3 posts tagged “writing”

With Minor Variations.

Everything is basically the same, except this time I write about gun-toting contract-killing apple pie-baking mommies.  (Thanks for the small tweak, Kelly!)

Excerpt:

    “Get in the car, Julia,” Lacey called out. “I'm in a rush.”

    “The pie can wait,” Julia responded, waving a dismissive hand in her mother's direction. She giggled loudly as one of her friends whispered in her ear. “Really? with Jensen?”

    The girl nodded and blushed.

    “Seriously,” Lacey called out, louder. “I don't care if she was fondling Jensen pantless, Julia, we need to leave now.”

    Julia blanched and said her goodbyes quickly. She climbed into the passenger seat of her mom's blue Prius and slammed the door, glaring poisonously. “Seriously, Mom, it's not life or death if food is on the table by five. You just embarrassed me in front of my friends.”

    “Seatbelt,” Lacey said in a dark monotone.

    “What is your damage?”

    Lacey turned, her eyes on fire. “Seatbelt,” she repeated.

    Julia buckled herself in and folded her hands on her lap very quietly. She'd only seen her mother angry a handful of times. Once, when her little brother broke her mother's heirloom vase. One other time, when her mother found out that her father was having an affair. A third time, when a neighbor poisoned their dog. All of those times had seemed like understandable anger. Anger over a seatbelt seemed totally irrational. Julia was scared.

    Lacey slammed the car into drive and sped away from the school, tires smoking. The Prius wasn't made for speed and balked at the hard usage. Lacey cursed loudly and fought back tears.

    “Mom?” Julia said, very quietly.

    “There's just...” Lacey was bouncing in her seat now. Her tiny frame hardly seemed capable of containing her rage. “It's just...”

    “It's just...?”

    “There's been a problem at work,” Lacey said, “and we may all die.”

...

I hate it when I actually like my own writing.  It makes me positively stupid.  Like margaritas, only worse, because I have nothing but my own girlishness to blame.

The worst thing?  Not knowing if my chosen audience will enjoy or not.  What if I spend the next few days blissfully imagining oohs and ahs, only to hear, "no thank you?"

*sighs*

But I do like this one.  For example:

I looked at the first. It was a pink pamphlet depicting flowers in a verdant field. Red text read: NOW THAT YOU'VE STOPPED BREATHING.

I could have a bad day because:

1. I'm still sick
2. I had to wake up at five thirty to comfort my son
   
3. The house is a wreck, and we have company coming (?)
   
4. I feel like I'm going to puke (slightly repeating point one, but also different)
5. I have a headache that could comfortably both cover all of Texas and give birth to Athena
6. My son is also sick
7. Did I mention the house/possibility of company?  That only gets canceled under dire circumstances, and I'm waiting until noon to decide how dire things are.  There's this history of me canceling everything just for everyone to feel fine after lunch.
   

I could have a good day because:

1. I'm ignoring the above list and writing, because I feel like it.  I came up with an awesome first and last line for my short story.

Tasty morsel of the story:  (warning- UNEDITED!)

    The cement under my face felt unnaturally warm. For the longest time, I lay there, marveling at how warm the sidewalk felt compared to the cold tingling in my fingers. The sun glared harshly against my eyes. I blinked, hard at first, and started to come to a realization. I was laying in an alley under the noon sun. Why in the world was I laying in an alley?

    I noticed that I'd been holding my breath and I forced my lungs to work. It felt harder than it should have been. My hands were still feeling cold, so I tucked them under my stomach and tried to focus. Why was I here? The last I could remember, I'd been out celebrating my engagement. We'd gone to a few clubs, and eventually the night had drawn on too long and we'd been waiting for a cab. I'd been holding my hand out, and this creepy goth girl had been yelling at us and bit my wrist, and...

    There was nothing there. I just couldn't remember. It didn't seem like my friends to just desert me. It didn't seem like me to just desert them. Everything felt so misshapen and weird. I finally mustered the energy to sit up. I looked at my hands, which were cold and blue. The veins in my arms looked like cerulean spiderwebs. Even my feet had taken on a decidedly deathly pallor. I looked at the grisly green bite mark on my wrist. Odd.

    That was when it hit me, like a ton of bricks. I'd been laying in a pool of what appeared to be my own blood.