"Life, Love, and the Pursuit of Writing Well"
(Click on graphic to read story – WARNING: Rated PG-13 for brief language. Hey, this is MILD compared to the last story).
Added: I’ve had some people ask about how to subscribe to my Fiction Fix stories. You can find the RSS link here. You can also sign up for email updates here.
Thanks for your interest!
(Click on graphic to read first story – WARNING: Rated PG for content, language, and some sexuality).
This is it, we’re down to the final wire. NaNo starts at midnight tonight!
Keep an eye on the NaNo gauge in the sidebar. ➡ I also plan on posting a cute cartoon that shows my progress, too. If you don’t see it steadily inching upwards over the next few weeks, contact me and ask me why the heck not?? Tease me, torment me, goad me into finishing. You see that nifty NaNo 2009 participant graphic in the sidebar? I want one that says WINNER. And you can only get one of those IF you submit 50,000 words or more by the end of November.
As long as the weather cooperates, I plan on hanging out at the MSU library. It only costs $2.25 to park there for three hours and I can pound out 3,000 words in three hours, right? *gulp* If the weather doesn’t cooperate, then I’ll be heading toward our public library (because I won’t have to walk so far to make it indoors).
And if the family is home and won’t leave me alone, there’s always our Cub. Whew! My fingers are tired just THINKING about all of this typing ahead of me.
So, consider this “official” notice – this blog will be sporadic at best in the coming weeks. I’ll try to write a word here and there and let you know how I’m doing but really, the gauge will say it all.
And for the first time, I’m going to post my NaNoWriMo project on my Fiction blog: fictionfix.wordpress.com, if you’re interested in keeping track of what I’m actually writing. It’ll be rough and it’ll probably stink and/or not make sense, but that’s how first drafts are.
I’m really pushing myself this year. I have no idea if this collection of short stories idea will pan out, but dang it, I’m gonna give it a shot.
I’m off to mentally prepare for the next 30 days of intense writing.
GOOD LUCK TO EVERYONE PARTICIPATING IN NANOWRIMO!!!
Boo.
A message from NaNoWriMo Headquarters:
“I can’t believe you’re making me do this. I really don’t have time … what do you mean, ‘make time.’ I’m not your slave. You can’t order me around ….. well, technically, I suppose you CAN order me around, but still, I’m a professional, I shouldn’t have to deal with …”
She holds up a hand, her face contorted into a mask of disgust.
“Let’s get something straight here, missy. Yes, you created me, but I have a mind of my own.”
She crosses her arms and continues to address the person behind her.
“What do you mean ‘you’re counting on that.’ I make my own decisions and nothing short of deleting me will change that.”
She tilts her head to listen for a moment.
“Fine. I’ll do it, but I won’t like ….,” her smoky, dark blue/black eyes widen in surprise.
“Oh, hello.”
She notices that people are beginning to stare and she forces a strained smile.
“I didn’t see you there. How long were you…” she pauses before fluttering a hand in impatience. “Never mind. I’m glad you’re here.”
She takes a step back, suddenly feeling very much like she’s a bug stuck to a bulletin board and under close scrutiny by several pairs of eyes.
“I’m, um, not sure exactly what I’m doing here.” she says with a small laugh. “I’ve been forced, er, asked to address you so please, bear with me while I stumble through this.”
She straightens to her full 5’8 height and runs a hand through her spiky midnight-black hair.
“Let me introduce myself. I’m Giselle Pratt.” She waits for the recognition to sink in but becomes discouraged when she realizes that her name apparently doesn’t ring any bells.
“I’m the main character in Karen’s upcoming NaNoWriMo project.”
She shrugs and her voice falters when she notices some of your expressions.
“You … don’t … know about NaNoWriMo? Oh, I’m sorry, let me explain,” she says with an apologetic smile. “NaNoWriMo is the acronym for National Novel Writing Month and it’s a writing project that Karen participates in every November. In essence, because quite frankly the details bore me and I’m quite sure will bore you, it’s a challenge to write 50,000 words in 30 days. And well, that’s about the extent of what I know. I only just arrived on the scene and I’m sort of stumbling through like the rest of you so …”
She looks over her shoulder and gives a low growl. “Stop pushing me! I’m doing the best I know how given the fact that you just sort of shoved me out here.”
She turns back to the monitor.
