It's hard to start a post about shutting up. There are words that are hurling themselves to the front of my brain with "hey-I-haven't-gotten-my-screentime" steaming off of them colliding with that force field of solid shame that comes from acknowledging that something you wanted isn't within your reach. This is the wince before the Band-Aid comes off.
I've decided to let go of the idea of being a published writer.
I'm not an ethical revisionist. It takes time and discernment and attention to bring a voice to life and I bring instead the kind of impatience that I recognize from school projects: how quickly can I finish this and go on the next idea? And I can do that if the only person who reads my stuff is me. If weedy, obscure drafts remain private.
The End.
Friday, June 20, 2014
Thursday, June 19, 2014
French 75
“That one. He came up to me on the first day and told me he didn’t know whether I was a girl or a boy because the ponytail on my nametag had torn off.” Genny pointed to a blonde boy on the back row of the class in the photo. “Why did you keep this?” She pressed her chin to the side, popping her neck, and shook out her shoulders. She'd been clinging to the steering wheel while navigating the deluge that marked the border. She'd abandoned the car as soon as the rain stopped. “I hadn’t thought about Gage in years.” Muscles along her back tightened as her mother tugged at her hair. “What are you doing?”
“You used to talk about him all the time. We would show this picture to the rest of the family to prove that we had slipped you in, right under the noses of the nuns.” Genny’s mother laughed like the teenager she resembled, high and clear and slightly cruel. “We thought you would entrance him. Give us children to exchange."
Genny dug her bare toes into the cool sand just beyond the patio stones. She and her mother where sitting in the small stone gazebo, facing out into the sandy field that led to the creek, visible only as a line of trees. “I don’t remember if they were nuns. Especially since it was just a summer thing.”
Her mother sat back, her white summer dress falling around her knees and pooling over her tiny waist and stomach. Genny couldn’t remember the last time she’d looked like that, if she ever had. Her mother’s hands were blue with sand from the field beyond, the Dusk her family had mined and shipped for the past few generations along the Texas coast. “Your hair was so beautiful—auburn, brown, and those sky blue curls. They were the lightest thing about you. Solid enough for living mortal, your dad said.”
Genny rolled her shoulders and stretched them up to her ears. She already missed her car and the block where she'd grown up. Dusk coated everything around her and she’d felt it seeping in, felt the hunger that it gave the people—the humans. She rubbed her arms. Showers and swimming in the creek hadn’t removed the feel of it from her skin. She wanted to feel the kick of hunger in her gut, see the halogen shimmer of something precious and dusty under glass.
She pushed her toes further into the sand, watching the wrinkles in her jean shorts relax as she slid her legs straight, catching the back of her knees against the irregular lip of stone. The picture, labelled “French, ‘75” in her mother’s elegant ink letters lay between them. She tried to relax into the same posture as her mother. She glanced to her other side, where the dress her mother had given her on her return was crumpled by her hip. It looked like a child's costume. “How long until I can, until I am back to normal?” Genny asked.
“It takes so long now to understand them. Years of school. And the boxes of stuff that you sent back, obsolete and out of date. We had to send a child out again before you returned. I don’t know how long he’ll stay out there.”
Genny frowned. “A boy? I thought…girls were preferred.”
“Boys keep up the trade and mark the nascent blood. Entire lines run along the edges. Girls are good for that. You always kept a foot in our door. We don’t need girls for that. Girls open other doors.”
“You brought me back.”
“What more could you learn? All of your information was old. You were getting old.” Her mother stared up at the gazebo roof, where a morning glory vine blooming to match the Dusk wove itself among a dome of pipes that reminded Genny of a climbing gym on the old playground at her elementary school.
“I needed to come home. I was starting to get nervous at every rainstorm, starting to overspend…” Genny had been imagining a kind of fairy-tale spa. Slimming down, drying out. Her family had been horrified to discover that she could smell Dusk and that she liked the way it smelled. Not to mention that she was hungry for food full of grease and salt and savor. Grapes exploding like musk in her mouth drizzled with the sharp sweetness of honeysuckle had been good, but she’d eaten three times as much as the rest of the family. Genny felt a burn race along the surface of her skin as she remembered her mother’s expression. The next morning, her mother had taken Genny to the beach, pulled her into the rolling waves and scrubbed her skin with the salt water until both of them were bleeding.
