.  Get others to help you.”

“Yes Massster.”

“And tell Matriarch Cirra that I will walk among the humans today.  I do not think I need protection, but have her keep agents close by.  She is to stay here.  Make sure that she does not follow me herself.  That is an order.”

Jasper tossed his head in salute.  It was a purposeful toss.  Once up and then down.  It was something that all animals could do, because it built on animal behavior.  That it was done only once distinguished it from any natural gesture.  All who served the Lord of Beasts, and there were many, knew it well.

Odeon rode into town on a beautiful white mare.  Many onlookers remarked at how unkempt she looked.  She was clean, but her mane and tail were tangled and but were unusually long.  This mare kept tossing her head to keep the long wavy locks out of her eyes.  Still, it was evident that the horse had noble origins and remarkable bloodlines.  She stood sixteen hands high, but still had a strong hindquarter and swift, agile legs, much unlike the thick warhorses villagers were used to seeing.  Their own horses were sturdy workhorses, and these grew nervous and jittered out of the way of the white mare when she passed by them.  Stallions became unusually docile and shy.  She wore no horseshoes.  When her rider clucked his tongue and she trotted, the fullness of her personality came out: she was elegant, could be bold, even wild, but she was choosing to be obedient.  She focused on it.  When her master alighted in the town square, this white mare kept her muzzle just over his shoulder and followed him everywhere, though he did not hold her reins.  Both rider and mount were decorated in very old, exotic riding gear that no one recognized. 

A woman leading a younger, bay mare hitched to a cart yelled and swore when her own horse stopped mid stride, then turned them over the cobblestone without any direction whatsoever.  The bay took off after the strolling nobleman and his white mare.  This pale carthorse clashed with the mature mare near the well and statue set up at the humble brick crossroads.  The freer animal reared up at the other.  The woman driving cart and holding on for life, would have certainly lost her horse to a broken leg or herself to a snapped collarbone if the strange nobleman had not intervened at the right moment.

“Daisy!” the human woman shrieked. 

The huge white mare stayed up on two legs.  Heavy, unshod hooves stuck and pawed menacingly through air, for their heads.  Now the young bay was terrified, and tried to stagger backward, but the rocking cart was a hindrance.  That was when the man in white jacket ran up from behind and stood directly under his beast.  He didn’t say anything.  He spread, then raised his arms.  People all around had been shouting, they now hushed one another, because he must have said something, some magical word…
His white mare stayed on her strong hindquarters and relaxed her forelegs, as if a circus horse.  But this was not a trick.  She looked made for war and everyone else felt it—she was ready and angry.  This animal, who could choose her obedience, had amazing control over every single muscle. 

The nobleman lowered his arms.  She let herself down, chewing, snorting because holding the position for an unnatural while, for him, had in fact strained her.  Down.  She got down.  She balanced on fours again.  Then, a toss of mane, one ear strayed easily back and she leaned on a fourth fetlock like it was all nothing.  Just a girl-fight.

“I apologize for this horse.  Usually she is very docile, not at all disloyal.”

The cartwoman gazed up into the man’s eyes.  They were large and dark.  His skin was pale, as a woman’s should be, but his strong, lean body proved otherwise.  This man smelled, looked, spoke of exactly the wrong sort of intensity with every movement.  He had his back to his white mare, as if he disproved of her behavior, but then he set a hand on his hip, into his pocket, and leaned into the same careless, better-than demeanor.

“Lamont.”

“Who?  Oh, Lord Lamont,” she blushed, “That’s your name.  I’m Grace…” the woman managed.  Lamont smiled because he had not told her that he was a Lord of anything, yet somehow she’d sensed him and found it out.  Ho-um, all simple creatures in this brief domain do tend to…

“There is a beautiful poem about grace…” is what he began to say, though he hadn’t been thinking of it, “Men have always adored this word.  Is it that you possess that same delicate beauty and strength?  Grace?”