“So. Karen is under the assumption that you all care to know more about me. I mean, honestly, I’m like the most boring person in the world,” she clasps her hands behind her back and rocks on her heels for a few seconds before succumbing to her pent-up frustration. “Ya’ll seriously don’t know who I am? Giselle Pratt,” she speaks slowly, as if the enunciation will someone help. “Well, I must say, I’m just a teensy-weensy bit disappointed.”
She gives another exasperated glance over her shoulder before addressing the readers once more. “Don’t ya’ll read the newspapers? Er, maybe not. Since you’re here, online … okay.” She snaps her fingers. “You must have read about me online somewhere, right?” Her brows lift and she produces a hopeful expression.
“Well hell’s bells, this is disappointing.” She exhales slowly before continuing. “Alrighty then, we’ll start at the beginning.”
She rubs the palm of her hand across her nose as if she has an itch that needs immediate attention before continuing.
“As I said, I’m Giselle Pratt, but everybody calls me Elle. I’m the first female NASCAR Sprint Cup crew chief,” she finishes proudly. Again, she pauses for dramatic flare. “Geez, ya’ll are great for my ego,” she mumbles under her breath.
“Some say I got the position because my father, who’s a sports’ announcer for ESPN, pulled some strings, but I prefer to believe that I got the job because I’m skilled.” She puts all of her weight on her left leg and uses her right leg to scratch the back of her left calf.
“My older brother is a driver. He races for Howell / Adams. Maybe you heard of him, Parker Pratt?” Again, she raises her brows in expectation of recognition, but again is disappointed by the lack of response.
“Tap, tap,” she says with a chuckle while pretending to hit a microphone in her hand. “Is this thing on? Ya’ll awake?”
She clears her throat and continues.
“Alrighty then. I just found out I got crew chief last week. I have yet to actually DO the job, but I’m not worried about that, I’m quite good at my job. I know these race cars like a police officer knows his gun. I’ll be working with number 46, Shadow Lennox. I know, that’s a strange name, but hey, I don’t name them, I just work with them. Well, technically, I haven’t worked with him yet, but you know what I mean.”
She pauses to take a breath and rub her nose again.
“My mother passed away about three years ago, breast cancer,” she shrugs. “It was one of those freak things. As far as I know, breast cancer doesn’t run in my family but suddenly she’s got it, and it’s malignant and they can’t do anything for her. It was,” she pauses to catch her breath. “Hard.”
She scratches her temple before continuing.
“My dad has been a NASCAR sports’ announcer for about …” she tilts her head to try and remember, “geez, going on 15 years now.” She looks a little shell-shocked at that realization. “I suppose it was only natural that Parker and I would be interested in racing, considering we practically lived on the road and at the race track.”
She looks behind her.
“People are getting bored. Can I stop now?”
She heaves a sigh before turning back to face the monitor. “I have two younger brothers, but they’re trouble makers and not worth mentioning,” she says while looking vastly uncomfortable.
“I’m 27, never been married, no kids and I don’t have a lot of friends. Well, I have Allie. She’s kind of a NASCAR groupie, but I’d never say that to her face, it would hurt her feelings. She tried to get on with NASCAR, but she buckled under the pressure. She’s smart as a tack, but she doesn’t respond well to stress. And working in NASCAR? Is really stressful.”
She lifts a shoulder in a self-depreciating shrug.
“I can handle it. I’m actually really good in a stressful situation, but get me in a room full of people and I sort of freeze up. I don’t have the best people skills, which is why Allie is so good for me – we complement each other perfectly.”
She steps back and begins to unclip her microphone.
“Okay look, I’m done. I’m simply not that interesting and I have a ton of things to do to prepare for my first race on Saturday so, I’m going to gracefully exit stage right.”
Static scratches as she attempts to remove her audio piece.
“Damn it,” she mutters. “I can’t stand this tedious bull ….”
The microphone squawks and falls to the ground with a sharp thunk.
Giselle gives the readers a smart salute before exiting the area.
Confused? Don’t be. I’m writing up little character vignettes in preparation for the NaNoWriMo challenge next month. Stay tuned for more character introductions.
If you’ve been reading me for any length of time, then you KNOW I sort of have this unhealthy obsession with National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo).
And it’s unhealthy in the fact that I REALLY get into it. So much so, in fact, that I splurged on this totally awesome, but totally overpriced (IMO) NaNoWriMo hoodie.
