Summer Writing Project--Please Weigh In

Along with my writing mojo returning came two great writing ideas about which I am very excited.  That being said, I know that I can only focus on one at a time and a decision has to be made.

I've written one novel and several short stories (here, here,  here, and here, if you're interested).  I thought they were pretty good at the time (they clearly weren't ;-)), but I've learned a lot about writing and about life since then, and I am unquestionably at a better place as a writer now.

If you know me at all in real life (or it's entirely possible you've picked this up from my blogging topics and patterns), you're well aware that I'm pretty much the textbook version of an adult with ADHD.  I struggle with getting started, finishing what I start unless there are firm deadlines, and many of what we call in the education world "executive functioning skills".  I am impulsive, disorganized, and I hate authority.  And so on and so forth.

Oh, I also have that "hyper-focus" on one area, kind of like self-hypnosis (if you have or know anyone with ADHD, you know what I mean).  For me, it's reading.  Or writing.  For a lot of hyperactive kids nowadays, it's video games.  But that's a different rant ...

Anyway, I've made a lot of progress with functioning in life, more than just bouncing around driving people nuts or using books and caffeine to keep myself under control (I'm really not as bad as I'm making myself out to be ... I am a successful mother, teacher, girlfriend, dog owner, friend, daughter, sister, and blah blah blah).

And I've decided that this is the summer of writing.

So I've got it down to two topics.  I'd really rather not flip a coin, so I am going to let you, oh person reading these words right now, decide.  Seriously.

Oh, and before you say, "Why don't you try doing both?", see the above explanatory ADHD rant.  I cannot focus on writing on two things at once.  It's as simple as that.

So ...

1.  A historical mystery. (vague, I know ... I don't want to tip my hand ;-))
*  I know the whole story in my head (this sort of planning ahead is symbolic of the new and slightly improved me)
*  It's an extensive lesson in history, and I've already started researching extensively.
*  I have always wanted to write a mystery

OR

2.  A memoir of my life.
*  It's an interesting story ... I have had the great fortune of having incredible things happen to me ... and the horrible misfortune of having unspeakably horrible things happen to me.
*  Coming to terms with a couple of my traumatic life events has given me closure ... part of me thinks that getting it all out there might do so on a larger scale.
*  It is very important to me as a mother and a teacher that the children I raise and/or educate get the lesson that, when life knocks you down, you get right back up.  I think this is a message that needs to get out more, and I think putting it in writing (more than the occasional blog post) could help people.

So, please give your recommendation (your vote, to use that word) in the comments.  Should I focus my summer writing time, other than blogging and other responsibilities, working on the historical mystery or the memoir?

And should you want to explain why, that would be great, too :-)  

Either way, I'm going with the majority.

Thanks in advance <<3
   

Writing Prompt from One of My Students (My Story is Here ... Want to Give it a Go?)

"She started to slow as she looked up and saw blue flashing lights..."

One of my students is a passionate writer; in fact, she sees it as her future career, which I think is amazing :-) She gave me the above sentence as a writing prompt, so I told her I'd give it a go.

If you want to try, leave a link in the comments ...
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She started to slow as she looked up and saw blue flashing lights.

It had happened before, and a montage played quickly in her head.

*

She was seventeen, and nine months pregnant.  She'd worked open to close at the restaurant, a sixteen-hour shift, and she was exhausted.  As she merged onto the highway and started over the bridge, the breeze from the open window increased.  It buffeted her waist-length hair around her face, so she quickly grabbed a hair tie and pulled it back.

And swerved slightly in the process.

She started to slow as she looked up and saw blue flashing lights.  She'd never been pulled over before, but she knew what to do.

The police officer approaching her car was middle-aged and overweight.  "Have you been drinking?" he asked without preamble.

"I'm pregnant," she replied.

"I repeat, have you been drinking?  You were all over the road back there."

"I was putting my hair up.  It started blowing all over the place when I got onto the highway."

"Where are you coming from?"

"Work.  I'm a waitress at Mollie's."  In point of fact, her work shirt, extended over her swollen belly as it was, clearly stated 'Mollie's Waitstaff'.

"And where are you heading?"

"Um ... home."

"License and registration," he grunted.

She bent forward to get the car registration from the glove compartment, and her stomach knocked into the car's horn.

"Get out of the car!" the officer ordered.

"But you said to get my--"

"I have reason to believe that you've been drinking."

"I told you, I'm pregnant."

"Yeah, and you look about twelve, too."

Tears welled in her eyes.  She had always cried easily.  "Do you want my license and registration?  I don't know what I'm supposed to do."

"Get them for me--without honking the horn--then step out of the car."

She nodded, sniffling.  After locating her license and registration without further incident, she stepped out of the car--her mother's Jeep Wrangler--and stood uncertainly next to it.

"Um ... what do I do now?" she finally asked as he scrutinized her license.  The picture on it was shockingly flattering for a DMV shot; her friends teased her that it should have been her senior picture.  She knew that the beautiful, carefree girl in the picture bore little resemblance to the exhausted mess in front of him.

"Put your hands on the hood of the car while I run this through."

She had to bend at an awkward angle to accomplish this, and it seemed to take him an awfully long time.  She knew that her mother would be worried about her, and the tears poured freely down her face.

When he returned, he directed her to the white line delineating the breakdown lane.  "Walk that line for fifteen steps."

"Um ... why?"

"I'm giving you a field sobriety test.  I have reason to believe that you've been drinking."

"But I ..."

"Go over to the line, and walk."

She did as she was told; she feared loud, bullying men above all else, and fate seemed to have sent her a police officer who fit the bill.

It was worse than she'd feared.  He screamed at her when she couldn't line her feet up on the line (the fact that she couldn't see her feet was clearly irrelevant to him), and she cried loud and hard.

