Thing One and Thing Two

I could spend today discussing how upset I am at one of my neighbors allowing a pair of its cats to mate and have kittens. If I had chosen to discuss this, I’d have to point out the neighbors already have at least four (and possibly six) cats—all of whom live outdoors. I’d also have to mention we live in the wilderness: we have all manner of wildlife here including things like coyote, bear, and fox, and I’d share that I imagine each considers kitten a delicacy—especially this time of year as other things become scarce, and the snow is on the verge of falling.

If I were to write about this, I’d end by saying my fear for the safety and well-being of these creatures is superseded only by my knowing where there is one litter of kittens, there is the potential for more—exponentially. I’d share with you my concerns that these kittens will become cat-producing snack-producing factories in the next four to six months and that the neighbors of whom I speak are trying to sell their home, and based on what I know of them, they will not be taking any of the new cats with them.

If I were to write about this, I’d leave out the part about how big a sucker I am when it comes to stray animals and how thoroughly upsetting this is for me.

Instead, I decided to focus on this month’s NaNoWriMo, and one of the things I use to keep my fingers moving on my keyboard in order to make my 50,000 words in 30 days’ time: it’s a program called Home Typist.

This FREE program adds the delightful sounds made by a typewriter to one’s computer keyboard, and for me, the rhythmic tap-tap-tapping is music to my ears.

I suppose my love for these sounds stems from having grown up in an era of typewriters and high school typing class and a mother who spent the early portion of her career as a madly-typing secretary. (You do know that the woman behind every mad scientist was a madly-typing secretary, right?)

I have recollections of my mother’s fingers moving so rapidly across the keys the actual mechanisms would get tangled, and the metal arms with their upraised letters would have to be picked apart gently.

The ball of letters was an improvement, but I still recall times my mother’s word-per-minute ability outshined them. It was a bit like a Kung-Fu movie: her fingers would stop and the words would just keep coming.

Admittedly, there are times I have to turn my Home Typist off, and when those times occur, a little bit of the magic I feel while writing evaporates. Fortunately, the program sits unobtrusively in my menu bar, and I know the time between mute and magic is merely a tick-box away.

The Lady

Jonathon Meyers liked to tease Nancy King, and though she pretended to be bothered by his taunts, Nancy really wasn’t bothered at all. They were at the age when boys and girls begin to notice one another in different ways—the age at which teasing was really the only acceptable behavior between them.

Nancy knew Jonathon didn’t mean anything by most of the silly things he said, and she wasn’t especially frightened by the various crawling things he’d stuff under her nose, either. She hadn’t thought too much about it, but had she, she would have believed Jonathon was as unaffected by the occasional taunts she threw his way, and she would have been correct.

The pair had been friends since the day Jonathon’s family moved in across the street from Nancy’s, and that had been almost three whole years ago. In all that time, they’d never had a real fight, and in many ways, the two were as close as brother and sister—except they weren’t related, and Nancy had developed a crush on Jonathon. Of course, she had no idea it was a crush—she was too young to identify what she felt, but it was a crush, nonetheless. Jonathon was just discovering his feelings for Nancy, and this may well explain what happened the day Jonathon showed Nancy The Lady.

Jonathon had stumbled upon The Lady some weeks before while on his way home from Lake Thomas School where he and Nancy were both third graders. Although his mother and father made him promise not to take the shortcut through Harper’s Pond, Jonathon often broke this particular promise.

The pond was creepy, but as any kid knows, one of the ways to prove how cool you are is to pretend creepy things don’t bother you—and there was nothing creepier than the trail that wound around Harper’s Pond. (Being seen taking the trail was only bested by being seen leaving it on the pond’s other side. Daring to do such a thing—especially absent friends—was a sure way to raise your status in the eyes of your peers, and because Jonathon was the smallest boy in his class, any boost to his status was welcomed.)

Not surprisingly, it was a dare that initially sent Jonathon on the shortcut that circled the pond, but curiosity had dragged him back after the first adventure. He’d never told anyone what he’d seen that first time, and in truth, he came to believe he’d imagined it. Not knowing whether or not he had seen The Lady was the thing that led to his returning to the pond.