“I’m having a fire built among the aloes,” her mother murmured. “You need to remember how to breathe here. We’ll burn some of the water from the sea. There are still things you can do.” Genny shuddered.
“You know we came from the water, didn’t you? Not the sea, but the clear water that fell through the lightning.” Genny’s mother lifted an arm and swirled her fingers through the air. A charge shimmered in the air and a flash stabbed Genny’s arm.
“Ouch.”
“Opposite charges—we are drawn to them and they are drawn to us. Energy in the difference and the discharge.” Her mother glanced at Genny. “We’ll need more aloes for the fire. You should be the one to pick the rest.”
The aloes grew throughout the field before them, so Genny pushed herself away from the cool stone and glanced around. There were knives and baskets just to one side of the gazebo. She took one, trying to remember the proper method to selecting aloe limbs.
“Pick the ones with the sharpest spines. There is much to scour away.” Genny’s mother gestured toward the line of the creek. “Try the ones closer to the water. Change first.”
Genny changed right there, slipping out of shorts, underwear, t-shirt, and bra while her mother watched. She put on the dress, which was more of a shirt. I’m still Fae, Genny reminded herself. Still part of her flesh. Once I shrink and my skin grows thicker, it will be fine.
She walked into the Dusk barefoot, watching the blue for signs of insect life. There were things that bit hidden in the twilight of the sand. She made it more than halfway across the Dusk, when she felt the dress beginning to pinch across her chest. Her shoulders were burning. Hunger flared and she forgot herself, stamping the sand. It was dark and the soft. And trembling.
Genny looked up. The trees lining the creek shivered and parted. A house appeared—the empty green house from the block where she’d grown up on the mortal side of the highway. She froze as it lurched forward and stopped breathing as it rose on two chicken legs that gleamed a poisonous orange against the indigo Dusk.
She turned and ran, but the Dusk was too soft. Like running in a dream, she couldn’t force speed into her legs. Her muscles ached.
She dropped her shoulders and bent them forward, straining until her chest popped and then wings exploded from her back. A breeze caught them and blew her up and back.
The house loomed up, claws grasping the Dusk and bounding forward. Genny yelled, wings spread pale and loose in the night. She was reaching for the road, for the car she’d abandoned on the other side of the border when the house leapt up and ripped the wings from her back. A bolt of lightning hit the metal lattice of the gazebo and the entire structure hummed.
Her mother licked a charge from her fingers and watched as Genny fell to the ground, dead before she fell into the Dusk, wingless, no longer identifiable as Fae.
“You used to talk about him all the time. We would show this picture to the rest of the family to prove that we had slipped you in, right under the noses of the nuns.” Genny’s mother laughed like the teenager she resembled, high and clear and slightly cruel. “We thought you would entrance him. Give us children to exchange."
Genny dug her bare toes into the cool sand just beyond the patio stones. She and her mother where sitting in the small stone gazebo, facing out into the sandy field that led to the creek, visible only as a line of trees. “I don’t remember if they were nuns. Especially since it was just a summer thing.”
Her mother sat back, her white summer dress falling around her knees and pooling over her tiny waist and stomach. Genny couldn’t remember the last time she’d looked like that, if she ever had. Her mother’s hands were blue with sand from the field beyond, the Dusk her family had mined and shipped for the past few generations along the Texas coast. “Your hair was so beautiful—auburn, brown, and those sky blue curls. They were the lightest thing about you. Solid enough for living mortal, your dad said.”
Genny rolled her shoulders and stretched them up to her ears. She already missed her car and the block where she'd grown up. Dusk coated everything around her and she’d felt it seeping in, felt the hunger that it gave the people—the humans. She rubbed her arms. Showers and swimming in the creek hadn’t removed the feel of it from her skin. She wanted to feel the kick of hunger in her gut, see the halogen shimmer of something precious and dusty under glass.
She pushed her toes further into the sand, watching the wrinkles in her jean shorts relax as she slid her legs straight, catching the back of her knees against the irregular lip of stone. The picture, labelled “French, ‘75” in her mother’s elegant ink letters lay between them. She tried to relax into the same posture as her mother. She glanced to her other side, where the dress her mother had given her on her return was crumpled by her hip. It looked like a child's costume. “How long until I can, until I am back to normal?” Genny asked.