He finally pulled out the big guns and gave her a breathalyzer test.  The result was 0.0.

He mumbled an apology which might have been a verbal warning and sent her on her way.

*

She was eighteen and late for work at her third job balanced with single motherhood and full-time college student status.  Although working mornings at her daughter's day care cut down on that particular bill and working third shift at Cumberland Farms made finding a nighttime babysitter easy, this was the job where the money came in--the fact that she hated it, that putting piecework together in a factory was boring at best, was irrelevant; her factory paycheck was pretty much what she lived on.

If she left directly from class, she could make it to the factory with five minutes to spare.  Today, though, the babysitter was late, and one-year-old Nancy was clingy, not wanting her to leave.

As a result, she'd driven the back roads of small New Hampshire towns like a bat out of Hades, and actually harbored some degree of hope that she was going to actually punch the timeclock on time, when a rust-freckled white sedan jerked out in front of her ... and started to move along at speeds topping out at fifteen miles per hour.

Alanis Morrissette was on her CD player, and she sang along angrily, doing her best not to tailgate the guy as the minutes ticked by.  There was no way she'd be getting to work on time.

As she entered the town limits, within sight of the factory, the car put on its blinker to make a right turn.

Holding back the urge to honk, show the driver an extended view of a certain finger, or otherwise act like an annoyed and immature teenager, she merely checked to make sure that nothing was coming from the other direction before she veered around the hated car that'd held her up, crossed the double line into the other lane for a car's width of time, then pulled back into her own lane.

She started to slow as she looked up and saw blue flashing lights.

Muttering expletives under her breath as she saw that she had four minutes to get to work, she pulled out her license and registration so that she'd be ready when the trooper reached her open window.

"Do you know why I pulled you over?" he asked.

"Look, I'm late for work.  Can you just give me a ticket?  I have three minutes to get there.  Three."

"Late for work, huh?  Well, let me take this to my cruiser and run it."

Fifteen minutes later, he returned to her car.  His walk was so slow it was very nearly a swagger.  "Just giving you a verbal warning," he said, smiling although there was a nasty glint in his eye.

*

She was nineteen years old and heading toward her family's beach house.  She'd driven the road a hundred times, so she was in comfortable glory.  Sunglasses were on, she wore shorts and a bikini top that set off the tan she'd gotten lifeguarding, and Tupac was pounding loudly from her car's speakers.

She started to slow as she looked up and saw blue flashing lights. 

The cop approaching her car was middle-aged and overweight.

"License and registration, please?"

She handed them over, then asked, "Do you mind if I asked why you pulled me over?  Do I have a tail light out or something?"

He peered down at her from above his sunglasses.  His eyes were muddy and brown.  "You were speeding, little lady."

"Um ... no, I wasn't."

"I clocked you going 37," he said triumphantly.  "Got documentation right in my car."

She readjusted her bikini top to improve the view.  "You're going to give me a ticket for going two miles per hour over the speed limit?"

"Two miles?  No, honey, you were going seventeen miles over the speed limit."

"Like hell I was!  I drive on this road all the time.  The speed limit here is 35.  I know this road like the back of my hand!"

"Maybe you do and maybe you don't, sweetie, but you musta missed the sign where it said 'school zone', which means the speed limit is twenty."

"There's no school on Saturday, stupid!" she retorted.

The officer's face flushed an ugly red, but he didn't say a word.

Instead of a ticket, she received a citation for insubordination toward an officer of the law.  The fine was $300.  She had to go to court.

*

She was thirty years old and on her way home from work.  Even though it was not yet five, night had fallen, and she watched the stars through the windshield as she progressed along her monster commute.  She recognized Orion's belt and found the little dipper.  Life was good.

She started to slow as she looked up and saw blue flashing lights. 

As she pulled her car onto the shoulder of the road, she took her license from her wallet and the car registration from the glove compartment.

The officer approaching her car was middle-aged and overweight.

"Good evening, sir," she said, handing him her license and registration before he asked.

"Do you know why I pulled you over, ma'am?" he asked.

"No, sir, but I'd appreciate it if you would."

"You have a front headlight out."

"Oh, no!  Are you serious?"

"I'm afraid so.  Not to worry, it's an easy enough fix to just replace the bulb.  I wanted to bring it to your attention so you can get it fixed as soon as possible, though."

"Thank you so much, officer."

He reached in the open window and put the paperwork back into her hand.  "Just get that headlight fixed as soon as possible."

"Oh, I will, sir.  Thank you so much.  I really appreciate your understanding."

He smiled slightly and shrugged.  "Even police cruisers loose a headlight once in awhile."

"Thank you again, officer.  Have a wonderful night."

"Same to you, ma'am."

*

She started to slow as she looked up and saw blue flashing lights.  She remembered in the blur of seconds her history with getting pulled over, and the one car accident she'd been in at the age of twenty-one when she fell asleep driving at three in the morning and accidentally went into a ditch.

She nudged her decelerating car onto the road's shoulder and was reaching into the glove compartment for her registration as the police car swerved around her, sped past her, and disappeared into the night, lights still pulsating like alien bubbles.

Clearly it was her lucky night.

Writing Contest: Sharing My Tickle

The eternal question for writers seems to be, "Where do you get your ideas?"

While I've written before about the dream that spawned my completed manuscript, it's usually a bit less involved.  In general, I get my ideas from something I see or hear that strikes me as noteworthy ... I call it "a tickle".

I had quite a tickle today ... and NOT writing about it is actually a force of will.  In fact, I'm only keeping my muse under wraps with the knowledge that I will write a short story based on today's tickle as soon as I get this post up.