The woman hastily told her horse to shut up, because it was snorting and such.  Townspeople laughed and began to re-arrange themselves according to business.  The wheels underneath those two swerved.  It caused the cart to sway in a certain, lonely, familiar ache. 

“Strength?”

“Yes… how is it possible to be beautiful but not strong?  In nature, those things that are fragile are weak, and doomed to die.  To be strong is to be beautiful, of course it is.  And to be beautiful, I believe, is to be, also sexually pleasing… it is the way that we choose partners… do you know what I mean?”

They were now closer together.  Very few good townsfolk had heard that.  Surely, not.

“Ehm… I don’t know your meaning… I am not a woman like that—”

“Why are you alone?”
“Because I do the best that I can…”

“Men are for women, and women are for men, are they not?  We are made to fit together, to serve one another.  This horse,” he nodded over his shoulder, “Is a perfect example.  She is beautiful.  Don’t disagree with me, now, she’ll kick you.”

“Well, yes, definitely, she is… Ehrm, I shouldn’t be seen alone here, really…”

“Yes, this mare is perfect.” Lamont smiled fondly, “Well tempered, strong, beautiful.  She is the perfect match for a good stallion who is also beautiful and strong.  It makes sense.  She is for him and he is for her.”

“I fear I am… afraid of whatever you are talking about.  To me, in the daylight.”

“It doesn’t have to be daylight—” then the horse said something horse-like and cut Lamont’s charming, right off.

“My Lord… can I serve you in some way?  I’m afraid that I don’t understand what it is you want, and I have to go to market before they all leave.”

Odeon laughed and then looked this woman over.

“You do not find me desirable then?”

The woman blushed redder.  It was certainly, certainly not polite to speak openly of these things.

“Then you do not.”  The playful smile on his smooth face cooled.  “Have a good day, Madam, I’ll not keep you any longer.”  He walked to his horse.

“Sir!” Grace did not know what to say, but did not want him to leave. “I … I have an orchard.  It’s near the end of the forest.  I sell fruit… After I drop this off for the people waiting on me… I’m headed back there in a little while.  Would you like a fresh apple?”

The white mare pricked up her ears, but when Odeon looked to her sharply, she pretended not to have heard.  

“How, my lady, did you know that I like apples?”

“I… you know, I just guessed.  Lots of people like apples… and if not for you then for your horse.  To make up for startling her earlier.”

“You’re not the one who owes me.”

“I know that, but—”

“…unless I make you feel that way.”

Odeon studied the woman.  He was not impressed by her.  She did not look strong, or particularly attractive, or even smart.  He did not know what a man was supposed to find attractive in a woman… she wore a faded blue dress that covered her completely.  He could see nothing of her body… he realized that her body would look nothing like his own, and there was no way to know whether this woman was desirable or not from just meeting her.  He would need to get close to a woman, very close enough to learn what was under the clothing.  Thinking of her undressed gave Odeon an odd sensation.  It was new to him as a man, but not as a male.  He smiled wickedly at having recognized it at last.

“I think she would like that.”

This white mare whinnied high, heady, too-timely laughter.  In that it was almost fully sentient, coming from an animal, made it sinister. 

...
Next:  Not sure if I'll provide a part two. So, either a second part to this or another, sillier, horse story... inspired by WWE.

Fun Note: If Odeon seems very completely different from his role in Mi'Raah, then it's because this is an older free-write I did, and so he's been written closer to how evilly he behaves in another of my novel manuscripts.