“It takes so long now to understand them. Years of school. And the boxes of stuff that you sent back, obsolete and out of date. We had to send a child out again before you returned. I don’t know how long he’ll stay out there.”
Genny frowned. “A boy? I thought…girls were preferred.”
“Boys keep up the trade and mark the nascent blood. Entire lines run along the edges. Girls are good for that. You always kept a foot in our door. We don’t need girls for that. Girls open other doors.”
“You brought me back.”
“What more could you learn? All of your information was old. You were getting old.” Her mother stared up at the gazebo roof, where a morning glory vine blooming to match the Dusk wove itself among a dome of pipes that reminded Genny of a climbing gym on the old playground at her elementary school.
“I needed to come home. I was starting to get nervous at every rainstorm, starting to overspend…” Genny had been imagining a kind of fairy-tale spa. Slimming down, drying out. Her family had been horrified to discover that she could smell Dusk and that she liked the way it smelled. Not to mention that she was hungry for food full of grease and salt and savor. Grapes exploding like musk in her mouth drizzled with the sharp sweetness of honeysuckle had been good, but she’d eaten three times as much as the rest of the family. Genny felt a burn race along the surface of her skin as she remembered her mother’s expression. The next morning, her mother had taken Genny to the beach, pulled her into the rolling waves and scrubbed her skin with the salt water until both of them were bleeding.
“I’m having a fire built among the aloes,” her mother murmured. “You need to remember how to breathe here. We’ll burn some of the water from the sea. There are still things you can do.” Genny shuddered.
“You know we came from the water, didn’t you? Not the sea, but the clear water that fell through the lightning.” Genny’s mother lifted an arm and swirled her fingers through the air. A charge shimmered in the air and a flash stabbed Genny’s arm.
“Ouch.”
“Opposite charges—we are drawn to them and they are drawn to us. Energy in the difference and the discharge.” Her mother glanced at Genny. “We’ll need more aloes for the fire. You should be the one to pick the rest.”
The aloes grew throughout the field before them, so Genny pushed herself away from the cool stone and glanced around. There were knives and baskets just to one side of the gazebo. She took one, trying to remember the proper method to selecting aloe limbs.
“Pick the ones with the sharpest spines. There is much to scour away.” Genny’s mother gestured toward the line of the creek. “Try the ones closer to the water. Change first.”
Genny changed right there, slipping out of shorts, underwear, t-shirt, and bra while her mother watched. She put on the dress, which was more of a shirt. I’m still Fae, Genny reminded herself. Still part of her flesh. Once I shrink and my skin grows thicker, it will be fine.
She walked into the Dusk barefoot, watching the blue for signs of insect life. There were things that bit hidden in the twilight of the sand. She made it more than halfway across the Dusk, when she felt the dress beginning to pinch across her chest. Her shoulders were burning. Hunger flared and she forgot herself, stamping the sand. It was dark and the soft. And trembling.
Genny looked up. The trees lining the creek shivered and parted. A house appeared—the empty green house from the block where she’d grown up on the mortal side of the highway. She froze as it lurched forward and stopped breathing as it rose on two chicken legs that gleamed a poisonous orange against the indigo Dusk.
She turned and ran, but the Dusk was too soft. Like running in a dream, she couldn’t force speed into her legs. Her muscles ached.
She dropped her shoulders and bent them forward, straining until her chest popped and then wings exploded from her back. A breeze caught them and blew her up and back.
The house loomed up, claws grasping the Dusk and bounding forward. Genny yelled, wings spread pale and loose in the night. She was reaching for the road, for the car she’d abandoned on the other side of the border when the house leapt up and ripped the wings from her back. A bolt of lightning hit the metal lattice of the gazebo and the entire structure hummed.
Her mother licked a charge from her fingers and watched as Genny fell to the ground, dead before she fell into the Dusk, wingless, no longer identifiable as Fae.
Wednesday, June 18, 2014
R/W Brain
After the project that was entering all my To Be Read books in a database (because I was starting to acquire duplicates--yikes--and finding that the TBR stack took up an entire bookshelf) and deciding that I needed to read all the books acquired at Apollocon last year before this year's convention (next week), I assumed all my 'writer' time would be taken up finding excuses to keep reading. Forced march, read, read read!