Yup, I've decided to have a writing contest :-)

Okay, here are the details ...

1.  Write a short story incorporating my tickle into it.  Genre doesn't matter.

2.  Send me your short story via e-mail before December 30th.

3.  I will choose my three favorites and post them here on January 1st.  At that time, votes will be open for you to vote on your favorite for the next three days.

4.  Winner receives a special prize (and, of course, bragging rights) that will necessitate in your being willing to hook me up with your mailing address.

Any questions?  Leave them in the comments.  Also feel free to let me know in the comments that you're participating.

Okay, onto the tickle ...

Yup, the tickle is ... A GREEN PICKUP TRUCK!

More specifically, here's what happened ...

I was driving home from work on a very rural New Hampshire street that is known to locals as "Mountain Road" (it is well-named).  I saw a green pickup truck coming from the other direction with its hazard lights flashing.  I looked at the license plate and saw that the truck had government plates.  However (and this is the bottom line of the tickle), there was no further identification on the truck.  It didn't have a Department of Transportation decal.  There were no police lights.  It was very generic.  The mystery of that truck fascinated me, and I started making up a story right there ...

And now, so can you.  The green pickup truck is the required presence in your story, although you can feel free to use the other details I shared.

Please feel free to share this writing contest as you see fit ... the more, the merrier!

Happy writing, and I look forward to reading your stories :-)

I Wrote a Short Story--Read and Critique, Please?

My primary weakness as a writer of fiction is that I am trapped in the world of novel.  I seem to be incapable of writing anything short ... it all just wants to grow into a novel that might or might not come into fruition.

I'm making a serious effort to work with the "short story" concept, which I've struggled with.  If you're interested, you can check out a couple of my prior attempts here ("Ruffled Feathers"), here ("Fading Bouquets"), and here ("Que Sera Sera").  The following is my latest crack at it.

Please let me know what you think--comments, criticisms (only please don't say, "It sucks" without elaboration), suggestions, general "keep trying ... you'll get better" words of encouragement--all would be welcome and much appreciated.

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                                       "MATRIARCH"

                                                 by

                                          Katie Loud

Carol Butterick sighed with pleasure, careful to make sure that the noise could be construed as pain, discomfort, sadness.  She was, after all, dying.

She allowed her eyes to open a crack, taking in the sight of her family huddled around her hospital bed, as close as the IV stand would allow.  She noted with satisfaction that they were all there, the whole lot of them. They were quiet, and Carol knew that her presence was the reason why.

Nobody was looking directly at Carol--that was clearly too painful for them as they struggled to imagine a world without her.  She had, after all, been omnipresent in all of their lives for ... well, forever, as far as she was concerned.  

Her husband Herman was sitting close to her on her right side, his hand almost touching hers, but not quite.  She was glad.  

Herman looked old and haggard; he was a heavy smoker whose every breath was characterized by the wheeze of emphysema.  The doctor had suggested that Herman use a portable oxygen tank, but Carol had put the kibosh on that right away.  Herman needed to carry her wheelchair from place to place, to help her in and out of the car, to run and do her bidding as he'd done for the duration of their marriage.  That was his role.

Herman was a car mechanic, and he wore his work uniform even on weekends.  It was easier that way, since the garage laundered employee attire; the thought of his dirty, greasy clothes mixing in with hers in the washing machine ... well, it was just not going to happen, and that was all.

They lived in a small, almost stereotypical New Hampshire town, and the Buttericks were considered an odd, even a dysfunctional, family.  Carol didn't mind; it was easy enough to ignore the "Jack Sprat and his wife" jokes and the implication that Herman was what the young ones called "pussywhipped".  

That was a joke; Carol hadn't allowed her husband carnal knowledge of her body since their wedding night.  

He did her bidding, came running when she called, and handed over his paycheck.  She handled the bills, the household expenses, and it briefly occurred to her that someone was going to have to step up and help him out.  She knew for a fact that Herman Butterick didn't have a clue how to do something as simple as writing a check.

Her eyes, still slitted snake-like, moved to the other side of the bed where Amber sat.

Poor Amber, who was the spitting image of her whore of a mother.

Amber was overweight, homely as sin, spotted with acne even though she was approaching thirty, and bound to be a spinster.  Amber had been born dangerously prematurely, and the lack of oxygen following her birth had unquestionably damaged her brain.  Carol's view was that the girl's evident cow-like stupidity was a direct punishment for her mother's sins.

Amber had tried to escape, as much as her limited brainpower would allow.  As Amber's aunt and legal guardian, Carol had ignored the school's requests for special education testing.  Why bother?  The girl was numb as a stump, and nothing was going to change that.

She'd worked as a cashier at one of the town's two gas stations since her graduation from high school with a D- average.  The station's owner, a friend of Herman's, had carefully gone over the cash register with her, had patiently taught her how to make change, and Amber was a fixture at the gas station now.

The year before, she'd moved into an apartment in town with a couple of her old friends from high school.  Carol couldn't remember their names, but one of them flipped burgers at the Burger King uptown, and the other one had a baby and lived on food stamps and welfare money.  

Carol had liked having Amber at home, had become used to bullying the girl into submission.  It was an art form she'd mastered over the years, and besides, Amber had kept the trailer sparkling clean.  Since she'd moved into that hophouse down the road, nobody had vacuumed or dusted or picked up.  Herman wasn't capable of picking up the slack, not with the number of hours he worked each week, and Carol certainly wasn't going to do it.

It might let them onto the fact that she wasn't anywhere near as sickly as they all believed, and that just would not do.  It would lead to all sorts of complications, to questions best left unanswered ...