Wednesday, August 3, 2011

Her Hand, 2

Her Hand, 2: Toes, Stripes, Claws
Maera knew that her husband believed she was ugly.
But she did not.  Maera had gained weight and her bust slackened over decades, and she always had crooked toes and stretch marks.  But, she did not feel repulsed by her aged body.  Maera was comfortable with the tiger’s stripes along her hips.  Those almost orange stains against her dark skin had been there since college.  She loved them.  Secretly, she was glad to have them, and when she became pregnant, they darkened and spread, which made them better.  Now they were a beautiful bruised carmine where she was most womanly.  But how did it all look together?
If it were up to nature, Maera would not be capable of seeing her entire body.  She was unable to see past her breasts and stomach.  She was also able to see her hand on her leg when she was walking, her feet flashing in and out beneath the hem of her skirt as she moved about the house doing chores.  Left up to God, Maera only knew her elder form from perspectives when she was working and providing for her husband.  But, with the help of a mirror, Maera saw things that were rippled or puffy.  Those parts of herself made her feel frightened and worry about her husband’s aging, particular heart.  But, then, those tigress stripes were still loud and consistent. 
Also, ever since Maera could remember, her small toes had always curled up on flip flops and the nails would point out.  Now, her toes were larger and could appear ashen even when it wasn’t summertime.  But, she loved her crooked toes as well.  Maera accepted that her body would always be raw or misshapen no matter how she shaved or paid someone to tame it all down for her.  Long ago, she had been this fond of her great parts.  The firm and the flush had empowered her to try seducing a man who’d she’d seen walking on the wrong side of 16th Street.  Every day she saw him, and on one day, she removed her shawl, stood with her skirt in a wind, and he came at her through traffic. 
Years later, when Maera had their baby, those good parts of her body frightened her.  They’d started to sag and change.  They threatened to repulse her beautiful husband and never come back again if she didn’t work hard to appease them and right away.  But the clawed toes and the tiger stripes, they were powerful in that they refused to leave her.  These eventually defined her.  Maera was amazed at how these must have loved her, to make her still seem unique as she aged. 
Maera was once a weird, intense pubescent girl.  Now she was a powerful, unusual-looking woman.  Strangers thought twice about taking a seat from her on the bus if she wanted it.  Then she could rest and feel refreshed for her husband.  She could bully into the grocery line first, get her husband’s dinner home and done the fastest.  They backed out of the way, ushered their children far from the crazy, unhealthy looking, tough old lady—the one who shouldn’t still be living the way she weaved and leaned as she walked.  It was as if she’d grown a bull’s wide horns.  Once, Siuta had called her a cow.  But she’d kept these markings and methods just him. Was that what he was also seeing, of the woman he loved? 
Who was Siuta?
Tonight,
Maera sat alone at the table with her paw upturned.  It had been dissected.  Her mate, Siuta, must have wanted to see where her claws had always come from.  Were they retractable?  How was she able to get to him when he was well off on his own, eating his own dinner, changing his own television, and should have been safely out of nagging’s reach?  How was his wife able to latch on when he was a grown man and wanted to get away?
Maera loved her husband as she watched him pace and fret around the loud living room.  She realized that she always missed him when he should have been nearby.  Siuta didn’t look at her in the right way anymore.  Always from the side of his eyes.  Nor would he speak to her directly. Always from beneath his breath.  So, she tugged when he showed an opening and got his tongue going, pawed at it until he might admit something meaningful to her.  She’d say anything to keep Siuta going when he got started.  But Maera did not ever hear her chiding words, she was truly purring in her mind.  Yes, she would annoy him, tease him, do the things he precisely did not like.  Because she liked his angry energy.  She wanted to see him struggle and exhaust himself.  Maera wanted Siuta to admit to defeat on some evenings, and allow her to draw him near to herself again, curl him up, surround him with her warm, beating stripes and then point toes to the world to defend them.