But hello?! Check out the awesome-ness!! And besides, I’m justifying the overage on the fact that it’s going to a good cause and OH MY GOSH, I’ve never run across a writing program that has blessed me more.
So, it’s totally worth it to me. 😀
I will likely wear this hoodie for many, many years — I’m the sort of person who tends to literally wear out her clothing, so I will definitely get some good use out of it. And who knows? Maybe someone will ask me what the acronym stands for and I’ll have a chance to scare tell them all about the most awesome writing program available.
Which brings me to my favorite part: talking about NaNoWriMo. 😀
For those of you that don’t know (and if not, WHERE exactly have you been these past few years?! *grin*), NaNoWriMo is:
From the NaNoWriMo website:
National Novel Writing Month is a fun, seat-of-your-pants approach to novel writing. Participants begin writing November 1. The goal is to write a 175-page (50,000-word) novel by midnight, November 30.
Valuing enthusiasm and perseverance over painstaking craft, NaNoWriMo is a novel-writing program for everyone who has thought fleetingly about writing a novel but has been scared away by the time and effort involved.
Because of the limited writing window, the ONLY thing that matters in NaNoWriMo is output. It’s all about quantity, not quality. The kamikaze approach forces you to lower your expectations, take risks, and write on the fly.
Make no mistake: You will be writing a lot of crap. And that’s a good thing. By forcing yourself to write so intensely, you are giving yourself permission to make mistakes. To forgo the endless tweaking and editing and just create. To build without tearing down.
And that’s exactly why this project appeals to me so much – the QUANTITY part. I spend too much time worrying about the quality. In fact, there are times it actually paralyzes me so that I either get discouraged or disgusted with myself – either way, I end up quitting my project.
But NaNoWriMo has given me permission to just write. I tie my inner critic up, shut the bugger in a closet and I’m FREE to write anything I want. It’s soooo liberating.
But instead of of continuing my random blubbering about the program, I’m going to take Benjamin Solah’s questions and answer them here. This will give you a pretty good idea of how I feel about NaNo and what my plans are. If you want to take these questions and answer them on your own blog, be sure and let Benjamin know that you participated.
When and how did you find out about NaNoWriMo? How did it go?
Ugh. I’ve been staring at this question for eons. HOW did I find out about NaNo? I can’t remember! I’m thinking I stumbled across … oh wait, yes I DO remember!! (I’m excited because it’s a big deal when I can remember things *smile*).
I was reading a chick-lit blog maintained by four really awesome writers. Three of the writers escape me at the moment, but one of them stuck out – Lani Diane Rich. I loved her voice so much that I followed her links back to her personal blog and read more about how she got started in writing.
And she got started with NaNoWriMo. In fact, she went on to PUBLISH her NaNoWriMo novel!! I thought that was sooo cool and to this day, that still inspires me.
After I researched the program a little more, I got terribly excited and immediately signed up, October 1, 2005.
I was scared out of my cotton-picking mind when it was time to start. I wrote some such crap nonsense story about a woman who travels to New York City to try and make a go of her desire to be a talk radio host.
It was truly garbage. No, really. I’m not sugar coating it, it really, really stunk. But that wasn’t the point. The fact that someone finally gave me permission to write, to just let go of my inhibitions and WRITE, was really the thing I took away from the experience. I’ll never forget that feeling – it was amazing and was quite literally what broke my literary cocoon — I emerged not necessarily a better writer, but definitely a more free writer.
How many times have you done NaNoWriMo?
This will be my fifth year. I plan on participating in NaNoWriMo until I reach the day I A. don’t remember what NaNoWriMo stands for and/or B. when I’m physically unable to.
And that includes talking. Because even if my fingers don’t work, I’ll use a tape recorder. 🙂
How many times have you won? If you haven’t won, what was your best result?
I’ve won all four years. And I will continue to win because I’m too OCD NOT to.
How did it go last year?
Really well, actually. I have settled into a groove, I suppose. I just mentally prepare myself to write 2,000 words, period. I don’t think about it too much, I just do it.
I’m usually really strong in the first two weeks, and I actually get ahead of the game (you need to write 1,667 words a day in order to make your 50,000 goal), which is good, because by the third week, I’m burned out and I rarely end up writing that week. Then, by week four, I’m panicking because time is ticking and I REALLY want that nifty winner’s badge, so I buckle down and cross the finish line with usually one or two days to spare.
Usually.
Where do you write and with what do you write?