And anyway, he was back, now, her shining prince, and she knew--knew--that he wouldn't tolerate a messy house.  She'd left instructions with Herman to hire a housekeeper after her death, since she would never make her boy do anything as mundane as housework.

Carol had been married to another man once, when Herman was just another boy from town who was hardworking and came from a family that owned their own land but would never amount to much.

Jerry had been different.  Although possessed of a snake-like native intelligence, Carol Butterick wasn't an educated woman; the word charismatic  was not in her repertoire, although it fit Jerry Melanson to a T.  She had married Jerry without a moment's hesitation, had gone to live in his cabin in the woods without a second thought.  That it didn't have running water or a refrigerator was beside the point--no, what Jerry did to her at night, the way he touched her when he was in a good mood, his booming laugh, those were the things that mattered.

Jerry had a bad temper, and Carol was very cautious not to set off his hair trigger.  Of course, "cautious" was something of a foreign concept to a woman who truly believed herself better than anyone else, a woman who dropped out of school following a fight with another student.  They'd made Carol talk to a "special doctor", and her mother's eyes had widened when the word sociopath was mentioned.  It hadn't been hard for Carol to convince her mother that the shrink was all wet, and it had been with her parents' blessing that she'd left school.

Despite Carol's awareness of and deference to Jerry's quick, violent anger, he spent a lot of nights out of the house, ostensibly because he was out drinking with the boys.  It never occurred to Carol that he was stepping out on her.

So the day that her mother pulled her wheezy Chevrolet into the cabin's dirt driveway and told Carol that her younger sister, Valerie, was pregnant and had named her brother-in-law Jerry as the father was a dark one indeed for Carol.  

Jerry had quickly and, with something close to relief, admitted his affair with Valerie.  He filed for divorce and, as soon as it was finalized, married the now hugely pregnant Val.  To prove that she didn't hold a grudge, Carol had arranged for herself and Herman, who she'd been dating for approximately a month, to be married the same day.

If Valerie felt slighted at having to share her wedding day with the older sister that had tormented and tortured and basically eclipsed her entire childhood, she said nothing.  Valerie was a simple soul, and her affair with Jerry had been based solely on the fact that someone was paying attention to her for once.  

Valerie's baby was a boy, a son she named Albert, and their daughter Amber was born two years later.  

Two years after that, Jerry and Valerie got into a serious car accident.  Valerie received serious, potentially life-threatening injuries.  Jerry received a DWI summons.

Carol, who had largely avoided her sister and former husband other than lavishing expensive gifts on young Albert and, to a noticeably lesser degree, little Amber, swept in to play nurse for her sister.  

There were no questions asked when Valerie succumbed to her injuries despite the best efforts of her sister.  Certainly nobody noticed that the bottle of antibiotics prescribed to Valerie to stop her infection contained the same number of capsules as it had when Carol picked it up at the drugstore.  The numerous painkillers that should have made a woman suffering from tremendous pain feel a little bit better had likewise been untouched.

Shortly after Valerie's death, Jerry was on his way home from a late night at the bar.  His beat-up pick up truck crossed the yellow line and crashed into a small car carrying a family of four on their way home from a picnic at the lake.  He was sentenced to many years in jail, needless to say, and custody of Albert and Amber was transferred to their Aunt Carol.

Carol looked now at the foot of her hospital bed, where Albert was slumped in a chair.  His resemblance to Jerry was striking, and Carol felt a surge of pride ... and a tug of something else as well, deathbed or no.

Albert had been her shining star, the valedictorian of his graduating class, a Boy Scout, a volunteer at the local nursing home, and a three-season athlete.  She had given all of herself to him--all of herself--and, when he tried to protest, she reminded him of all that she had done for him.  It was the least he could do.  Nobody else would ever want him anyway.  If he didn't do what she wanted him to, she would consider sending Amber to an orphanage.

Albert lived under a heavy weight of guilt--the guilt of his very existence which had been at the expense of Aunt Carol, the guilt of protesting her physical desires when she had done so much for him, the fact that Amber was treated like a niece and he was treated as better than a son ...

Carol had not wanted Albert to go to college, but of course a boy of his stellar successes was college-bound. She made Herman buy him a car so that he could come home every weekend, though, and was insistent that he did.

And then Albert met a girl down there in Boston, a high society bitch who clearly thought she was better than Albert's poor white trash family, and suddenly Albert stopped coming home every weekend.  When he did return to the trailer, he brazenly brought the Boston bitch with him.  Carol had no choice but to get the message.

She was disgusted by Albert's weakness as he bought the bitch a diamond ring and wedding plans moved forward, Albert's family left out of all aspects of the planning.  Carol got in her digs when she could--she brought the girl to tears by telling her that she was going to wear black to the wedding, for example--but she mostly had no choice but to gnash her teeth and take out her anger on Amber, who actually showed a degree of gumption by moving out.

The marriage lasted just over a year.  Albert, who'd gotten some hard-core executive job that Carol didn't understand (nor did she need to), had found himself in trouble at work when his aunt (who he referred to as his mother) called him every hour.  He was reprimanded at work, first informally and then on paper.  She continued to call, telling him that she was alone and sick and needed him.

He started leaving work at odd hours to drive the three hours up to make sure that Aunt Carol was okay.  

His wife was not pleased, and between being a failure at work and being a failure in his marriage, Albert started to drink heavily.  He drank as he drove up to the tiny New Hampshire town that was his prison, he spent time with his Aunt Carol, who was the only person that seemed to think he was worth anything, and then he drank all the way back to Boston.

It was inevitable that he would be bagged for DWI eventually.  It happened the day before he was fired from his job, a rising star that fizzled like the bubbles in a bottle of alcohol.

