Archive for the ‘Writing’ Category

I posted the text to my Facebook and emailed it to friends on NYE. What better words to send a new decade off on?

So it’s November again, and one of the reasons I pushed so hard to get everything wrapped up with the business within a week was to clear the decks and be ready for National Novel Writing Month. I have an interesting concept (I hope), and although my house is still a disaster, I was ready to go.

And I started off really well, and even getting a little ahead of schedule. But a bad day threw me off and now, sadly, I’ve ‘earned’ my first NaNo badge:

I made a donation to the Office of Letters and Light and bought a package of these buttons that you get to wear after achieving some dubious milestones, many of which are either tongue in cheek or just too funny.

“Procrastination” is for missing 3 days running and being bad, bad, bad. The graphic shows a vaccuum because when housework looks better than writing, you know you’re in trouble.

I should have been writing all weekend- that was the plan, but it hasn’t worked out that way. Tonight, after the end of the Saint’s game (which isn’t going so well at the moment Edit: 8-0, baby! Comeback kids!), I may have to earn another badge as I start to catch up:

I think that one’s self-explanatory.

Over on the YouTube, my obsessive butt has pretty much all of Pratchett’s various talks and suchlike from the conference. The bit above might be my favorite, and it’s from his long discussion on the 2nd day of the Con.

Here he’s talking about his first (successful) trip to the US, when he was finally starting to catch on. At that point, Doubleday had just moved into 666 5th Ave in NY and there was quite the issue about the physical address of the building, leading Pratchett to exclaim “you’re all a bunch of religious loonies!” and then to one of my favorite quotes ever. It reads well enough, but you’ve got to listen to him.

Having been told that several of the publishing house’s religious writers quit because they didn’t want to be connected with such an ‘evil’ address:

That’s rather dismaying, isn’t it?

I’m a humanist, I think. And the power of the Lord cannot be that good if it can be defeated by a few hundred yards of neon tubing.

As you can see, the Alzeheimer’s is really biting deep.

Just love the man.

Too funny. In looking at the info at the Con website I found these newsletters- and Charlie and I were scrambling to get the figurine out of the box and get everything set up when the photo was taken. I had no idea, too funny.

I don’t really count PirateCon as having been my ‘first,’ really, since I was more a voyeur than anything else. It was closer to finding your dad’s Playboy stash than your first actual kiss.

As with any blundering virgin, mistakes were made; I didn’t realize, for instance, that the Masquerade was an actual contest, and not a Ball. I saved my most elaborate costume for that night, only to discover that the participants had written up skits and signed up well in advance. Ah well. Next time. Besides, it was nice to kick back and watch the pros do their thing- there were some amazing, detailed costumes out there. It’s definitely something to shoot for going forward.

Despite getting to the party way late (so late in fact winners had already been selected) I got what amounted to a runner-up ribbon the first night, and another ribbon and encouragement the Masquerade night, telling me to keep it up, and be sure to enter for real next time, that I had an excellent shot. So that was nice pretty damn awesome. Charlie said the grin damn near split my face in half when they pinned it on me.

It’s only fitting, then, that that first costume was a Seamstress’ outfit. Again, not knowing all the convention conventions, I took the ‘Seamstresses Ball’ literally- and since Seamstress is a euphemism for “woman of negotiable affection,” I was…uh…not subtle.

In fact, I was in a dither before I left, and Charlie encouraged me to wear a red monstrosity of a wig which totally clashed with everything I had on, but what the hell. If you’re out there, trolling for business, ya wanna stand out, right? Right? Please? Ah well. Besides, the wig matched the whip. It’s those kind of details you need a pro for.

The strange thing was that there were very few seamstresses in the crowd. Maybe they have better shame mechanisms than I have?

At any rate, I’ll put up several posts on the Con, mostly about the guest of honor, of course, and then there was the side trip to the Grand Canyon, but I’ll kindly spare you the vile grossness I got sick with once we got home.

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Listening for Jesus was one of the prompts for this week, and I decided to take it in a rather odd direction. Granted, I decided to do this from 10pm-1am last night (remembering the deadline was midnight. Ah hem.), so the time might’ve had a little something to do with the decision.