I have to leave my house to write. I usually end up in either a study room at the public library or at the university library where it’s really, really quiet. Sometimes, if I have a full day scheduled, I’ll get up early and shut myself off in my husband’s music studio and write before everyone else gets up. It has to be really, really, and I mean REALLY stone-cold silent in order for me to write.
I usually cart my laptop around. Though there have been times I’ve taken my Neo someplace off-the-wall, like the park or the lake, simply because I need a change of scenery.
This year might be a challenge though. I work from home so have had the freedom to do all of that in the past. This year … I will likely end up getting a holiday job (hoping it turns into something more permanent after the holidays) so who knows how that will pan out this year.
How do you find time to write?
See above.
Are your partners, friends and family allies or enemies?
Yes. And no.
Kevin, my husband, is very supportive. He knows how important this is to me, even though he doesn’t fully “get” it. He’s rarely around when I’m writing, but on the weekends, he’s usually okay with me leaving and hanging out at the library for a bit AS LONG AS it doesn’t completely interfere with our time together.
I can’t ask for a more supportive spouse, quite frankly.
The boys don’t really get it either. They just roll their eyes at me, but they are interested enough to ask what my word count is and that really warms my heart.
What are you strengths and what do you use to help you get to the end?
My strengths are my beginnings. I pride myself on starting the story smack dab in the middle of the excitement. My characters are usually pretty charismatic, if not a little inconsistent, but I enjoy surprising the reader with an uncharacteristic move now and again.
I think my biggest motivation to finish is seeing that fancy-smancy YOU WON page that pops up after you submit your final word count.
That and the web badge.
It’s quite a high to me to know that I produced that much in such a short amount of time.
What are your weaknesses, obstacles and challenges that hinder you from finishing?
My biggest weakness is boredom. In addition to the doubt, I just get bored with the story. The middle kills me each and every time. Then I get discouraged because I think, “Well, this story must suck because if I’m bored, my reader is definitely going to be bored.”
My biggest obstacle is my procrastination and short attention span. I am INSANELY EASY TO DISTRACT.
Oh look! A bird!
So making myself sit down and write is my biggest challenge. (Like this entry? I think I’ve stopped and gone to go do something else about 30 times now).
Do you plot/outline/plan or do you write by the seat of your pants? How much do you plot or how unprepared are you?
Good lord, no. I WISH I had the discipline to sit down and plot out my story, I’d get so much done and I’d actually finish something, but no. I prefer to follow my characters around like an eager dog just waiting for that delicious bone. Again, I get bored. I like surprising myself because my characters inevitably take the story off in a direction I never, ever thought possible and suddenly, I’m faced with a new challenge.
So no, I don’t plot. I’m a pantser – I just write by the seat of my pants.
I go through a lot of pants. 😀
Do you participate in the real life community, go to write ins and meet ups in your area?
*sigh* I would love to. But my community seems to lean toward drama. In fact, the very first email I received for this year’s NaNo cautioned, and outlined, what to do if/when someone acted inappropriately.
No thank you. I don’t DO drama. I simply won’t put myself in a situation where I’m forced to deal with it. I’ve read enough of the online exchanges to know, they simply aren’t my crowd. They’re all college-aged kids hell-bent on being cool and drowning their livers. Again, I’m way too old for that crap and I’m simply not interested.
What are your writing aids? Special snacks, music, totems, rewards or punishments?
For some odd reason, I’m like Pavlov’s dog when it comes to writing. I MUST have some sort of caffeinated drink by my side when I write. That could be coffee, it could be an energy drink, but I always seem to write better when I’m high on caffeine.
I try really hard to stay away from the sugary snacks – I crash pretty hard – so I tend to snack on crackers, dry pancakes and flour tortilla shells.
Yes, I AM that boring.
I also have to wear my reading glasses. I technically don’t need them, but I feel smarter when I wear them … so I wear them.
Hey, I can use all the help I can get, thank you very much.
My goal, if it pans out, is to post a little something from my main character on my blog each week. Who knows if it will work out, but that’s my goal for now.
In the meantime, I have some more brainstorming to do. You’ll know it’s happening when you see the smoke plumes in the distance. 😀
Good luck if you’re participating!
“I’m afraid, mommy.”
Darla held her arms out toward the little girl. “I know. It’s always scary when you first jump, but you can do it, I know you can. And look,” she smiled at her dark-haired, light skinned daughter, “I’m right here to catch you.”