His wife, distraught and confused, was called to bail him out.  She made an appointment for marriage counseling the next day, and for the first time he confessed about the horrible abuse he'd suffered at the hands of his Aunt Carol.  That was the only counseling appointment that he went to sober, and after the third time Albert beat her badly enough to require medical assistance, she filed for divorce.

Carol, who sat in the courtroom holding her son's hand as the divorce was granted, licked her lips like a cat who'd gotten the ultimate dish of cream.  Albert moved back home, and she bought him bottles of wine because that was what he wanted, and he did whatever she wanted as long as he had his wine.

Sometimes, though, the Albert that had crossed the graduation stage covered with gold braid to give the valedictory address, the young man with so much potential who had caught the attention of a bright and beautiful girl and earned her love, tried to stand up to her, tried to say no, both to the wine and to her.

Carol had a history of diabetes, of heart problems, of debilitating blood clots in her legs.  Her history of mental illness was unknown, of course, but Carol had figured out that stopping her medication led to a trip to the hospital in an ambulance ... and the gathering of her family by her bedside.

This was the third time she'd done it, and Herman and Amber looked worried, perhaps even a little suspicious.

Albert just looked resigned.  

His glanced upward, his eyes meeting hers.  She winked at him, a promise of wine waiting at home for him, so long as he played things her way, and he looked away.

She groaned again, an expert at making herself sound pained and long-suffering.  Herman took her hand, and Amber rang for the nurse.

Albert looked away, but she knew it was only a matter of time.  She had her boy back, and he wasn't going anywhere this time ... she knew that it was the wine that held him to her, but that didn't matter to her.

What did was that he wasn't going anywhere.

So I Found this Depressing Short Story ...

I was cleaning out my hard drive and found this short story. It's very depressing, but at the same time I kind of like it. Let me know what you think :-)

"Fading Bouquets"
by
KL

The stage was wooden and splintery.

Once, when Autumn had been rehearsing for a show, a girl in the “special class” at school named Marisa had cut her foot fairly badly after removing her thick white athletic socks and orthopedic shoes. Marisa had gazed with envy at the shoeless feet flitting everywhere she looked before taking matters into her own hands, her teeth gritted in determination.

It seemed to Autumn that naturally someone would get hurt on that stage at some point and that naturally it would be poor Marisa. The girl had continued to dance in her jerky, marionette way that everyone snickered at and secretly imitated behind her back, apparently unaware of the blood dripping from the bottom of her bare soles and freckling the peeling wood with red droplets.

The stereotypical teenage drama scene ensued, Autumn remembered now, characterized mostly by girls screaming and boys laughing. Funny how her memory categorized the genders so neatly, especially when she remembered herself giggling madly with her friends, all of them dressed in matching loose shorts over black spandex, their t-shirts all from the same store and differing only in color. Then there was the way Brian MacLeod’s skin had gone the color of milk, hectic roses of color high on his cheekbones all that remained of his ruddy complexion.

Autumn wondered, just before the lights went down, if there were still remnants of Marisa’s blood up there on the very platform her daughter would momentarily be the center of. She knew of course that this was impossible, that Marisa’s shed and forgotten (except for those late night slumber parties where the girls laughed … and laughed … and laughed) blood was as much a ghost as an Autumn that was comfortable getting up in front of people, of singing and dancing under brightly colored lights, of letting her voice be heard.

Still, part of Autumn’s mind went to those crime scene shows. She pictured herself dressed in a no-nonsense black crime scene vest, perhaps set off by a buttercup-yellow shirt underneath, crawling around on that stage swabbing samples with Q-Tips then dripping over them the liquid that caused color to bloom if blood was present. She would wear pants—not jeans, no, that would be unprofessional, but sturdy corduroys, maybe—to keep her knees from catching on the splinters of wood she knew lurked; after all, there are rocks in even the most beautiful garden.

Sage was brilliant. She always was, and Autumn listened with mixed pride and indignation as those sitting around her raved about Sage’s talent even as they muttered out the other sides of their mouths about how nice it would be if someone else got the lead for a change. It bothered Autumn a bit that, as she sat alone in her seat on the aisle of the auditorium, a bit hunched over as was her wont because to hold her head high might mean looking in someone’s eyes, nobody seemed to realize that she was Sage’s mother. The hands holding a bouquet of simple spring flowers from the local grocery store were the same hands that had held Sage to her breast seconds after she was born, their owner a scared but determined young mother who had crooned through a year’s worth of colic the songs that had given Sage such a vast and eclectic repertoire of music, had introduced her to the concept of harmony through Simon and Garfunkel (“Lame!” Sage pronounced these days) and lyrical introspection—there were few songs about which Autumn didn’t know a story or two. “Hey, Sagey, you know what the day the music died was?” “No, Mommy, what?” “Well, there was this terrible plane crash that killed three musicians, Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens (you know, he sang ‘La Bamba’), and The Big Bopper.”

Autumn’s eyes didn’t leave Sage from the first act until the curtain call, when the audience gave her daughter a standing ovation and Sage’s eyes burned with a deep passion for what she had done. Her smile—a smile paid for by Autumn’s second job since orthodontia was a priority for a child with a smile like Sage’s, not to mention the talent that had barely been tapped into—of joy, of pride, was bestowed upon the musical director, on her peers. Sage beamed as she, along with her cast mates, gestured to the lighting crew, the stage crew, and the pit orchestra, giving credit where it was due, sharing the glory even as she basked in it.

Autumn noticed that her sweaty hands had creased the floral wrap into a wrinkled, sweaty mess. The flowers, bright pinks and purples, were crushed and shabby-looking. On a depressing whim, Autumn surreptitiously slid the ruined bouquet under her auditorium seat. Nobody noticed.