Like his first trip, his second took place on a sunny afternoon right after school, and like the time before, as soon as he was far enough along the trial not to be able to see the start of the path, everything seemed to close in around him. (There was one thing he’d confirmed.)

Jonathon kept to the trail and listened closely for the voice, but he heard nothing. By the time he’d reached the midpoint of the path, he’d begun to believe The Lady was just something he’d imagined—even if he had been right about the way everything had closed in around him.

Suddenly, he heard The Lady as clearly as if she were standing beside him. The sound of her melodious voice reached out to him, and he moved off the path and toward her. Oddly, though the path felt congested by the foliage around it, once Jonathon left it, the trees and brush seemed to open as if to let him though.

In a matter of moments, Jonathon was standing in a small clearing and looking directly at The Lady.

She was singing as had been the case the last time Jonathon encountered her, and while he would never have thought it possible, the tune she carried on this afternoon was even more beautiful than the one she’d been singing before.

Jonathon’s head would fill with questions later, but for the moment, he stood transfixed by the music emanating from her. As before, The Lady seemed unaware of Jonathon’s presence, and as before, Jonathon noticed she was not real.

The Lady seemed to be made of a thin sheet of concrete, so thin, in fact, that as she swayed with the highs and lows of her song, Jonathon could see she was less than an inch thick.

It couldn’t be.

It wasn’t possible.

But there she was.

Transfixed for a length of time he could not determine, Jonathon became aware of a desire to leave. As quickly as he had found the clearing, he was again on the trial on his way to his home, and he no longer heard The Lady’s song.

Jonathon ran into Nancy as he left the trail, and the two matched strides while heading home. Rounding the last turn, Jonathon touched Nancy’s shoulder bringing them both to a stop.

“Are all you girls afraid of Harper’s Pond?”

“I don’t know. Why?”

“There’s something there I have to show you.”

“I guess I’m not afraid. What’s there?”

“I can’t tell you. You have to see it for yourself.”

Nancy suspected it might be a trick, but she wanted to show Jonathon she wasn’t afraid of the pond.

“Okay, I’ll go there with you. When?”

“Tomorrow. After school. But don’t tell anyone, okay?”

Nancy agreed while wondering to herself who Jonathon thought she might tell she was going to Harper’s Pond with a boy.

* * *

While walking home the following afternoon, Jonathon and Nancy meandered behind the other kids from their neighborhood in order to break off and take the Harper’s Pond trail unnoticed.

Nancy felt the trees and brush close in around her, but she said nothing to Jonathon for fear he’d think she was a sissy, and then she thought she heard singing. Jonathon stopped, and turned to Nancy.

“Do you hear it?”

She nodded her head.

“C’mon. It’s this way.”

The two left the trail, and each felt the foliage open up around them. They quickly reached the clearing and stood looking at The Lady.

“Do you see her, Nancy?”

Nancy gave a nod, and as she did, The Lady turned toward them. She looked at Nancy for a very long time, and as Jonathon watched, he thought he saw a tear begin to run down The Lady’s cheek. She had stopped singing, and with her silence, the clearing seemed to have gotten smaller and darker.

She turned to face Jonathon, and he was again aware of her impossible thinness and the certainty that she was made not of flesh but of concrete.

“Why?” was all she said to the small boy, and before he could answer, she had broken into more than a dozen pieces of stone and lay lifeless on the ground.

Did You Know?

It takes frighteningly little to make me happy; for example, getting my coffee for free will make my whole day.

Once each week, on my way to the day job, I stop at the same Starbucks to treat myself to a tall latte. I haven’t paid a dime for my cup-o-joe for the past month.

The reason?

Trivia.

My Starbucks has begun posting occasional trivia questions, and not only have I been lucky enough to patronize the store on trivia day, but also it seems the individual choosing the questions believes the crap sitting in my head qualifies as arcane.

Here are the questions that have garnered me free lattes for the past few weeks:

1. Before it was a movie, Psycho was a story. Who wrote the original tale?
2. Who was the host of the show featuring both J.P. Morgan and The Unknown Comic?
3. What is an Onomatopoeia?
4. Why do birds suddenly appear every time you are near?

Question number four was featured today, and even better than the free drink was the look on the barista’s face when I came up with the answer. According to her, no one had even guessed the line was from a song, let alone been able to follow up with the answer.

