I'm Ready, I Think...

Well, for one of the crazier things I've signed up for lately, I think I'm ready.  NaNoWriMo starts tomorrow and I'm giving it a shot.  My desk at home is (relatively) clean.  So is the house.  I've actually done some research and prep work for this story, which in and of itself is a first for me.  Usually I just write and when I need to figure something out, I do it as I go.  I've even got somewhat of an outline for where the story is going.  I've hashed out some of the finer points with my husband (who said he was very glad he was NOT the one writing this).  My writing playlist is pretty well set - except for the occasional song I will most likely come across here and there to ad to it.  Now, the real challenge is A) to see if I can stick to it and B) actually end a story while hitting the 50,000 word mark.

If there's something I'm missing, please, don't tell me.  I don't have time to fix it now anyways.  So, without further adieu - let the games begin!

Braver Yet

You may have noticed some changes to my blog.  I took down some older stuff in order to make way for new.  Namely a project I am undertaking for the first time ever.  I am attempting to participate in NaNoWriMo.  The "simple" version is this: write 50,000 words on a story between November 1 and November 30.  It averages out to about 1667 words per day.  I am nervous about this.  My goal is to have a complete story by the end.  Why?  Because, typically, I suck at ending stories.  I don't think I've written an ending to a story since I wrote a (really bad) short story in college almost 10 years ago.  So, there will most likely be updates along the way about how it's going.

Oh yeah, as if this wasn't tough enough.  I'll be doing it with only 8 of my 10 fingers typing.  Again, why?  Because I managed to screw up my hand somewhat recently.  Now I am wearing a brace that immobilizes the index and middle fingers on my right hand from just below my fingertips and goes down past my wrist.  Hopefully I'll have good news soon and be back to typing with no issues!

Wish me luck!

Write On Edge Prompt: Athleticism

Write a piece of fiction or creative non-fiction in which athleticism features prominently. Let’s try 400 words or less, please.

This was the photo, courtesy of Pinterest, I chose to use for my inspiration:





My piece is more of a character background, I think.  As such, I know it could be polished some more.  But, I hope you enjoy it anyways.

She sat in the stands watching her daughter line up for her race. Pride swelled in her heart. She could hardly believe her daughter was actually out there getting ready to run in the Special Olympics. It didn’t seem like it was that long ago the doctors were telling her it was a miracle her daughter was even alive.

That thought brought a swell of rage washing through her. It had been over five years but she was still so angry at him, at what he did to their beautiful little girl. She looked around to see if her guards were still standing nearby.  They were there, and keeping a watchful eye on her. They didn’t understand. Neither did the men who controlled her life now.

She did what she had to do. Her daughter was running the 400 Meter in the Special Olympics because of what she did for her. No other mother would condemn her for that. They might not want to admit it, but other mothers would have done the same thing if they had access to the same technologies she did.

As her daughter crossed the finish line in first place, she leapt to her feet screaming out her pride and joy. Her daughter threw her arms up in the air in celebration when she realized she won the race. A smile bigger than the state of Texas splashed across her face.   Her strawberry blond hair was tousled by the wind.

She wanted to run down there, sweep her daughter up into her arms and twirl her around. But she couldn’t. She stood there, hands gripping the rail in front of her, knuckles pure white. She had to watch as her daughter ran to another woman for a celebratory hug.  It was so much of a struggle to stay there and just watch she thought it would kill her.  But she couldn’t leave either.

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw her guards moving in. It was time to go. Realistically, she should be grateful for them allowing her to be here, to watch her daughter. Part of her was grateful. The larger part was angry, though, so angry at being condemned for taking the risk to improve her daughter’s life. She allowed the guards to lead her away.

“One day,” she thought, “I’ll get her back. One day they’ll all pay for this.”

Write On Edge Prompt: Fear

For this week’s Red Writing Hood prompt, we’re inviting you to truly scare us.
Here’s what you’ll need to do:
Compose a post in the form of a text–160 characters.
Your text must elicit or express fear.