In the lobby after the show, Autumn stood alone against the far wall waiting for Sage. Every time the door swung open, an April breeze wafted in, smelling of lilac and newness.

Sage appeared out of nowhere, and Autumn’s lips curved into a tentative smile. “You were great, sweetheart.”

Sage nodded, and Autumn knew without being told that she had been hearing the same words throughout her trek to the lobby, that the words had ceased to hold meaning of any sort for her daughter. “Do you have any money, Mom? Everybody’s going out for ice cream.”

“Um, sure, I guess. Are you sure you don’t want to come home? You must be tired.”

Sage turned to the coterie of girls that had followed her and rolled her eyes in Autumn’s general direction. Autumn noticed with despair that five of the six were holding bouquets of flowers, tokens of appreciation for a job well done. She thought of Sage’s bouquet, crumpled and alone in the now-empty auditorium, and wanted to cry. Instead, she rummaged in her purse until she found a ten-dollar bill she hadn’t been positive was there.

“Thanks, Mom,” Sage called. “I’ll let you know if I need a ride home.”

Before Autumn could answer, her daughter had disappeared into the crowd of people and was gone.

Story Published on Fiction 500 Blog : )

Check it out. Leave lots of comments : )

http://fiction500.blogspot.com/2009/12/que-sera-sera.html

And definitely submit your own piece to the Fiction 500 project. It's a very cool opportunity for writers : )

Writing Prompt: Flowers

So I was motivated to join the challenge for writing a short about flowers issued by Elana at Mindless Musings. I had a lot of fun writing this, and would as always love to have your feedback.

I'd also strongly encourage you to participate in this endeavor, even if you don't consider yourself a writer. It's always nice to see the multitude of interpretations a single word can give.
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"The Flowers that Were"
by KLo

The stage was wooden and splintery. Once, when Autumn had been rehearsing for a show, a girl in the “special class” at school name Marisa had cut her foot fairly badly. She’d continued to dance in her jerky, marionette way that everyone snickered at and secretly imitated behind her back, apparently unaware of the blood dripping from the bottom of her bare soles and freckling the peeling wood with red droplets that caused the stereotypical pre-teen drama scene.

Autumn wondered, just before the lights went down, if there were still remnants of Marisa’s blood up there, on the very platform her daughter would momentarily be the center of. She knew of course that this was impossible, that Marisa’s shed and forgotten (except for those late night slumber parties where the girls laughed … and laughed … and laughed) blood was as much a ghost as an Autumn that was comfortable getting up in front of people, of singing and dancing under brightly colored lights, of letting her voice be heard.

Samantha was brilliant. She always was, and Autumn listened with mixed pride and indignation as those sitting around her raved of Sam’s talent even as they muttered about how nice it would be if someone else got the lead, for a change. It bothered Autumn a bit that, as she sat alone in her seat on the aisle of the auditorium, a bit hunched over as was her wont because to hold her head high might mean looking in someone’s eyes, nobody seemed to realize that she was Samantha’s mother, that the hands holding a bouquet of spring flowers from the local grocery store were the same hands that had held Samantha to her breast seconds after she was born, who had crooned her the songs that had given her such a repertoire of music in her mind, had introduced her to the concept of harmony and lyrical introspection.

Autumn’s eyes didn’t leave Samantha from the first act until the curtain call, when the audience gave her daughter a standing ovation and Samantha’s eyes burned with a passion for what she had done. Her smile of joy, of pride, was bestowed upon the musical director, on her peers. Samantha beamed as she, along with her cast mates, gestured to the lighting crew, the stage crew, and the pit orchestra.

Autumn noticed that her sweaty hands had creased the floral wrap into a wrinkled, sweaty mess. The flowers, bright pinks and purples, were crushed and shabby-looking. Autumn surreptitiously slid the ruined bouquet under her auditorium seat. Nobody noticed.

In the lobby after the show, Autumn stood alone against the far wall waiting for Samantha. Every time the door swung open, an April breeze wafted in, smelling of lilac and newness.

Samantha appeared out of nowhere, and Autumn’s lips started to curve into a smile. “You were great, sweetheart.”

Samantha nodded. “Do you have any money, Mom? Everybody’s going out to get an ice cream.”

“Um, sure, I guess. Are you sure you don’t want to come home? You must be tired.”

Samantha rolled her eyes at the coterie of girls that had followed her. Autumn noticed with despair that five of the six were holding bouquets of flowers, gifts of appreciation for a job well done. She thought of Samantha’s bouquet, hidden and alone in the now-empty auditorium, and wanted to cry. Instead, she rummaged in her purse until she found a ten-dollar bill.

“Thanks, Mom,” Samantha called. “I’ll let you know if I need a ride home.”

Before Autumn could answer, her daughter had disappeared into the crowd of people and was gone.

Autumn pushed opened the door and walked outside. She thought a deep, cleansing breath would make her feel better, but instead it only reminded her that sometimes the beauty of spring, the hint of flowers riding the waves of air, smelled cloying, overpowering rather than a sign of something new.

My Lone Short Story--Please Rip it to Shreds

The following is the lone short story I've ever felt remotely proud of, the only one I've written for pleasure or passion and not because a teacher made me. I'd really appreciate honest feedback on it ... since I'm not of the opinion that it's a great piece, any suggestions for how to approach it would be beneficial not just in terms of this piece but also in how I look to improve my novels.

There is less of me personally in this piece, and maybe that's why I'm more open to having it shredded.

Thanks in advance : )

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"Ruffled Feathers"
by KLo
Every once in awhile, people will do a double take when they walk by me at the mall or on the street or whatever. A good many will even take it to the next level and say, “Excuse me, but where do I know you from?” Invariably, I tell them that they must be mistaken. I have told virtual multitudes about how I have “one of those familiar faces.”