Siuta was on the phone now, with an ambulance.
“She’s bleeding out, she’s cut something.  We were fighting--arguing over the sugar, the sugar in my tea, so simple, and now her hand is split wide open…”
Siuta’s tan pants were up to his true waist and the brown belt was neatly fixed where it should be.  His free hand was shaking.  He hooked fingers in a belt loop to try re-adjusting it, but his waistline was still perfect.  He had always been that sort of man.
Was she in any pain?  Maera decided that her head was filled with only purring and loving him, as she watched her husband’s slender back turned.  And Siuta was sweating.  The yellow kitchen lights did it, and the hot water in a screaming kettle on the stove, ready for more controversial tea was doing it.  But it was Siuta’s worry for her also, making him exhausted tonight.  Such a bad man.  Such a good man. 
A man who left a knife on the table alongside her cut palm, and a toothpick.  There was a ballpoint pen pointing in the blood too.  So white.  So loud, wide and silent in the orange room.  Maera wanted to lay her head down.  She also wanted to lift it back up, but this was too difficult.  That involved awakening.
Maera, when she did try well enough, was able to see all the things her husband had removed surgically from her hand.  These were things they had not seen together in years.
That nasty poster of over-the-desk Jessie.  Their first remote control.  His half of the bedsheet, now soaking up most of the blood, lay over one side of the table.  His pair of socks that she decided she was going to wear anyway.  An old picture of them in swimsuits from back when she could convince him to wear that, and run toward her through traffic.  In this photograph, they were on one of those vacations on television.  Everyone else was their age and perfectly tight beautiful, playing in the green water on the horizon, but she floated out of her bikini a little.  One could see all of her stripes and all her teeth in this old, red-stained picture.  Siuta was foolish back then.  He was busy looking behind himself, for the sharks.
This commercial she loved, because Siuta claimed he hated it, now returned to the television.  He leaned out of the kitchen, a coil of their old telephone chord tensed against the doorpost where it snagged.  They listened to the terrible thing together. 
“…an affordable romantic package that includes a wedding on the beach for just the two of you.  Perfect for lovers who want to get away and just obey their sweetest instinct.” 
Call 1-800-FOR-LOVE.
Doorbell and confident knocking.  Before he let the paramedics in, Siuta wrapped all of his things in the bloodied sheet and rushed the bundle back into their bedroom.  Their absent daughter warned, a thousand times, that she was moving out so as not to seem them finally do something like this.
Maera saw the whites of her husband’s eyes, at last.  She swore that she could smell his fear aso, it was like the taste of copper.  Maera also felt herself smiling, though she knew she was angry.
“I love you, I’m afraid for your life.  Now will you stop baiting me, you crazy woman?”
“I drive you crazy, Siuta?”
“Yes, we’re even!  Now, what are you going to tell them for me?”
“Good then, Siuta.  I drive you crazy.” Her fingers spread through the pain, reaching for the door that was not as loud as the television set, asking to open.
Siuta did not have to go and do it.  He could have maimed her, turned his back, waited through critical moments, then have them in and ended it.  His wife had ugly toes.  She had these nasty stretch marks he begged her to do something about.  But, in a way that he did not understand, Siuta felt he should open the door so that his wife would not lose her strange and powerful hand. 
He was worried that the paramedics would cuss right away and be disgusted by her claws when they bandaged them.  But they went at her with cool focus and worked swiftly, as if Maera only had a woman’s fingers.
-fin-