To a certain extent, the delay in reading was due my distrust of but interest in the self-published books you find at a smaller convention like Apollocon: husband and wife writer teams working on multi-book fantasy series, independent writers with blog story compilations, small press authors with fantasy books unavailable in my local B&N. So far, the stories have been interesting and not what I expected--many of them have scratched the reader's itch that I've had since I was first allowed into the tiny B. Dalton F/SF section with cash of my own. Something of the writer's enthusiasm comes through and, for the most part, the books avoid the excessive length that I've noticed creeping into the bookstore.
Semi-polished and lean, these stories have also connected with my writing brain. When you read about writing (which I do, sometimes obsessively), you encounter the dichotomy of writer brain/editor brain. References to an "inner editor" who can be either a strict structural sentence engineer or some variation on "this is stupid, go back to playing ESO" are frequent. What I rarely encounter is the idea of a triple division -- an inner writer, reader, and editor. I came to writing because I am a reader. It will always be primary; I would rather read good fiction than write my own. [Maybe this disqualifies me from being a "True(TM) Writer." It's possible that I don't love it/want it enough. I can live with that.]
It's easy for me to forget, however, that reader brain is there when I'm drafting and trying not to edit as I go or revising and trying not to lose patience with the entire NOT InstaPerfect project and just start another draft. Reader brain would remind me that there is something that I'm interested in within the words and that I want that enthusiasm to come through. That the words exist solely to convey that enthusiasm. That enthusiasm--which is not a synonym for fun-all-the-time, merely a statement of ongoing, more-than-baseline interest--is how projects are completed. It is motivation and concern for the experience of others. It is finishing what you start.
This is probably something that you already know. I had forgotten. This is my blog-as-fridge magnet to remember.
To a certain extent, the delay in reading was due my distrust of but interest in the self-published books you find at a smaller convention like Apollocon: husband and wife writer teams working on multi-book fantasy series, independent writers with blog story compilations, small press authors with fantasy books unavailable in my local B&N. So far, the stories have been interesting and not what I expected--many of them have scratched the reader's itch that I've had since I was first allowed into the tiny B. Dalton F/SF section with cash of my own. Something of the writer's enthusiasm comes through and, for the most part, the books avoid the excessive length that I've noticed creeping into the bookstore.
Semi-polished and lean, these stories have also connected with my writing brain. When you read about writing (which I do, sometimes obsessively), you encounter the dichotomy of writer brain/editor brain. References to an "inner editor" who can be either a strict structural sentence engineer or some variation on "this is stupid, go back to playing ESO" are frequent. What I rarely encounter is the idea of a triple division -- an inner writer, reader, and editor. I came to writing because I am a reader. It will always be primary; I would rather read good fiction than write my own. [Maybe this disqualifies me from being a "True(TM) Writer." It's possible that I don't love it/want it enough. I can live with that.]
It's easy for me to forget, however, that reader brain is there when I'm drafting and trying not to edit as I go or revising and trying not to lose patience with the entire NOT InstaPerfect project and just start another draft. Reader brain would remind me that there is something that I'm interested in within the words and that I want that enthusiasm to come through. That the words exist solely to convey that enthusiasm. That enthusiasm--which is not a synonym for fun-all-the-time, merely a statement of ongoing, more-than-baseline interest--is how projects are completed. It is motivation and concern for the experience of others. It is finishing what you start.
This is probably something that you already know. I had forgotten. This is my blog-as-fridge magnet to remember.
Thursday, June 12, 2014
Stray
Gen twisted her phone so that the map faced her palm. “We’re pretty close. Just a turn or two away.”
“Shut up, Gen. That was thunder. You should have put the entire address on your phone.” Brad twisted the steering wheel and the Nissan ran up into the tiny parking lot in front of Jim’s blank-and-Go. “We’re right at the bottom of the bowl down here. The streets’ll flood fast.” He pulled into a spot that faced the street.
Gen opened her door. “There was, like, a twenty percent chance of crap weather. I checked.” It was still hot, squinty, insta-headache weather, despite the freeways interlacing themselves in the air above the parking lot. Houston’s grid of downtown streets was just behind them to the left. “Don’t you remember? We came here for that thing when I was taking that art class.”
“I don’t remember coming down here with you. Ever. You didn’t go to places you had to find. Give me your phone.” Gen handed it over, stepping out of the car so that the breeze could shake out her shorts and tank top. Humidity shrink-wrapped the day to her pale skin, clammy from the a/c. She knew they’d been here because she’d been on the Cougar Gallery mailing list ever since, five years of not wanting to overlay the memory of that day with Brad.