I am a liar.

The age bracket of my familiars fits squarely in with those that would have been three to five year olds in the late eighties and early nineties, when “Birds of a Feather” burned up PBS stations across the country. The only exception are those that look to be my mother’s age; I guess that shouldn’t surprise me, either.

On occasion, my mother, the epitome of all stage mothers, is with me when one of those close encounters transpires. I have to put my hand over her mouth and pull her away quick.

“Why don’t you tell them you’re a Feather Friend?” she always asks. It breaks the woman’s heart that I teach middle school. She had expected far more grandiose bragging rights.

“Was, Mother, was.”

Most of the time, it is easy to forget that, for three years, I was Peggy Feather on “Birds of a Feather.” I live a quiet existence. I rent a small apartment with my cat Whiskers and teach seventh graders how to write paragraphs and diagram sentences. My mother comes over for dinner every Sunday and tells me how brown the lettuce is and how I wouldn’t be overcooking meat if I’d stayed in “the business.”
I knew something was wrong when her elderly gray sedan was in my parking lot when I got home from work today. She hauled her hefty frame out of the car and minced over to me in high heels that matched perfectly the purple sequins on her full-length jacket. She was wearing sunglasses although it was a cloudy day; I’d seen enough Hollywood funerals on television to know what that meant.

“What’s wrong, Mom?” I asked, hoping she couldn’t hear the annoyance in my voice. I mean, I had work to do; I didn’t have time to commiserate with her on the loss of her favorite soap star.

“Oh, Jennifer, Petey’s dead!” She pulled a spangled purple handkerchief out of her pocket and blew her nose loudly.

I cringed, both inside and out, but my mother didn’t notice. “Petey?”

“Petey Feather!” she sobbed.

I sat down hard on the fender of my car, stunned. “Mike’s dead?”

Blowing her nose again and nodding, she contemplated sitting next to me but accurately assessed that my little Honda would not hold her bulk. “I saw it on the news!”

Of course Michael Gladstone’s death would have been on the news. He was, after all, a world famous film star. Even before his stint as Petey Feather began when he was ten, Mike had been fairly visible through all the commercials he’d done. He’d once admitted rather embarrassedly that he’d been in over forty commercials … beginning with the extreme close-up of his derriere in the Huggies ad when he wasn’t even old enough to crawl. Mike was an old pro, and he’d taken me under his wing (so to speak) during the “Birds of a Feather” years.

Mike Gladstone had me pegged from the start. Before we ever arrived on the set, my mother was legendary with all the network bigwigs. She had spent the vast majority of my father’s life insurance money on trying to break her pretty little daughter—me, of course—into the acting world. There were the photograph portfolios, the singing lessons, the dancing lessons, the acting lessons. I acquiesced meekly enough, although I could see the truth in the blank eyes of my singing and dancing teachers as they looked through me and toward the more talented members of the class; I was not exceptional in any sense of the word. There wasn’t anything special about me that would result in my standing out from the crowded, crooked line of pink leotards and ballet slippers—except, of course, my overbearing mother. Through sheer perseverance and pushiness, my mother made connections in the power-hungry world of entertainment as I moved through my childhood years. These connections were definitely on the fringes of things and resulted in pretty much nothing until I was nine and they were looking for a sort-of pretty (in a plain way) girl who could sing (moderately well) and dance (a little bit) for a regular, recurring role in a television show for children.
Mike was sitting on a stool inside a huge warehouse-like building the first time I saw him. The building contained the set-in-progress, but I had no idea about that at the time. To me, it was an impossibly huge room full of a veritable passel of grown-ups, all talking at the same time … and one boy about my age reading a sports magazine. From the start, I couldn’t take my eyes off of him; he lit up the room even though he was just a child. Part of it was how handsome he was, beautiful, really. You could stare at his face for hours in complete awe of something so perfect, so artistic, almost, as though he’d been sculpted by Michelangelo. His movements were so graceful they seemed impeccably choreographed, even those as mundane as flipping through the pages in his magazine. When he looked up and saw me, I felt cold all over. The thought of those huge brown eyes within the porcelainesque face looking at me, looking into me, was almost more than I could bear. The feeling went away when Mike smiled and there were braces on his teeth and he walked over and told me about the playground out back. He looked warily at my mother, glanced at me again, smiled reassuringly, and led me outside. We had our first forbidden jump-off-the-swing-for-distance contest that very afternoon. Mike won, of course, and I was just happy to have spent an hour in his presence. I didn’t realize how much time we would soon be spending together … or how seriously Mike took his role as my first and only friend.

“Birds of a Feather” sort of bridged the gap between that old childhood classic “Sesame Street” and the more modern shows created by “creative experts” that emphasize the learning as well as the entertainment such as “Blue’s Clues” and “Dora the Explorer.” The premise was fairly standard—a family fond of singing and dancing travels the country sharing their performances with children of all ages, making friends and having adventures in various locations. The “parents” of the family, Mama and Papa Feather, were actually huge puppets that frightened me terribly at first. These rainbow-colored mutant birds somehow procreated, resulting in two human children, Petey Feather and Peggy Feather. Petey was the family superstar, perfect at everything he tried to do, happy and cheerful, loved by all; playing Petey Feather was barely acting for Mike Gladstone. In the same vein, Peggy Feather was no stretch for me. Peggy was the picture of mediocrity, especially when compared to her crackerjack brother. A common theme in several episodes of “Birds of a Feather” is a focus on Peggy’s feelings of insecurity. Perhaps the television viewers never realized that Peggy’s feelings of insecurity were well-founded; that was not the case for me. I spent four years singing back-up to Mike as Petey, four years shadowing his dances, four years on television bringing milk and cookies to the “nice friends Petey made” at locations all over the country. Mama and Papa Feather even gave me-as-Peggy a cursory good-night peck (sorry, even after all these years, the bird jokes keep on coming) before heading over to Mike-as-Petey’s nest to discuss the central theme of the day with him for the purpose of really driving home the lesson of the day to our young audience. If I had been a different person, I would have hated Mike Gladstone, or at least I would have had terrible jealousy pangs in his very presence. However, I had spent my entire life in the formidable shadow of my brash, loud, pushy mother; Mike’s shadow may have been huge, but it was at least benevolent.