I must say, initially, I was stuck.  I don't usually do the fear thing that much.  But then I started thinking about the concept of doing this as a text.  This got me thinking about what would be scary to receive as a text message.  That is where these first three ideas came from.

Lost in woods.  They have wicked sharp claws.  Fast too.  They see in dark.  Losing blood fast.  Fog building.  Send help fast.  Hear them coming now.  Run!

 
Call me ASAP.  Just left MD’s office.  Test results back.

Alert: Serial killer last seen near your location.  Armed and extremely dangerous.  Description unknown.  Targets brunette women ages 18-30.  Take precautions.

This last one isn't in that same vein, but it came to me once I started coming up with the ones above.

Bright silver glitters in the moonlight.  The hand I see shakes.  Razor’s edge digs in.  Drops of blood appear.  I can barely swallow without it getting worse.

So, not entirely certain if these really fit the idea of expressing or eliciting fear, but they are the best I've got for now.  Please enjoy.

Something Else Instead

    I'll be honest.  I couldn't come up with an idea for the Write On Edge prompt this week.  I just couldn't come up with something inspired by autumn.  Maybe it has to do with the fact my fall hasn't been the best this year (work has been less than pleasant).  So, I offer up the opening to a story I'm working on.  Not sure if it'll be a short story or a longer piece.  I'll have to see when I get to the end.  In the mean time, please enjoy.  As always, constructive criticism is more than welcome.

                The rain poured down.  She stood watching it out her window as her boyfriend screamed at her in the background.  She noticed the streaks on the glass seemed to mirror the tear tracks down her face.  She jumped when she felt him grab her arm to spin her around.

                “What the hell is wrong with you!” he screamed at her.

                The neighbors in the apartment above them pounded on the floor.  They usually did that when he had too much to drink and began screaming at her.  A few minutes more of this and someone would call the cops, again.

                He shook her roughly, “Look at me when I’m talking to you!  What the fuck were you thinking!”

                She didn’t answer.  She knew what came next anyways.  It didn’t matter what she said or didn’t say.  It was always the same. Last time it was about the dishes in the dishwasher not being done when he wanted them to be done.  This time it was because she didn’t realize he had left some papers in his jeans pocket and she had washed them as he had asked her to, ruining the papers in the process.  She’d never found a way out of this.  She glanced up from the stain on his shirt she had been staring at.  Sure enough, his hand was raised.  Like an anvil in the cartoons she used to watch, it seemed to hand there for an eternity before it came crashing down across her face.  She fell, hitting the floor with a loud thud.

                All she had to do was wait a little longer and the police would be here.  But, it was different this time.  Instead of walking away like he usually did, he pulled back to kick her.  His foot caught her across the ribs on her left side.  Her side exploded with pain.  She struggled to breathe.  He kicked her again in the side.  She felt something give.  The pain was so intense she couldn’t even see.  She looked up to see him reaching down to back hand her again.  As his hand came down, she could hear a knocking at the door and a voice saying that the police were outside.  She screamed just once, despite the pain it caused from her ribs, then she escaped into unconsciousness.  The sound of the chain on the door breaking followed her down into the darkness.

Write On Edge Prompt: Tattoos

   This weeks prompt was to explore tattoos.  Initially I didn't think I could come up with something to write about tattoos.  I like them and all, but write something based on the exploration of tattoos.  Then I started thinking about how people tend to view tattoos.  From my experience, they either love them or hate them.  There typically isn't much middle ground.  My thoughts went from that to the idea of how someone would feel long after getting the tattoo and would the tattoo hold the same meaning.
   That was where the picture started to form in my head.  I do have to give some credit for the basis of my idea of a tattoo as a way of showing position and rank in this scenario.  The root of my idea came from a series called The League by Sherrilyn Kenyon.  While, at least in my head, the scene and background on the tattoos are different, the basis for it came from that series.  So, please enjoy!

                 He rubbed his left bicep again.  It reminded him of the tattoo there, and on his chest.  He didn’t need to see them to describe them in perfect detail.  The one on his arm reminded him of ancient Norse knot-work art his mother had from Old Earth.  It was an intricate black and red band of knots.  A thin line of blue ran through it.