The little girl tiled her head to one side and gave her mother an indecipherable look.
Darla suppressed a sigh and continued to hold her arms out toward her daughter, a tolerant smile plastered across her face. She knew that look, and she hated it. It was a mixture of confusion, doubt, distrust and fear.
Yes, fear. She hated that her daughter even knew what that emotion meant, let alone felt like.
It all started five years ago. Tillie’s father had disappeared; she suspected he took off with one of his students, but she could never prove it. She spent months trying to track him down. And though she had a few good leads, nothing ever panned out. A good friend of hers claimed that he had seen Sam at a favorite tavern just ten miles out of town, but when she went to question the people who worked there, none claimed to have seen anyone who looked like him. She had just found out that she was pregnant with Tillie right after he abandoned her so by the time her daughter was born, it had been nearly nine months since his disappearance.
Her efforts to find Sam waned. Money grew tight and when she could no longer afford to pay the mortgage, she had been forced to move back home with her parents so she could get a job and have someone to look after Tillie. She had never really gotten along with her parents, their relationship was strained at best, so when she was forced to virtually beg them to take her and Tillie into their home, it had been a bitter pill to swallow. Her parents didn’t exactly welcome her and her daughter with open arms, but she didn’t have a choice – she had no where else to go.
She had finally given up looking for him. She was a single mother raising a daughter. She didn’t have time to deal with an emotionally stunted man and she turned all of her energies and time into surviving the sleepless nights and endless diapers. But she missed him. And she alternated between anger and depression over his disappearance. She had toyed with the thought of hiring a private investigator a few months after Tillie’s birth, after all, her child had the right to get to know her father, but what was the point? Sam obviously didn’t want anything to do with either of them, why put Tillie through unnecessary heart ache?
She had talked to Tillie about her father, though. She was determined that if her daughter couldn’t come to know Sam personally, then she would come to know him through stories and pictures. Instead of bedtime stories, Tillie had demanded stories about her father. And though Darla didn’t really have that many stories to tell, they had only been dating a few years before they got married and he disappeared, Tillie didn’t care. She never tired of hearing about her father.
They got used to not having him around and before long it was as if he was a character in this great story instead of being a real person.
“I promise you’ll be safe. You’re always safe with me,” she said, forcing thoughts of Sam back down that deep, dark hole.
Tillie thoughtfully chewed on her lower lip and moved a few steps closer to the edge of the pier. Darla came up on her tip toes. The water gently pushed against her breasts.
“It looks deep,” the child whined and Darla clamped down on her irritation.
It wasn’t Tillie’s fault that she was hesitant and afraid. The little girl was insecure. And Darla had no one to blame but herself.
Well, and her father.
“It’s not that bad. See? The water is only this high,” she said while marking the water level on her chest with one hand. “Not deep at all.”
“But you’re a lot taller than I am,” the child reasoned and Darla couldn’t help but laugh.
“Smart girl. You’re right. I am taller than you. But I’m right here, Tillie. I promise you, nothing bad is going to happen to you.”
“I don’t like water in my face, mommy. If I jump, I’ll get water in my face.”
Darla clamped her teeth shut in frustration.
Thanks a lot, dad, she silently fumed. Her father had thought it was funny to squirt Tillie in the face with a water bottle whenever she started whining. He couldn’t stand it when she whined.
Darla could feel her self-loathing lining the tenacious hold she had on her patience and her next words came out harsh and clipped.
“Enough with the excuses, Tillie. Just jump already.”
Tillie’s lower lip began to quiver and her dark brown eyes filled with unshed tears. “Are you mad at me, mommy?”
“No, I’m not mad,” Darla sighed, her arms beginning to ache from keeping them poised to catch her daughter. “But I am getting annoyed. I’m right here. I’m not going to allow anything to happen to you. You can trust me. And besides,” she swallowed her irritation and forced a smile. “It’s fun.”
Tillie lowered her head and gave her mother a suspicious look. “Fun?”
“Of course.” Darla nodded her head in the direction of four other children jumping off a neighboring pier. “Look at those kids.” Tillie turned to look. “They’re having fun. They aren’t whining and giving their mothers a hard time.”
Her daughter crossed her arms over her bony chest in defense as she watched the other children jump off the pier, disappear into the water and then shortly reappear, their heads bobbing on the water, their wet hair covering their smiles but not masking their laughter.