Still, I got some good feedback from it, but nobody figured out what the central problem is. Have an idea?

I actually like the premise; I think I’m going to stick with these characters for awhile in the writing group and see where it goes.

As always, any comments welcome.

All but three of the nineteen bedrooms held an untrusting, nervous occupant. It was Mitch?s turn to be out, and Cali sat out in the recently carved out common area, listening to the unhappy rustling behind the closed doors above her as she gathered her thoughts. Only one bedroom was left unaccounted for- the smallest bedroom at the far end of the hallway, now vacant since its occupant vanished two months ago.

Not vanished, Cali corrected herself. Adam wasn?t gone at all. Absorbed. Integrated. These were the terms she was supposed to be using now. Unified. That was the idea she was supposed to be hanging onto when the doubts crept in. All nineteen of them, together as one, that?s what Jesus said had to be; that?s where salvation lay.

But, still. Poor little Adam had been the first to go, the first sacrifice that Jesus said had to be made. Barely a toddler, his diaper was perpetually sodden, and was born a deaf-mute. He rarely ventured out beyond his miniature hobbit-esque door, and when he did, his eyes would be swollen and bloodshot as he silently bawled his endless angry tears.

The baby would occasionally wander through the other rooms, feeling his way along the wall and clutching onto whoever he found, desperate but inconsolable. As much as everyone tried to help, they always ended up feeling guilty, having failed him once again. Poor Adam. Poor baby.

She told herself that of course Jesus was right; it was kindest to release Adam from his pain. But there was that guilt again, because it wasn?t only the tot who?d been freed, was it? Everyone else in their system had benefited from Adam?s?integration. And that felt wrong. Evil, even. You didn?t kill people because it made your life easier, did you?

Cali paced the little room and heard a door in Mama?s room slam. Adam hadn?t really been her son- none of them were biologically hers, but Mama still took his absence hard, and she was none too pleased about today?s meeting with Jesus.

They were going to start deciding who would go next.

Cali had crept up to Adam?s tiny door before coming down to wait. His doorknob and hinges had faded over the last weeks before disappearing, leaving no way back inside. She?s wanted to check, just to be sure. The idea that he was stuck behind that door, silent and unable to call for help haunted Cali?s dreams.

Mitch had to be almost to Jesus? office by now; it seemed like hours had passed, though it could be hard to gage realtime when you were locked inside. Mitch could drive, but Cali?d never learned, so he bringing them to the appointment, though Jesus had wanted to talk specifically to her this time, that she should be ready and with no one else hanging over her, listening.

She chewed a nail, turning the problem over again as she waited for it to be her turn. It was pretty much all she?d done since their last meeting. Did Jesus want her advice? To ask how their system was getting along? Or did he want to tell Cali that he?d chosen her and she was the next to go?

Her heart pounded at the thought. It couldn?t be her. Everybody here needed her. She kept things orderly, made sure the kids didn?t fight, worried about the appointments. She and Mitch kept everybody calm and relatively on track. She was essential. It couldn?t be her, she prayed. Not me.

She sat in the relative stillness and waited, listening for Jesus to call her to come out and face her fate.

So this was what I sent to the group on Sunday.

Each Monday the group moderator releases four text prompts, one photo prompt and one competition and you have until Sunday night to chose at least one to write about. If you don’t submit at least one post in four weeks, you’re out of the group. I’d already missed three weeks and was up against the deadline, so I wrote this pretty quickly to get in under the wire- sent in at 11:15pm. Obviously, I didn’t have a chance to edit it, so it ain’t great, but it’s not awful. Probably.

This was inspired by my new work at the PRC, but isn’t about a specific case. The protagonist isn’t anyone in particular- my friend Michelle’s job is basically to go to these hearings and argue for preservation, but that’s as close as it gets. She does a hell of a job and fights as hard as if she really did have family and friends inside those houses, but you just can’t win ‘em all.

EDIT: forgot to insert the photos of the house I had in mind while writing this.

Della had already lost one of her cases today, a cute cottage on Piety Street, and the sheaf of papers on her lap was showing the strain of her agitation. She clutched and crinkled, shredding their corners a bit at a time until there was nothing left as she fumed and waited for the next demolition hearing to begin so she could bang her head against the wall a while longer.