                “These are our people.  They were warriors known for their strength and feared in battle,” she used to say.

                The one on his chest was more complex.  A band of the same knots ran across his left side.  A pair of sai, his weapon of choice, were done in real silver.  He remembered how much that hurt to get them, but he’d been so proud to get them back then that he didn’t care.  In between the crossed sai was the Universal symbol for death.  It reminded him of a skull.  The skull wore a fresh thin blue halo.

                He resisted the temptation to itch it.  He wasn’t nearly as excited to get the halo done as he was when he got the original tattoo.  In fact, he was just plain tired.  Fifty missions.  That was all he needed to complete.  He would be a free man they told him.  In his youthful ignorance, he never asked how many actually completed those fifty missions.  He learned later that none had yet to make it that far.  About half the time he worked alone.  Sometimes he got to work with a partner.  If he was lucky, he got to work in a team of three.

                He gave in and gently rubbed the healing ink.  It was ironic.  The symbol of what he had become was over his heart but his heart wasn’t in it anymore.

Write On Edge Prompt: Setting Description

This prompt was to " use your words to paint the setting as vividly as possible. In 200 words."  Here's my take...

 

                He stepped into the grove.  The trees soared so high they made a mockery of downtown skyscrapers.  The rich, earthy smell reminded him of the forest back home just after the rain.  Birds in impossibly bright rainbow colors flitted between the lower branches several stories above his head.    The smallest branches were as big as full grown oaks.  The birds’ songs created a cacophony of sound.

                He moved among the cinnamon hued trunks that felt more like buildings.  Heart shaped leaves, each the size of an average car tire, seemed strangely small on those trees.  A soft breeze whispered through the leaves bringing him the scent of fresh water.  A low rumble reached him.  He felt it more than heard it.  Winding his way through those massive trunks, he reached the edge of a cliff.

                At his feet it dropped a canyon that made even those massive trees look tiny.  Directly across from him was the source of the subsonic rumble – a waterfall.  It started even with where he stood and plunged into the depths of the canyon, its bottom lost in the mists.  The sun created rainbows in the mists that drifted across the canyon to dampen his skin.

Another Random Question

Yes - I tend to have quite a few random questions.  But, before I get to this one, I need to put in a disclaimer so, hopefully, I don't offend anyone.

DISCLAIMER:  If you are easily offended by comments that may be straying ever so slightly into the realm of the politically incorrect, you might not want to read this post.  If you don't mind, go ahead, read on.  But, don't say I didn't warn you.

OK, now that that's out of the way, I can get to my random question.  Why would someone label a product that goes into the microwave with the warning "Caution product may be hot"?  If you're putting it in the microwave, wouldn't the natural end to the process be that the product is hot???  I mean, it doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure THAT out.  I noticed that warning on the cardboard wrappers of my Lean Pockets as I was putting them in the microwave for lunch today.  How sad that they have to print that on there for people.

I know, I know.  This ventures into that realm of no common sense.  Kinda like the lady who put the cup of coffee between her legs, drove off, spilled the coffee, burned herself and sued the place she got it from (and won!) because they didn't warn her it was hot.  Of course, had they not had it that hot, she probably would have complained because it wasn't hot enough.  Where's the common sense!!!

If you couldn't tell, my patience for dumb things like this is a little low at the moment.  But, hopefully, you made it through this post without getting offended at the implications regarding people missing some common sense and saw some of the humor in it as well.  If not, oh well.  It wasn't my intent to be mean.

Write On Edge Prompt: Conjuring

So, this week's prompt was to write a description.  But, rather than just telling what you are describing, you were to show what it was through words.  You had 100 words in which to describe the object/emotion/etc you chose.  It didn't expressly say you couldn't name what it was you were describing but I chose to make sure I did not name my object.  I wanted to see how much I could push myself with my description.  I figured if I could do a good enough job describing it I wouldn't have to tell you what it was I was describing.  So, here it is!  By the way, it's 99 words long.