I can tell she thinks it’s a bit weird I seem to know the answers to all of the trivia questions.

I think it’s a bit weird they keep picking stuff I would have to have lived my life under a rock not to know.

I can take being thought weird as long as the free lattes keep flowing.

For those of you who don’t know them, here are the answers:

1. Robert Bloch wrote Psycho.


2. It was called The Gong Show.


3. An Onomatopoeia is a word that imitates the sound it symbolizes: the words buzz, zip, purr, swish, and boom are examples.


4. Just like me, they long to be close to you. (Drag out your Carpenter LPs!)

As Yet Untitled (WIP)

The first time I saw Sunny Glade, she was arguing with the postmaster in my father’s store. I was seven, and what my uncle, the postmaster, always called precocious. When he said that word, there was just a hint of a snarl in his voice, the outside corner of his left eye pinched up in his face, and he pronounced it with three distinct syllables: pre-CO-shuss.

When you’re seven, the world passes you over with little more than a glance. Counters are too tall, conversations are too adult, and your opinions are of no consequence. So when I heard Sunny growl,

“Ah shit Roy, even Janey could do better than that,”

I waited for the trouble that was sure to come my way—somehow, I’d been unwillingly placed right in the middle of Grown-Up-Things. The store got very quiet as Sunny looked at me, nodded her head, and winked.

For some reason that I can’t really explain, Sunny’s voice was the sweetest thing I had ever heard, even if the words that came out of her that day (and most others) were the same ones I got a mouth full of soap for saying. Uncle Roy shot a glance in my direction, his left eye beginning to pinch, and then he muttered something under his breath to my father. Both men disappeared into the back of the store, and I tried desperately to make myself as small as possible while they were gone. After several minutes, I was beginning to think I had believed myself into to being the size of an ant, and that when my pa and uncle returned, they wouldn’t even notice me. The voice in my head was chanting “go on now—get smaller, go on, go on now—get smaller,” and as I began to shrink, you can understand why I jumped a full foot in the air when Sunny’s big hand landed on my (dwindling) shoulder.

“My goodness Janey Bell, you really have grown up.”

All I could manage was a squeaky “Yes, ma’am.”

“Do you remember me?”

The voice in my head was part way through a sentence about everyone knowing who Sunny Glade was when I realized that using her first name wasn’t polite, and admitting that I listened to gossip would be even worse.

“No, ma’am, I’m sorry, I don’t.”

As the words rolled out of my mouth, I silently hoped that it was better to forget meeting a person than to admit to only knowing her by what I overheard in the store.

“It’s okay, Janey. When we met, you were much younger.”

“Yes ma’am.”

“Well, then. Let me reintroduce myself. I’m Sunny Glade.”

The large hand that had been on my shoulder moved and floated in the air before me, but I stood motionless and in silent wonder of the woman who was before me.

“Young lady, how about a proper handshake?”

She was not at all what people said. She was tall and pretty, and though I couldn’t have named it then, there was a toughness about her that was powerful and compelling. My mother would have called her an example of nature’s elegance. It was a term she only used in reference to women, and only to those who clearly held their own in the company of men.

As I began to reach out to put my small hand into hers, my father and uncle came back to the front of the store. Before I had time to shake hands, Sunny’s arm was back at her side. She had moved to the front of the store, and I thought I saw her face change. As she stood at the counter, it seemed to me that she became a bit more like the woman I had heard described, and a bit less like the woman I had just met.

Sunday Summary

Total Word Count Goal for 70 Days of Sweat (10-15-07 through 01-15-08) and NaNoWriMo (11-01-07 through 11-30-07):

7,511 / 102,000 (7.4%)

Where I should be:

7,511 / 12,000 (62.6%)

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Project Goals—Contests

1. Writers' Journal Write-to-Win (October 20, 2007): "Minty Fresh Death"

1,031 / 1,031 (100.0%)

2. Common Ties Workplace Mistakes (October 24, 2007): "Neither Bird Nor Plane"

1,018 / 1,018 (100.0%)

3. Byline Magazine Personal Memoir (December 5, 2007)

0 / 1,000 (0.0%)

4. Writers' Journal Write-to-Win (December 20, 2007)

0 / 1,500 (0.0%)

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Project Goals—Manuscripts

1. Test Case

5,462 / 12,000 (45.5%)

2. In What Remains

0 / 10,000 (0.0%)

3. The Well

0 / 50,000 (0.0%)

Plan-tastic!