“Birds of a Feather” had a good four-year run before it ended in 1992 because Mike was offered a pivotal film role that was just too good to pass up. They decided not to recast Petey Feather and, since he really was the heart and soul and star of the show, “Birds of a Feather” was delegated to the archives of memory. The episodes were released on videotape, of course, and sales were good. I was able to go to college without taking out loans because of those videotapes. My mother and I moved to a small town in New Hampshire where I started eighth grade, my first time in a public school. My English teacher, Ms. Gardner, showed me that I did indeed excel in something—writing. “Maybe,” Mike wrote in one of the two letters I received from him, “you can come out to California and write screenplays.”

Indeed.

Screenplays are not my medium; I am a novelist, or at least I think I am. I’ve been working on a novel since eighth grade, the same one since that time. It’s actually pretty good now, and one of these days I might get up the courage to try to figure out how to go about getting it published. Until that time, I entertain my students with my sarcasm and enlighten them about how to write. “Writing,” I repeat over and over, “is an art.” I am no Ms. Gardner, but I think I’m pretty good at teaching, too. I never got any commentary from Mike on that count; his star had risen far beyond my reach by the time my teaching career started, and besides, he probably couldn’t have connected a teaching career to himself the way he could a writing career.

Mike Gladstone received an Academy Award nomination for the role he dropped “Birds of a Feather” to take. It took him four more years, to the age of eighteen, before he actually won an Oscar. Like many, many stars that came before him, Mike was on a rocket ride. He sped to the top, to dizzying heights, to a world of beautiful women and never-ending parties, to a place where each role brought him accolades and the awe-struck praise made him more and more famous, more and more unattainable. His body was found this morning in his California mansion, full of a lethal dose of alcohol and Vicodin. I’m sure there will be the standard accident/suicide debate, but I don’t think it really matters in the long run. Like Marilyn Monroe and River Phoenix, Mike soared through the sky, reveling in the way people looked up to watch him, the way people couldn’t take their eyes off of him. Like Icarus, Mike (and so many of young Hollywood) had a hell of a ride. Like Icarus, he was not careful, and he paid with his life in the ensuing fall.

“Do you want to come up and have a cup of tea?” I asked my mother when my legs felt strong enough to support my weight.

She shook her head. “I just thought you should know.”

“Thanks, Mom. That was nice of you.”

“I’ll be happy to join you for his funeral, Jennifer.”

I stared at her for a long, long time before I turned and headed up to my apartment. Whiskers was in the window, anticipating my arrival. He would be happy to receive a thorough patting and his cat food dinner. My bag was full of essays to grade.

The phone was ringing as I walked in the door. Ignoring the purring of my cat, I raced over and grabbed the receiver. “Hello?”

“Please hold for Ms. Watkins.”

“Excuse me?”

The only response was the “you’re on hold” music. Just as I was about to hang up the phone, a woman’s voice said, “I’m trying to reach Jenny Pearson.”

“This is she.”

“Jenny, this is Lucy Watkins.”

“Umm … do I know you?”

The woman made a noise of frustration. “Used to be Lucy Gibbs?” She had an irritating habit of making all of her sentences sound like questions. “From ‘Birds of a Feather’?”

But I didn’t need any further clarification; the statements-as-questions had clued me in. She’d been a lower-level producer of the show, and not one that I’d particularly liked. “Um, hi. What can I do for you?”

“A favor? Please, please, please tell your mother to stop calling my people?”

“Um … my mother?”

She huffed in irritation at my evident idiocy. “If you want to go to Mike’s services, it could probably be arranged? You know?”

“Um …”

“Tell her I fold? I’ll e-mail you the details? Just stop calling?”

“Um, listen, I have no interest in going to Mike Gladstone’s services.”

“Excuse me? No interest?”

Suddenly, I felt powerful. “I had an enormous amount of respect for Mike as an entertainer and, while it’s true we were friends during ‘Birds’, I haven’t heard from him in over twelve years. I have no place at his funeral; I’ll do my grieving in private.”

“You could have saved me the trouble of calling?” she said, then hung up with an audible click.

“How could I have saved you the trouble of calling?” I asked the receiver as I hung it up. I was laughing uncontrollably. As I fed Whiskers, relishing his purr of gratitude, I looked out the window and saw that, while my mother had squeezed herself back into her car, she still sat in my parking lot. She had wanted me to have wings; she had wanted me to fly. If I had set the screen on fire like Mike Gladstone and melted the wax on my wings in the process, it would have been worth it to her.

She saw me in the window and began gesturing frantically; I turned away. She’ll still be here on Sunday for dinner, and she’ll still be criticizing my cooking, and she’ll still wish I was more than I am. I don’t. I’m okay with who I am. I may never fly shrieking with excitement to dizzying heights, but I can be safe in the knowledge that I will never fall either.

Later, I took a break from making red marks on student essays to walk out onto the porch with a glass of Cabernet. Night was just starting to fall; there was one star twinkling like mad in the darkening sky. Impulsively, I raised my glass of wine to the faraway light, then I went back to the kitchen table, picked up my red pen, and got back to work.