                As she walked toward it, she noticed its wildness didn’t fit the cultivated orderliness around it.  It was simple but beautiful.  Rich, vivid greens were crowned in soft, creamy whites.  The small drops of yellow at the centers reminded her of the sun.  It was small, coming only to her knee.

                But there was something else that drew her to it, something mesmerizing and powerful.  It was only as she drew near, stepping off of the graveled path, that she noticed the danger.  Hidden deep within the green lushness, it too guarded against those who wished claim its beauty.

Frogs

Let me start by saying, yes, I am a little bored here at work.  Hence this post.  But I had to share some things that have happened over the summer/fall related to frogs.  As in the little green hopping critters we love so much for all of the flies/mosquitos/other bugs they eat.  Also, let me preface this story with the knowledge that, prior to this year, I don't think I'd seen more than 1-2 tree frogs around my house all summer.

This year the tree frogs must have been quite prolific.  I don't think I went more than a week at a time without seeing a tree frog most of the summer.  There are at least two different kinds of tree frogs, or at least two different colors, around my house.  One variety I've seen is the small, bright green tree frogs.  The other variety is the slightly larger brown tree frogs.  And, let me tell you, both are better than mice at squeezing into small spaces.  I know this from experience.

The first two times were late at night.  As in like 1 or 2 AM late.  My husband found them.  One came hopping down the hall toward his offce when he found it.  The other actually went into his office before he saw it.  Luckily, both times he was able to catch them and kindly evict them from the house.

The next time I had an encounter with one, it was one of the little green ones.  My husband had been cleaning out the shed.  He had found several part bottles of windshield washer fluid (you know, you've added most of it but the bottle is bigger than the reservior and you NEVER have that part bottle with you when you need it so you buy a whole new bottle then repeat the process the next time you need some?) and was going to dump the last of it into our cars to get rid of the bottles.  I was about to leave to run to the store so he had me pop the hood of my car to top off the washer fluid.  Just as he was about to shut the hood he called me out of the car to come help him.  Not knowing what was going on, but seeing he wasn't hurt or anything, I jumped out of the car and tried to figure out why he would need help shutting the hood.  Well - the little frog had crawled down into the engine compartment in my car and was sitting in such a place that if my husband would have closed the hood, the frog would have been squashed.  Don't ask me, I don't know how he got the hood open without hurting the frog.  Several minutes of chasing a frog around the engine compartment later, it bailed on it's own and hid in the flower bed next to the driveway.

We're not done yet.  Once it finally got cool enough to not need the window air conditioning units, we found 2 more frogs.  The first one wasn't actually in the house so it was easy to relocate him.  The second had crawled down into the window sill and was hanging out there.  Have you ever tried to pick a tiny green tree frog out of a window sill?  Trust me - it's harder than it sounds.  I finally got him out of the window and took him outside to turn him loose.  All of the way outside (which was maybe 75 feet) he kept trying to get out of my hands.  When I got outside, I opened up my hands and tried to get him to crawl onto the oak tree by the front door.  That didn't work very well.  I chased the frog around the palm of my hand for almost 30 seconds.  Yes, you read that correctly.  The saddest part is that the frog won!  I did not successfully relocate him to the tree.  I'm pretty sure the deal was that he was cold, my hand was warm and, therefore, he did not want to leave.  By the way, tree frog feet feel really odd on your skin, just in case you wanted to know.  I did successfully relocate the little frog to a leaf of the giant hosta near our front door.  I was nice and put him on one in the sunshine.  I did have to kinda poke him and dump him off my hand to get him to go, but it worked in the end.

The final tree frog encounter came a couple of weeks later.  The weather had said there were frost advisories out.  OK.  Time to haul the plants in.  I figured I would probably find a frog in the plants since, when I talked to my mom that same time, she had to catch two frogs that came out of plants when she brought hers in.  I was surprised that I never saw any.  Silly me.  I thought I got lucky and none moved in with me via the plants.  A week later, I was rearranging the plants to put them in various windows for their permanent winter homes and got quite the shock.  I went to move the last larger planter to the shelf where it would live for the winter and little brown tree frog came flying out from under it.  I have no idea where the little thing had been hiding (aside from under the planter) or what he'd been doing in my house all week.  The frog did not land on me, but, this time I wasn't going to have the advantage of him being cold and therefore slow.  Two adult human beings, one clear plastic container and a piece of paper later, we caught the frog and I was able to successfully evict him to one of my gardens outside.