He was still scrolling through her messages. “Why the hell are you on the mailing list for all these job sites? You just got a new freaking job. What was the exhibit called?”
“Dive. Everything relates to pools.” Gen leaned against the car. The wind picked up and trash blew across the parking lot. She thought she recognized the shape of one of the houses that backed up on the next street. The gallery was an ex-fraternity house, reclaimed by the university after an ear-biting incident Gen’s freshman year. Her one art class—a blurry year of slides and coffee orders for the grad student graders—had required they attend at least four shows and write about their experiences. Pretty much the entire class had come to the opening show at the ex-frat.
“I think it’s just over there. I’m going to run over before it rains and take a look. Then you can move the car.” Gen hurried across the street, forgetting to grab her phone.
The neighborhood around them was a mix of businesses and houses. It was hard to tell them apart, unless the buildings were just basic brick and glass. Gen crossed the street, cut up to the left to circle the block and felt a few spatters of rain on her neck. The unexpected touch caused her to jump and spin around.
A woman was waiting at the edge of the curb opposite her. Gen hurried forward, following a cracked sidewalk up in front of the buildings under the tangle of elevated roadways. Sharp shadows dissolved as the clouds lowered and the breeze tossed several foil and paper scraps against her legs. Gen skittered forward, trying to guess which house was the gallery. The one she’d thought it to be was boarded up, although the door was partway open. Her stomach turned cold. There were tags on the windows and the walls. Not art. Maybe gang art?
Thunder rolled above her, vibrating through the concrete and along her shivering skin. Something nearby growled back at it. A pile of blue black kittens squirmed against the fence—Gen looked twice to verify they weren’t rats. She hesitated. Art or cat?
Gen murmured at the pile and squatted beside them. You can’t really pick. It’s kinder to let them pick. She clicked her tongue and held out one hand. The middle one stood up so quickly two others flopped out of the pile. Gen continued to click and it came to her.
“You don’t wanna do that,” said a woman behind Gen. Gen glanced over her shoulder and saw the middle-aged woman from the curb, shaking her head. “Ain’t no kitten. Just leave ‘er be.”
A tiny nose bumped against Gen’s fingers and she scooped the kitten up without looking at it. “It’s hungry. And it’s going to rain.”
“Won’t hurt her. Too late, now, I guess.” The woman shuffled close, her left shoulder twitching as her shirt slid off it. A shadow flickered along her neck. Thunder boomed and the rain fell.
She hurried forward, pulling Gen along to the fence and then underneath the temporary protection of a freeway underpass. “It’s gonna steam. Ketz should have known better’n to mess with that phoenix.”
Gen balanced the kitten on one arm and fished for her phone. It was still with Brad. The rain was pouring down like a curtain, and Gen tried to watch the woman behind her, the kitten, and the water at the same time. “I should have grabbed the rest of them.” The kitten suddenly dug her back claws into Gen’s shirt and reached out to bat the rain. Curls of steam rose from its paws, the sluice of water spread out like a screen and Gen saw a sunny neighborhood beyond. She blinked. The kitten slapped at her arm with a burning paw.
Gen looked down and saw a ruff of feathers rise around the creature’s neck and along her back. “Half phoenix. Half Quetzcoatl. No part cat. Better take yourself off to Ben after the heavy stuff passes.” The woman fished in her top and pulled out a card for the Fahill Apartments. “Long A. We call it the Concrete Mushroom. Two blocks down this street, turn left, another block. Go to the third floor, ask for Ben.” The woman looked Gen up and down. “Smoky Ben. Best one for you.” With that, the woman adjusted her top so that both shoulders were exposed, rolled her neck, cracked her spine and drifted off into the rain, wings like dandelion fluff peeking from the back of her shirt.
A hot paw fell on her arm and “Ben” flared in Gen’s retina. She shook her head, smoothing the ruff of feathers that had flared around the creature's neck and along it's spine. "Art today," she said and plunged into the rain.
“Shut up, Gen. That was thunder. You should have put the entire address on your phone.” Brad twisted the steering wheel and the Nissan ran up into the tiny parking lot in front of Jim’s blank-and-Go. “We’re right at the bottom of the bowl down here. The streets’ll flood fast.” He pulled into a spot that faced the street.