Pick up any book or magazine or journal focused on writing, and at least part of the subject matter will deal with strategies to plot a piece, but I’ve never placed a great deal of stock in many of the super-structured methods described. (I’ve never doubted their value, but I’ve never felt the need to integrate them into my work.)

I’m a seat-of-the-pants writer: I get some type of idea and go with it without spending a great deal of time concerning myself with where it goes or whether or not it actually gets someplace. This has been relatively successful for me in terms of where I’ve been with my writing.

It’s one of the beauties of my not being a full-time writer: I have the luxury of writing for the sake of writing, and if what I begin fizzles out, I’m not really any worse off because of it.

But I want to write full time, and I’m realistic enough to know the job of writing full time means there can’t be much fizzle when it comes to putting words on paper.

This is not to say I expect everything I write to work or to sell or to please me, but I’ve been giving a good deal of thought to my seat-of-the-pants approach as I visualize the moment I can quit my day job and focus on my writing, and I’m intelligent enough to know I’m going to need to learn to write with a greater degree of organization while retaining the joy of letting a story and its characters have their (necessary) share of control.

There simply won’t be time in my upcoming, full-time writing life to let things meander and fizzle: I intend to have deadlines (and a good many of them) whether self-imposed or by virtue of a contract.

I’ve begun the transition by making certain I submit at least one piece each month to a contest or publication. Because these are shorter works, it’s been an ideal way for me to begin the process of balancing my whims with a plan. At a once-per-month pace, I simply don’t have as much time to meander: I have to have a solid idea and work on fleshing it out before it turns to mush and too much time and effort have been invested in a piece that never had a chance in my hands.

Enter Holly Lisle’s Clinic Series which covers plot building, character building, language building, and culture building.

I’ve read and heard a lot about Holly Lisle lately: it seems most of the writer-owned sites I frequent rave about her clinic books as well as her fiction, so I wandered over to Lisle-land to see what all the fuss was about.

It’s taken me about a month to look through the vast array of stuff she’s made available to readers and writers and other passersby, and it’s been time well spent.

She also does something I applaud: she offers free previews of her work, and because of this, I downloaded and tried Holly Lisle's Create a Plot Clinic and Holly Lisle's Create a Character Clinic. The previews are substantial: forty pages and three chapters, respectively, and these freeviews resulted in my purchasing both books.

(I likely would still be considering their purchase had the freeviews not been available—even with all of the positive feedback I’ve heard.)

Which brings me to my point: I’m currently working through the “Tools” section of Holly Lisle's Create a Plot Clinic, and I already see how the strategy she describes in the book is going to help with the story I’ve been bouncing around in my head.

Like my other ideas, this one came to me as a basic premise with a very clearly defined scene during which the protagonist and antogonist meet. The old me would have simply thought the scene through until it became agonizing not to write it—two to three weeks at the most—and that me would have taken the plunge and written whatever came while caring little about where it went until I felt it was a “story.” (I want to emphasize this me did not simply let things go: she is good at tracking a great many elements in her head and can generally take a basic premise such as this to at least 20,000 words with little story-building effort. From there, she decides whether it was meant to be a short and cuts and edits and adds and such; or she decides it’s a novel, and she fleshes out and adds and edits and such. Occasionally, she has 20,000 words that lend themselves to nothing more, and that is what the new me wants to avoid.)

The new me has thought this thing through, but she is going to build her plot as described in Holly Lisle's Create a Plot Clinic, and she is going to flesh out her characters as described in Holly Lisle's Create a Character Clinic, and then she is going to release the hounds.

In the meantime, the hounds are feeding on the submission deadlines; although, they now have to take the time to order their meals.

The Package

It lay on the doorstep of 54 Hulstone Place. Non-descript and brown, the package looked as if it might have been dropped accidentally or tossed aside by a passerby too lazy to find a trash can.