The scary part is that we're getting somewhat of a second summer around these parts now.  Makes me wonder just how many more little tree frogs I will have run ins with before it stays cold enough for them to hibernate.  Good thing I like tree frogs - just not in my house...

Apples

     Most people tend to associate apples with fall.  I know I usually do.  However, something I never actually thought about was what to do with apples.  I know, I know, the easy answer is eat them.  But these are completely au natural.  As in never been sprayed or anything.  That means quite a few worm trails and the danger of a worm or two in them.  Not something I'd willingly bite into without knowing whether or not something else was living in my apple.
     So, here I am, with probably 10-12 cups of cut up and cleaned apples (with the offer of even more should I but ask) and I'm not certain what to do with them.  I made an apple crisp the other day which turned out good.  I have a recipe my mom sent me for apple bread.  That'll be on the menu in the next day or two.  It still leaves me with quite a few apples....
     Maybe I'll leave some in the freezer for a crisp in a month or two when I'm fondly looking back at the fall amidst the below zero Fahrenheit and hip deep snow weather that's bound to be on it's way to this wonderful land we call Minnesota.


On another note - here's an update on my attempts to get in better shape.  I did pull my hamstring in my right thigh the first part of September.  Since then I've been temporarily transferred to a different site for work.  That translates into at least 45-60 minute drive each way for work as compared to about 5-10 minute drive to work and about a 2 minute drive to the gym.  That being said - my measurements are unchanged, as is the number on the scale.  Definitely time to reevaluate what I am doing...

Getting Brave

Ok - I'm getting braver.  I've added a new page with the first chapter of a long story, novel type thing I am working on.  I don't know what really to call it as I don't feel like I'm writing a novel - but it's waaayy to long to be a story.  Anyways - please read, hopefully enjoy, and any constructive criticisms are welcome.  Please be nice about it, though.  Any just plain mean spiritedness would be really not nice and, hopefully, repayed in kind down the road.

Write On Edge prompt

This week's prompt was to write something inspired by a picture from the Pinterest website.  I do have to confess, though.  I read a good friend's piece and was inspired by both the picture and what she wrote.  So, thanks J for the added inspiration!  If you want to check out the story piece J wrote that inspired me, click here.  In the mean time, here's the picture and my side of the story...

                                              

                He glanced around the mostly vacant square.  A few drunk tourists were still trying to stumble their way back to their hotels, lost in the fog so common this time of year.  The homeless people had even left to find drier, warmer places.  He, however, loved this.  But he knew it wasn’t going to last much longer.  Dawn was coming soon, he could feel it on his fog dampened skin.   It would be time to hide once again.

                Just as he moved to leave the square, an intoxicating smell reached his nose.  He looked around for the source but couldn’t locate it.  Silently, leaving no trace of his passing, he moved around the square attempting to follow it.  As he came near a row of benches near one of the many old cathedrals that dotted the city, he saw her.

                She looked like she’d had a rough night.  Her make-up was smeared under her eyes, her jeans were wet and her heels lay next to her bare feet on the ground.  Her small purse was propped up next to her on the bench.  She sat on the bench, huddled in on herself.  He watched as one tiny, delicate hand wiped tears away from her face.  She would look tiny next to him, he could tell that from where he watched her in the dwindling shadows.  But, despite her fragile appearance, there was something about her that told him she was so much stronger than she looked.  He could tell she had been drinking, but that wasn’t what he smelled.  It had to be her perfume.  There was something about that perfume he just couldn’t get out of his mind.

                He mentally shook himself and turned to walk away.  He was going to have to get out of there soon or be caught by the dawn.  Yet he couldn’t take those first steps.  He stood for a long time, his back turned to the woman, inhaling that mesmerizing scent.  What was it about that smell, about that woman that he couldn’t get out of his head?