Gen opened her door. “There was, like, a twenty percent chance of crap weather. I checked.” It was still hot, squinty, insta-headache weather, despite the freeways interlacing themselves in the air above the parking lot. Houston’s grid of downtown streets was just behind them to the left. “Don’t you remember? We came here for that thing when I was taking that art class.”
“I don’t remember coming down here with you. Ever. You didn’t go to places you had to find. Give me your phone.” Gen handed it over, stepping out of the car so that the breeze could shake out her shorts and tank top. Humidity shrink-wrapped the day to her pale skin, clammy from the a/c. She knew they’d been here because she’d been on the Cougar Gallery mailing list ever since, five years of not wanting to overlay the memory of that day with Brad.
He was still scrolling through her messages. “Why the hell are you on the mailing list for all these job sites? You just got a new freaking job. What was the exhibit called?”
“Dive. Everything relates to pools.” Gen leaned against the car. The wind picked up and trash blew across the parking lot. She thought she recognized the shape of one of the houses that backed up on the next street. The gallery was an ex-fraternity house, reclaimed by the university after an ear-biting incident Gen’s freshman year. Her one art class—a blurry year of slides and coffee orders for the grad student graders—had required they attend at least four shows and write about their experiences. Pretty much the entire class had come to the opening show at the ex-frat.
“I think it’s just over there. I’m going to run over before it rains and take a look. Then you can move the car.” Gen hurried across the street, forgetting to grab her phone.
The neighborhood around them was a mix of businesses and houses. It was hard to tell them apart, unless the buildings were just basic brick and glass. Gen crossed the street, cut up to the left to circle the block and felt a few spatters of rain on her neck. The unexpected touch caused her to jump and spin around.
A woman was waiting at the edge of the curb opposite her. Gen hurried forward, following a cracked sidewalk up in front of the buildings under the tangle of elevated roadways. Sharp shadows dissolved as the clouds lowered and the breeze tossed several foil and paper scraps against her legs. Gen skittered forward, trying to guess which house was the gallery. The one she’d thought it to be was boarded up, although the door was partway open. Her stomach turned cold. There were tags on the windows and the walls. Not art. Maybe gang art?
Thunder rolled above her, vibrating through the concrete and along her shivering skin. Something nearby growled back at it. A pile of blue black kittens squirmed against the fence—Gen looked twice to verify they weren’t rats. She hesitated. Art or cat?
Gen murmured at the pile and squatted beside them. You can’t really pick. It’s kinder to let them pick. She clicked her tongue and held out one hand. The middle one stood up so quickly two others flopped out of the pile. Gen continued to click and it came to her.
“You don’t wanna do that,” said a woman behind Gen. Gen glanced over her shoulder and saw the middle-aged woman from the curb, shaking her head. “Ain’t no kitten. Just leave ‘er be.”
A tiny nose bumped against Gen’s fingers and she scooped the kitten up without looking at it. “It’s hungry. And it’s going to rain.”
“Won’t hurt her. Too late, now, I guess.” The woman shuffled close, her left shoulder twitching as her shirt slid off it. A shadow flickered along her neck. Thunder boomed and the rain fell.
She hurried forward, pulling Gen along to the fence and then underneath the temporary protection of a freeway underpass. “It’s gonna steam. Ketz should have known better’n to mess with that phoenix.”
Gen balanced the kitten on one arm and fished for her phone. It was still with Brad. The rain was pouring down like a curtain, and Gen tried to watch the woman behind her, the kitten, and the water at the same time. “I should have grabbed the rest of them.” The kitten suddenly dug her back claws into Gen’s shirt and reached out to bat the rain. Curls of steam rose from its paws, the sluice of water spread out like a screen and Gen saw a sunny neighborhood beyond. She blinked. The kitten slapped at her arm with a burning paw.
Gen looked down and saw a ruff of feathers rise around the creature’s neck and along her back. “Half phoenix. Half Quetzcoatl. No part cat. Better take yourself off to Ben after the heavy stuff passes.” The woman fished in her top and pulled out a card for the Fahill Apartments. “Long A. We call it the Concrete Mushroom. Two blocks down this street, turn left, another block. Go to the third floor, ask for Ben.” The woman looked Gen up and down. “Smoky Ben. Best one for you.” With that, the woman adjusted her top so that both shoulders were exposed, rolled her neck, cracked her spine and drifted off into the rain, wings like dandelion fluff peeking from the back of her shirt.