Coming next week: I'm not really sure... maybe a little Steam Punk?  We'll see.

Randitty-o-Meter = 8
PRINT: Cause I really wrestled with that last line. Came out good, though.



Wednesday, July 27, 2011

Her Hand, 1

Part One: The Shark Wife

Siuta uncurled his wife’s fingers from around the sugar packet.

“No, you don’t get to decide.”

“But it’s too much!”

“This is only sugar, this is only what I want to drink, what is wrong with you?”

She now used these swollen, worked hands to make fists against her skull.  Maera began to cry and cry that she didn’t know any longer.

“It’s bullying, that is what this is.  You always ask me what more do I want, you make me go and get bread from the refrigerator with my dinner when I couldn’t want that.  You ask me if I want a knife when I don’t need it, you tell me to go back and put gravy when I don’t always need gravy on my chicken!”

“Siuta, it’s our dinner, it’s supposed to have everything.”

He calmed his voice.  Siuta scratched white stubble along his jaw.  “And this is only tea.”
Maera shook out her hands, leaned over and turned up the television set.

“Hey, you didn’t ask me.  You’re doing it again—”

“I am not.  You said that I always asked you and so now I’m not asking you and now you don’t want that.  You can’t do that, Siuta.”

They were fine.  Their walls were orange.  The smaller fold-out table their daughter had left for them after she graduated college had a red cloth over it, edged in many balls of fuzzy decoration.  When it wasn’t hot outside, it felt hot inside, because of Maera’s colors.  And, when it was hot outside, it was hell in here.

Siuta sipped his disgusting lukewarm tea and relaxed.  He wasn’t wrong to have complained.  She wasn’t wrong to have misunderstood.  But then, during a commercial for taking a dream vacation, with young couples chasing each other on the beach, and tanned young arms hugging over the pale waistline of a bikini as underwater flashed on the camera, Maera threw her arm, knocked the tea, and clawed into his palm.  Siuta shouted.  His wife set her teeth as the camera raised and panned over a vast, green ocean that promised paradise.

Siuta was aware that he had been doing this since boyhood, and was still doing it—he’d react to the sight of a beach, or any stretch of clear water, by first scanning its surface for the thrill of a shark’s fin piercing it.  Maera, digging nails into the clear skin of his hand, was the shark coming up.  She knew that he’d been looking for her.  It was his fault, for taunting her to come these last twenty-five years.  Cruel, savage sea-monster.  For her seduce him once upon a time ago, with sweat and the waggle of her body, back when her skin wasn’t so rough.  Before she’d gone so gray.  He’d fallen right in, ended his bachelorhood and believed her fast, salty lies.

“A woman can love a man, Siuta, and it’d be simply fun, a relief.  Look at me, feel all over me and know that I would relieve you.” Catch and stay by her, wade a little as she circles.  She needs you, even to eat you.  That is just a man and a woman, then a wedding, the natural way of things.  Then, she said, “I’d tell you to grow some balls and ask me it already, but I can feel, now, that you’re partway there…” Maera laid down for him, but she was not really under him.

Siuta shouted at his wife today, “Well! We are not playing around now, anymore, are we?” And then, he simply overpowered her.  There was the thrill of sex again, after so long—finally, it felt he was the true alpha between them.  Fara had been conceived out of her mother's demand for a child, they both understood that.  And Maera wouldn't have a son for him, either.

Siuta was not in love with his wife anymore, no.  His clothes were on, and hers had to stay on now too.  But, the hot, freeing rage was back.  They had been armwrestling the sugar vessel, and Siuta reversed Maera’s grip.  He forced her down at the shoulder, like a cow—it was how she was built—and then he used his other hand to spread out his wife’s fingers.

Maera licked her teeth with the edge of her tongue, submissive, or in too much pain?  Tentative to the scream that would get the neighbors through their walls and make him angriest.  Enough to break her fingers before anyone could get by her side.  It felt as if he were already doing it.

Siuta took the sugar out of Maera’s hand.  “Look at it, look what you are always taking from me.” He scratched the thick, clear skin of her hand with his dull fingernail.  “And it’s still all there, since I was twenty-two.”  Siuta was convinced of it, Maera grunted and snuffed like a beast, exactly as he imagined she would.  He took the toothpick from behind his ear and began to test the thick, clear skin of Maera’s own palm.  He began to peel it up.  No blood came, yet.  And then he could see it, he could see what she’d taken from his apartment back then, after he first promised.  She’d gorged on him and then turned in that beautiful space he rented with his own good money.  She crashed through his blinking, shining silver things and ingested the most precious charm, the totem round which his young soul had been fixed.

Siuta began to pry the tear in the skin further open, scratching with his dull fingernail.  Maera threw her other arm out, kicked him under the table.

“My old Playboy fold-out is still in there with you, isn’t she?  Jess Dane, over-my-desk Jessie, the first thing you demanded be thrown out…” And Siuta was serious. His wife’s hand began to bleed…

Coming next week:  Her Hand, part 2 of 2.

Randitty-o-Meter = 7
PRINT: Can you tell I'm not a man, writing?



Sunday, July 17, 2011

It's SO Urban!