“Come on, Tillie. Enough is enough. Just jump.”
Suddenly, one of the other children, intending to jump into the water, tripped on an upraised board and fell, face first, into the water. The slap from his belly flop reverberated against the sheer rock walls surrounding the small lake. The child immediately resurfaced, coughed out the excess water and before Darla had time to walk toward the pier and shield Tillie from what she knew would come next, opened his mouth and let out an ear-piercing wail.
Tillie slapped her hands over her ears and looked back at her mother in alarm. Darla, knowing how her daughter felt about loud noises, began to head toward the ladder, clumsily using her arms to push water out of her way, her legs felt heavy and awkward with each large step forward.
The boy who fell into the water continued to cry, the sound growing louder with each passing scream.
“Tillie,” Darla soothed, reaching a dripping hand out of the water toward her daughter. “It’s okay. The boy is fine. He just tripped and fell into the water. He’s not hurt. He’s just scared.”
But Tillie wasn’t listening to her. She had turned her back on her and was staring at something on shore.
Darla turned her head to try and see what had caught Tillie’s eye, but she didn’t see anything out of the ordinary. The boy’s cries had alerted several people on the shore line and a woman, she assumed it was the boy’s mother, was running toward the pier.
She turned back toward Tillie, but the girl was gone.
“Tillie?” she asked, her voice diving into muffled and confused. “Tillie!” She repeated, her voice now emerging sharp and clear, her eyes quickly scanning the rest of the pier.
Her head spun around, her shoulders a scant few seconds behind, and studied the shoreline desperately seeking the familiar body of her daughter. Darla quickly swam the few strokes needed to reach the ladder and pulled herself up out of the water.
She grabbed a nearby towel and absently drew it around her shivering body. Her eyes continued to skim the bodies on the shore. She caught a flash of pink in her peripheral to her left and she whipped her head around in that direction to get a better look.
Tillie was wearing a pink bathing suit with a picture of a butterfly on the front.
“Tillie!” she yelled at the top of her voice. The body slowed and looked around at her. It was indeed her daughter.
Darla’s eyes remained locked on her child as she began to quickly walk down the length of the pier toward her.
Tillie paused for just a moment to stare at Darla before turning her head to look at something over her shoulder. Whatever she saw must have spooked her because without warning, she began sprinting toward the woods.
The moment Darla began to run is the moment that Tillie began to run. “Tillie, come back!”
Even though the boy’s cries were loud, they weren’t quite loud enough to mask Darla’s outburst. Several people froze in place and watched as she sprinted toward the spot that she last saw her daughter.
Darla lost her grip on her towel and it slipped off her body as she reached the spot where Tillie disappeared. She disregarded the towel as she peered into the dark shadows of the trees.
“Tillie?” she tentatively asked. “Where are you?”
She forced her panic back down her throat and consciously worked to steady her voice. “Tillie, that’s quite enough young lady. Come out here right this minute.” Though she had meant for her voice to be firm and authoritative, it came out squeaky and frightened.
Darla heard a rustling of leaves off to her left and she narrowed her eyes in an attempt to see through the dense foliage.
She opened her mouth to call out to her daughter once again but stopped when she heard Tillie give a soft giggle.
A momentary flash of memory ripped through her panicked brain of the last time she had to hunt for Tillie – it was a game of hide and seek. The girl had been good. In fact, it had taken Darla nearly ten minutes to find her stuffed into the laundry hamper. She had been surprised at her daughter’s ingenuity and quick thinking.
Relief and irritation immediately doused the flames of fear, effectively suffocating it, at least for the moment.
“Tillie Marie, you get your butt out here right this minute. This is no time for games. You scared me to death,” she said as she started burrowing her way through the brush toward the sound of her daughter’s laughter.
She ducked under several large branches and pushed her way through thick bushes, the branches scratching at her exposed legs.
Her path through the woods changed each time she head her daughter’s voice. She was moving and she was talking … to someone.
A flicker of fear lapped at Darla’s heart. Who was with her? And why didn’t she sound scared? If anything, she sounded amused and happy.
Darla was confused and the sound of Tillie’s carefree voice kept her from panicking. If anything, she was more curious than scared.
“Tillie?” she called out and was rewarded with the child shushing whomever she was with.
“Let’s play the game for just a minute longer, please?” she heard the child plead. Her request was shortly followed by the sound of a voice, a man’s voice.