A hot paw fell on her arm and “Ben” flared in Gen’s retina. She shook her head, smoothing the ruff of feathers that had flared around the creature's neck and along it's spine. "Art today," she said and plunged into the rain.
Friday, June 6, 2014
The View from My Cave
Summer must have snuck in behind last week's rain. I returned from LJ with a sunburn and a case of lethargy that's given me time to dig into the pile of books waiting to be read on the folding table (there may be some people in the household who are under the impression those books comprise a too-be-shelved pile). Pink-orange ribbons were on sale today, so I've restocked my favorite summer shade and am prepared for a mermaid-themed summer panorama for the shelves beside the fire place.
My brother (the working artist)--henceforward MBTWA, which makes him sound like bank--and I had begun discussing work habits and then meandered into the idea of how one uses art last weekend that reminded me that I've been looking forward to bringing out my soft-sculpture mermaids and associated sea-themed bits & pieces since last year. MBTWA is always good at reminding me that I need be more serious about writing and that I should have a goal and a purpose. He's better than the thousand books on writing piled on the table because he is a vocal advocate of doing the work and a present example of what doing the work actually looks like.
It looks exhausting.
It even sounds exhausting. Sometimes it sounds like ego. Sometimes it looks like self-centeredness. I wonder where he found the self-regard to make those choices--to not give in to the random demands of media and yard work and this-is-how-normal-people-live and just do the freaking work. To assume that you are good enough and let the work come.
There have been times that I've been there. Recently, however, I missed a deadline because I had a draft but never revised it. Instead, I fought with myself about whether I had anything to say, whether what I was saying was relevant, different, needed, kind enough, smart enough, clear enough. In the end, the part of me that decided it was crap won. Much energy went into convincing myself to shut up, but very little went into trying to give the short story any kind of form after that first blob of a draft.
MBTWA believes that there is a novel hiding in my brain. He believes that I'm not going to devour it like an ogre in a cave, digesting the dead remains of the story for years instead of writing it.
I believe that I could easily become the ogre. I'll be hiding behind the pink-orange ribbons, down beside the mermaids.
My brother (the working artist)--henceforward MBTWA, which makes him sound like bank--and I had begun discussing work habits and then meandered into the idea of how one uses art last weekend that reminded me that I've been looking forward to bringing out my soft-sculpture mermaids and associated sea-themed bits & pieces since last year. MBTWA is always good at reminding me that I need be more serious about writing and that I should have a goal and a purpose. He's better than the thousand books on writing piled on the table because he is a vocal advocate of doing the work and a present example of what doing the work actually looks like.
It looks exhausting.
It even sounds exhausting. Sometimes it sounds like ego. Sometimes it looks like self-centeredness. I wonder where he found the self-regard to make those choices--to not give in to the random demands of media and yard work and this-is-how-normal-people-live and just do the freaking work. To assume that you are good enough and let the work come.
There have been times that I've been there. Recently, however, I missed a deadline because I had a draft but never revised it. Instead, I fought with myself about whether I had anything to say, whether what I was saying was relevant, different, needed, kind enough, smart enough, clear enough. In the end, the part of me that decided it was crap won. Much energy went into convincing myself to shut up, but very little went into trying to give the short story any kind of form after that first blob of a draft.
MBTWA believes that there is a novel hiding in my brain. He believes that I'm not going to devour it like an ogre in a cave, digesting the dead remains of the story for years instead of writing it.
I believe that I could easily become the ogre. I'll be hiding behind the pink-orange ribbons, down beside the mermaids.
Tuesday, March 4, 2014
Just Another Five Minutes...
The rain froze along the length of the wisteria pod, casting the one remaining seed in ice. More rain fell, rounding the transparent seed like a pearl, until the morning came and the temperature rose and the casting slipped from its base and fell against a lower branch. 
There, the cast of the seed lingered.
Across the driveway, a small stone pine in a large ceramic pot wore the ice along its needles like the kind of jewelry that makes you droop and swan through the room. One of the branches ended in a rounded point now smooth and reflecting the shifting the clouds. The reflection darkened along the length of the branch, and it trembled.