Almost four years after Katrina and there seemed to be no more answers then there were at the start. All she could do was show up at these meetings and fight, over and over, hearing the same arguments until she thought she?d scream. Over six thousand, five hundred houses had been knocked down, each one ripping out a thread of the city?s fabric, altering the feel of the neighborhood and leaving yet another gaping hole in the streetscape. Now, within 48 hours, there would be another empty lot on Piety.

And at each hearing, the same phrases, the same condescension toward those who wanted to preserve New Orleans? history. Property does not contribute to the neighborhood or cost prohibitive, or her new personal favorite: Of little consequence.

The inspector had included that last gem his report on the house at 1755 Jackson, and that was a house she was determined to save, come hell or? well, the hurricane had already brought the high water. It was only hell she had to face, then. Good. After everything Alavada had done for Della in that house, she figured a little Hell was a small price to pay.

It might be hard to see now, but 1755 Jackson had once been an oasis.

When her parents were fighting, or her dad was drunk, or her mother had blown the grocery money, Miss Alavada was Della?s savior. Every day her huge slobbery mutts had trampled through the palms and vines and roses, happily knocking Della down in welcome, making her forget the shame of coming over for yet another handout. There was always something that smelled wonderful on the stove and open arms to smother you in. Alavada had listened, consoled, advised, cajoled and fed three generations of Jackson Avenue residents out of that house.

She?d long been the soul of an entire neighborhood, and now she was still sitting in a formaldehyde poisoned FEMA trailer outside of town, frail and unable to do for herself.

To Della, the maddening irony was that Alavada?s house sat just three blocks outside of the Garden District, where it would have enjoyed protected Historic District status. Instead, the city was so sure they?d get approval to demolish that the house was already flagged with big, red Fire Department ?do not enter? warnings- ?Let it burn,? they meant. ?Save us the trouble of knocking it down.”

6500 houses demolished, not including the ones completely flattened by the storm. How many Alavedas did that represent, Della wondered? She glared again at the inspector?s phrase, recognizing herself in its mirror. She?d been ?of little consequence? once herself, until Miss A had found her.

Della was determined to return the favor.

Everybody asks how it’s going, now that I’m moving on.

The honest answer, really, varies widely. But generally, and in the interest of brevity, the answer is: fine. It’s not a very descriptive response, but it’s what I’ve got. Fine: trying to get on with it. Sometimes succeeding, sometimes not, but I’ll lean back, put on my beret and squint through my Gauloise to say, “that is life, mon ami, no?”

The business is shut, the phones turned off and the unsold inventory in storage. Alison’s winding down from High School/winding up for college and enjoying her autonomy as she earned her driver’s license last week and is now tooling all over town on her own.

So what’s supposed to be filling these voids is writing, and that’s been problematic. I’m having a hard time reconnecting with my projects-in-process, but I have joining a writing group on livejournal, which Charlie finds a little maddening~ I should be really writing, not doing a series of short essays, etc~ but that’s okay. Cathartic, even. It’s making me let go of my writing and let others read it, something I’m notoriously bad at.

So we’ve compromised. I’m going to stay in the group, and he’s going to keep pushing me to get back down to business.

Oh. Right. That’s not much of a compromise. Thanks for pointing that out. I’m also supposed to crosspost the writing group stuff on the blog, because if my reason for joining it is to let people read it, then do it. One of those pieces will follow this post.

So. Let’s take stock.
Let go of the business.
My daughter.
The stress.
My daughter.
Control of my writing.
Did I mention my daughter?
Control of pretty much everything, really.

Does that about cover it? Yes?

I have been assured that all this letting go would bring a feeling of release and happiness. I’m sure it’ll be coming along at any moment. I haven’t seen signs of it yet, but it must be out there- everybody says so.

In the meantime, I’m fine. Really. Hope you’re not sorry for asking.

(having signed up for the application on facebook, saw this one)

Too many people, when listing all the perils to be found in the search for lost treasure or ancient wisdom, had forgotten to put at the top of the list ‘ the man who arrived just before you’ .

Who is busy slamming his head on his keyboard, trying to meet a fixed deadline while his boss keeps moving the damned target. :::sigh:::