I swear, I didn't channel the Fresh Prince on purpose. Though, it IS "Summer, summer, summertiiiiiime..." Time to sit back, write, and don't mind.  Aren't you writing?  Go write!


Will Smith - Summertime by Keo

Wednesday, July 13, 2011

Unfreak Yourself Out

That one very strange, panicked Spore post aside, I’m feeling better about getting the writing juices flowin'.  Writers hit roadblocks sometimes, and it can even happen after things have been going smoothly for a while.  Because we’re the only ones who experience our stories-in-progress, it can take time to figure out what the sudden issue even is, before we can strategize how to get around it.   

“This chapter sucks for some reason, I just know it.  I can’t stand to write any more on this topic, with these characters—but what, specifically, is wrong with the piece?”

Here is how I learned to work backwards, to find out why your writer’s instincts may be going haywire.

It happens to all of us

After trying different leads for a while with no luck, you begin to look at your first chapter with an even larger feeling of writer’s block, and now it feels like impending doom.  Your outline and story notes don’t help.  You just feel badly about what you’re doing, though you do seem to be writing regularly and covering the basics. 
Before falling asleep each night, you dream of your characters in their beautiful world that you know well, but can’t effect for some reason.   

Maybe over years, the whole effort could just peter out to ‘something I tried once, in my twenties.’

Ouch.  And that line really scares me today, because the thought is with me a lot, and I’m sure other writers out there have experienced this.  A dream deferred…

But, then again, those last-ditch dreams of my story were starting to get really good.  

The solution

Try this.  With a slightly more positive attitude, lay down one afternoon and shut your eyes.  Begin to daydream.  When I did, my Princess character, who was giving me so much trouble, moved through ideal scenes, lit beautifully as if in a movie.  Her love interest was also there.  They were sharing their lives together.  I worried.  This was the very thing I feared I could never create myself… but then I kept going.  I watched, then enjoyed seeing them exchange harmoniously.  I took chances, and I fully relaxed.  In time, I caught her finally saying something that I liked.  Hit pause!  Replay that please?  Yes… that’s perfect.  But why is she doing it?  

I had a sense, I could guess her motivation, but now I needed to try writing it.  I did not rush back to the pressure of the story-in-progress.  There were a lot of unknowns in Chapter 1, and this Princess character was only one of them.  So, I tried some freewriting through a familiar scene most people go through each day, like pouring out some cereal for breakfast and seeing what she and her lover say to one another over snaps, crackles and pops.  Usual meal-time chat began to suggest those same rare personality quirks I’d been sensing all along, but had trouble drawing out with the additional pressure of plot and theme development, using just the right language right then and there, and so on...

I can demonstrate the successful exercise by using two characters from a different manuscript.  Damsel  is not the novel-in-progress I am working on right now, but these characters will be more familiar:
“Eve, which cereal do you want?”

“Cymen Ruecross, I don’t understand why you are asking me.”

“It’s not a test, dear Eve, it’s just cereal.”

“I’ll pick the one with marshmallows and colors, and then you’ll call me a heathen.”

“You’re not a heathen for wanting to ruin your health.  You’re just…”

And Eve waits for him to say it, “Eve, I am going to throw that other box out.  It’s not right for you.”

“But it’s my decision!”

“I’m your savior, here on the breakfast table as well as out there in the moral world… And honestly, one less box of Choco Charms isn’t going to damn you to hell.”

“But that’s precisely what I’ve been trying to tell you—”

“And do not forget to say your grace before the meal.  Hands together.  ‘Dear Father, please continue saving this pre-diabetic woman from herself…’ ”


So there’s an example for you, from another story you’re familiar with, of how well this can work.  Cymen, the knight in shining armor, is gentile for offering to fix Eve’s breakfast.  That part, I knew about him.  Now, I get the feel that he’s arrogant.  Yes, he’s interested in saving her, but he’s starting to behave as if he’s too good for her.  Eve is already defensive, since she’s a rogue-type to begin with.  That I sensed about her as well, when I started the exchange.  But as this goes on, she doesn’t threaten Cymen or take the cereal box out of his hand, for herself.  Eve pleads with him to accept her choice—a strange moral decision about healthy cereal.  And then, we wonder, if Cymen is so adored that Eve would let him be in charge, who bought and then brought Choco Charms into the house, in the first place?  A tenderness is implied.  Cymen also has a weakness for Eve.  They will continue to have silly little arguments like this and we even want to see them doing it.  Now that we know them better, swap in a burning castle, a dragon and a world-ending crisis, and let’s see how their spat drives plot and excitement.