Water slid around the circumference of the seed and was suddenly absorbed into the ice. The seed grew more transparent, the surface less visible.
A breeze pushed through the yard, waving the stiff ice wand formed at the peak of the pine’s outermost branch. A chill sizzled through the air and the seed popped. A rill of ice cracked through the air, as a cold, an external cold, flowed into the yard.
Iced branches that had been bowed to the ground grew flexible in the rain and the new chill and twirled upward, catching each other and braiding themselves into a stiff wattle fence. The wisteria wasn’t large enough to enclose the entire yard, but the rose bush that the homeowner had been too lazy to arbor began to weave itself together as well.
Breath sighed from the crack as the binding the ice seed had held twined up and joined the rose and the wisteria into a thick wall that ran around the house. Low laughter issued from just beside the front bumper of a car now covered in a thick layer of ice. “Sleep. My favorite poison.”
There, the cast of the seed lingered.
Across the driveway, a small stone pine in a large ceramic pot wore the ice along its needles like the kind of jewelry that makes you droop and swan through the room. One of the branches ended in a rounded point now smooth and reflecting the shifting the clouds. The reflection darkened along the length of the branch, and it trembled.
Water slid around the circumference of the seed and was suddenly absorbed into the ice. The seed grew more transparent, the surface less visible.
A breeze pushed through the yard, waving the stiff ice wand formed at the peak of the pine’s outermost branch. A chill sizzled through the air and the seed popped. A rill of ice cracked through the air, as a cold, an external cold, flowed into the yard.
Iced branches that had been bowed to the ground grew flexible in the rain and the new chill and twirled upward, catching each other and braiding themselves into a stiff wattle fence. The wisteria wasn’t large enough to enclose the entire yard, but the rose bush that the homeowner had been too lazy to arbor began to weave itself together as well.
Breath sighed from the crack as the binding the ice seed had held twined up and joined the rose and the wisteria into a thick wall that ran around the house. Low laughter issued from just beside the front bumper of a car now covered in a thick layer of ice. “Sleep. My favorite poison.”
Friday, February 28, 2014
Workday in Abstraction
Crouched back on my heels, black dress folded over me and black jacket bunched and flaring behind me, I felt like a Corvid. Slipped from a roost, watchful. Bent almost to the ground beside the vending machine, the wide lunch atrium expands above me; the brilliant white ceiling makes me want to dig my stilettos into the ground and launch my body to the light.
Away from the dark recess from which I’m scavenging a water bottle.
Today, however, the universe has dropped a bag over my head and is working me with the jess. Empty spaces are only so big. The dress only sways because my ankles are restrained. A long, serviceable black that recreates me in a block of shadow. The old-fashioned sounding “serviceable” brings to mind children’s stories--long black dresses lead inevitably to witches. Waiting for a knock on the door.
Last weekend, my brother told me how he was now saying an uninterrupted “yes” to the Universe. Everything was lining up, working out. He stated this after we discovered the unexpected curbside parking space he’d just scored was right in front of the place were going. His myths begin to sound like they come from the front of an auditorium. The Universe offers you something, you take it. Managers fail upward. All of which makes me think of fat cartoon men in suits floating like balloons between a flat green grass ground and a flat blue line of sky. Tie a string around an ankle and run your manager balloon down the field.
Be open to the possibility of mediocrity, that you will never fail upward far enough.
Away from the dark recess from which I’m scavenging a water bottle.
Today, however, the universe has dropped a bag over my head and is working me with the jess. Empty spaces are only so big. The dress only sways because my ankles are restrained. A long, serviceable black that recreates me in a block of shadow. The old-fashioned sounding “serviceable” brings to mind children’s stories--long black dresses lead inevitably to witches. Waiting for a knock on the door.
Last weekend, my brother told me how he was now saying an uninterrupted “yes” to the Universe. Everything was lining up, working out. He stated this after we discovered the unexpected curbside parking space he’d just scored was right in front of the place were going. His myths begin to sound like they come from the front of an auditorium. The Universe offers you something, you take it. Managers fail upward. All of which makes me think of fat cartoon men in suits floating like balloons between a flat green grass ground and a flat blue line of sky. Tie a string around an ankle and run your manager balloon down the field.
Be open to the possibility of mediocrity, that you will never fail upward far enough.
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