Another flicker of fear teased Darla’s heart back into a quivering rhythm.
“Game’s over Tillie,” Darla snapped, her fear making her voice sharp. “You come out right …” her voice trailed off as she moved a wispy branch out of the way and stepped into a small clearing.
“Hi mommy!’ Tillie beamed, her small hand securely tucked into a man’s larger hand.
Darla’s eyes left her daughter to settle on the man. Her breath caught in her throat and she could feel all the color drain from her face. Her heart dropped to her female regions and she felt so weak she had to reach out and brace herself on a nearby tree.
“Hello, Darla,” the man said.
“S..Sam?”
(This was originally posted May 20, 2007)
Warning: Language
_______________________________
“That is a stroke of genius.”
Callie placed her paintbrush on her easel and turned to him. “Seth, what the hell are you talking about?”
“Get it? Stroke? Painting?” He grinned, the dimple on the left side of his mouth causing an indentation in his cheek.
She used to think that indentation was cute. Callie sighed, picked up her paintbrush and gave her boyfriend a sidelong glance.
“I mean, truly. That whole … summer thing,” he fluttered his hands to illustrate his lack of description, “it’s really happening.”
“It’s not a painting about summer.”
“But … the leaves. They’re all like, flapping in the wind.”
Exasperated, Callie accidentally flipped her paintbrush; dollops of red-gold oil speckled her smock. “What … leaves? What … flapping?’
“There.” Seth pointed to the canvas. “And there, and there …” His finger got dangerously close to her painting. She had spent the last week trying to find inspiration for this particular piece and she had to have it painted and turned in by tomorrow if she wanted to make an A in the class.
She slapped his hand away. “If you leave a fingerprint on my painting, I WILL hurt you,” she growled under her breath while turning her attention back to her work.
Seth glanced down at his black t-shirt. “You got paint on me.”
“Sorry,” Callie mumbled. She didn’t exactly sound sorry.
“You know, I don’t get you.”
“That’s an understatement,” she mumbled again. She kept her attention riveted to the canvas before her. She continued to dab red-gold paint at various places throughout the picture. It was almost done; it just needed that extra … something. She chewed on the end of her paintbrush, completely oblivious to the fat drops that fell at her feet. “What does it need …”
“How about structure?”
She blinked at the painting and then forced herself to focus on Seth. “What?”
“Structure,” Seth pointed helplessly at the painting. “It’s just a bunch of … blobs. I mean, no offense, but you call this art?”
Callie bristled at his words. She could feel a slow heat burning her face and she struggled to keep her voice even. “And you call the shit you make out of wood art?”
“My sculptures are most definitely art.”
“How can you say that?” Callie carefully lowered the paintbrush. “They quite literally look like piles of shit.”
“They’re dinosaur droppings.”
And to think, she used to think his vision was revolutionary. “It’s dinosaur shit, Seth. It doesn’t have any real form or shape – it’s just a brown, hard blob.”
“And you call this mess art?” Seth gestured around the room. Various sized canvases were leaning against the far wall.
“Apparently.”
“It’s crap, Callie. I’m sorry, I should have told you at the beginning but truly, you can’t paint.” He walked over to a large purple and brown painting. “And what the hell is this? I’ve always wondered.”
Callie swallowed her tears and forced her chin up to meet his defiant glare. “It’s a basket of grapes.”
“No shit.” Seth sounded amazed and shook his head. “I never would have guessed.”
“Art is subjective, Seth. It’s what you make of it. It’s what an individual sees that’s important.”
“Well, all I see are blobs.”
“Then you’re an idiot.”
“And I’m outta here,” Seth gathered up his backpack and carving tools.
“Don’t forget your shit.” She kicked a block of wood toward him.
He snatched up the wood, sniffed and stomped out of the door.
Callie closed her eyes and took a few minutes to get her temper under control. What a jerk! She was a talented artist. Her art teacher said so. She slowly opened her eyes and looked at her painting. She studied it for long moments, cocked her head to one side and said to no one in particular, “Actually, it DOES sort of look like leaves flapping in the wind.”
_______________________________
I am, right this very minute, starting my new writing schedule. At least, I SHOULD be. By the time you read this, I SHOULD be at MSU’s library typing my fingers to the bone working on fresh fiction. If I’m not, you totally have my permission to kick my butt – hard.
Write From Karen 