Final treatment

“Eve, which way do we go to get that fire out?  I don’t know the halls of the Shrine so well as you do.”
“I… might not know them either.  Maybe I could conjure water from the air?  Maybe it’s too dry?  Maybe you should let me go back downstairs to the cellar and get another drink.”

They duck a stained glass window exploding, from the heat and pressure outside.  The low curdle of a dragon, delighting in his violent play, raises over the sharp directives of fleeing nuns and squealing school children.  The beast shakes out its neck and his scales settle back into line, down its red back.  A match to the blaze hastening up the walls outside and flickering at the edges of one last pristine window, from where they could see.  The dragon breathed again and smoke flushed through the broken windows with tongues of fire and embers that settled over the altar and its white cloth.  Cymen and Eve looked to the rows and rows of empty benches and they began to burn, by the same elegant Corinthian carvings over the sloping backs that they and everyone else in the kingdom loved.  A scroll of oak leaf caught fire, and then several acorns dotting a delicate braid of carved limbs.  Several pews burned together as the flecks of dirt and fire rained down on them.  This was startlingly beautiful, before the next hot flare of dragon’s breath—this one made the air itself simmer—and the whole back of the church was engulfed.

They were going to die.  Cymen forced his fingers into Eve’s hair, tight against her skull.  “Oh yes, kiss me in the end, sweet worthy one…”

“No!  I’m feeling your skull, Eve, for the brain I know is in there—" he shook her, "...you said you knew how to get down to the cellar from the church-level.  Is it back through the shrine this, way, or east, behind the parapet?”

“You selfish, heartless idiot!  How many years have I been waiting for you, and you won’t even kiss me in a fire?  Maybe I want to stay in the flames and die here dramatically before your eyes, as you deserve—”

“Eve!  I am not going to break my vow with you because we are not about to die, now come on, let’s try each way…”

She pulls on him, as he drags her.  She swats an arm at a burning wax candle stick from the edge of the altar, grabs the bottom, laughs mad-woman while coughing and brandishing at him as if by hand-guard.

Cymen lets go of Eve long enough for her to sing her hand, and finally learn-by-doing.  “Now, come on!”

“Wait, only wine is on the parapet side, Cymen.  Holy water is on the other…” And so finally, both of them are off, to the kingdom’s rescue.  Or, Eve may have been thinking mostly of her hurt hand.  And Cymen could have been more focused on being correct, than working a miracle, when helping the nuns to evacuate or facing the red dragon head-on would have been more effective for a trained knight.  But that is not what the priests will write, nor what the historians will say after that, so let us presume it was right that they, specifically those two, found the water and lived.
...

Well, that was fun.  

So, try it out.  Rather than be afraid you can’t recapture your dreams, start with dreaming and then work backwards to give yourself the benefit of the doubt.  After, freewrite in a stress-free literary setting to fully explore your characters.  Build confidence, and try again.

If it doesn’t work for you right away, at least you’ll really enjoy an hour or two of writing, as I just have.  Lovely, that was so silly and dramatic!

Cheers!

Next:  I will begin posting short stories (one-shots) each Wednesday.  Look forward to the next one.  I think it will involve a power play between a man and his wife in their no-longer-so-honeymoon marriage.  Or, since this is a random fiction blog, the next update could be a complete surprise.  I really need to own that, I think.  I need to accept it.

Randitty-o-Meter = 9
PRINT:Interesting that it is more important they were annoying during Armageddon, rather than featuring how they saved the day.