There was no return address, and the edges of the package were worn as if it had had a long and arduous journey. Whatever its history, the package had indeed found its home, for the top of the box contained carefully penned letters identifying its destination:

Podderson Family
54 Hulstone Place
Pittsburgh PA
15219

When Amanda Podderson returned from her shift at the diner, she kicked the package before she noticed it. It slid noisily across the concrete stoop and came to rest with a clunk at the edge of the threshold to the front door. Adjusting her armload of groceries, Amanda peered down at the box, rolled her eyes, and thought, “Not again, George.”

After unloading the groceries and changing, Amanda returned to the front stoop, picked up the package, and put it in the laundry room. George would never find it there, and it’d serve him right, too.

By the time her husband got home, Amanda had forgotten about the package: George was drunk and late. In unplanned unison, George slammed the front door closed, and Amanda slammed their bedroom door shut. Amanda’s slamming was followed by the click of the lock being thrown. She’d be damned if that drunken no-good got into bed with her that night.

George didn’t notice the slamming of either door, nor was he aware of his wife’s banning him from their bedroom. He was ripped and only cared about hitting the sofa squarely before he passed out.

The next morning, George was up and gone before Amanda finished her shower. Had Amanda known this, she’d have skipped practicing the speech she planned to yell at him about his continuing to order things they couldn’t afford.

Thankful in part that he was gone, Amanda went to work and forgot all about the package.

When she got home that evening, she was surprised to find George sitting at the kitchen table. Even more surprising was his fist not being wrapped around a can of beer.

“Why ya home so early George?”

“I went in early, put in my eight, now I’m here.”

Amanda heard the smugness in George’s voice before she saw it hanging on his face.

“Since you’re here. . .”

“Since I am here, I wanna know why you ride me all the time about buying things when you bought that light and had it put in without saying nothing.”

Amanda followed George’s outstretched arm which ended with his pointing finger that was aimed at a light installed in the ceiling over the kitchen table.

“I had nothing to do with that. What’s this about, George?”

George grunted before answering, “That ain’t your light?”

“No, George, that ain’t my light.”

“So, what? We both go off to work, and some fairy comes to our house—puts in a light? What do you take me for?”

“I take you for a no-good drunk, that’s what I take you for.”

“What’d you say?”

“I said, you’re a no-good drunk, George. You forget coming home last night all tied up in a knot?”

George sat up in the chair, drew in a breath, and in a tone as condescending as they come replied, “I had a beer with the boys after a long day. A man deserves a beer with the boys now and again.”

As he spoke, the light the two were fighting about flickered and buzzed.

“There you go George. There’s proof I had nothing to do with that light getting put in. If I’d have had it done, it’d work right. Just admit you bought the damn thing and installed it wrong. And fix it before it burns down this house.”

“I had nothing to do with that light, Amanda, and you know it.”

“Well I’ve never seen it before.”

As Amanda spoke, the light flickered and buzzed again.

“We can fight all night about the light, George, but for now, you need to fix the damn thing.”

“Can’t. I got a meeting with the union boys, and I gotta leave right now.”

More flickering and buzzing.

Amanda gave up on the light and George and headed for the bedroom to change. Over her shoulder, she called out,

“Just make sure you’re quiet when you drag yourself home.”

Her words were punctuated by George’s slamming the front door as he left.

***

“Ma’am, can you tell me what happened?”

“Yes, detective. My husband came home from a meeting. I guess he’d been drinking a bit. I was already in bed, and the next thing I knew, I heard a crash. I called out to him, but he didn’t answer. When I got up to see what was wrong, I found him lying there. That’s when I called.”

Detective Westgrove looked up from his notepad as Amanda Podderson spoke. The out-of-place light that hung above the kitchen table was flickering and buzzing, and it was annoying.

“Ma’am, is there anyone we can call for you?”

“No. No Detective. I have no family other than George.”

“A friend perhaps or a neighbor?”

“You’re very kind, but no. I think I need to be alone right now.”

“Well, if you change your mind, just let one of the officers here know. It’ll take them another thirty minutes or so to wrap things up, and then you’ll have your house to yourself.”

Amanda nodded her head at the detective.

“And Mrs. Podderson, I’m very sorry for your loss.”

“Thank you detective, you’re very kind. I really don’t know what I’ll do without my George.”

As Amanda Podderson spoke, the light that had arrived in a travel-worn package flickered and buzzed its response.