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Writer's Retreat Blog
Wednesday, February 10, 2010
Friday, February 5, 2010
Flash Fiction Mini Ficlets
Today a talented acquaintance told me of an interesting contest. A clever gal is offering prizes for her favorite short story from contributors.
Did I say short? Try 40 words. The theme is "seize the day". I thought I'd share what this challenge inspired.
But first, here's the link if you'd care to give it a try: Head Above Water
My three stories follow. I hope you enjoy these untitled snippets.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
He thrusts his fists against the posts and still insists he sees the ghosts.
The stuttering boy’s vocal exercise ran through the nervous man’s mind like a mantra. He could do this. He knew his presentation. He needed the promotion.
_________________
Rain again. Walking along, drenched, he missed the weather of his mountain village, thunderstorms rumbling through snow-filled valleys. Why had he ever left? Then he looked at the sign announcing his art exhibit. Maybe rain wasn’t so bad after all.
_________________
“Let’s see,” she said aloud to herself. “Pickled eggs, fried chicken, potato chips, chocolate truffles, and wine. They say the way to a man’s heart is through his stomach. Let’s hope they’re right.”
Sarah lifted the picnic basket, shoulders squared.
Did I say short? Try 40 words. The theme is "seize the day". I thought I'd share what this challenge inspired.
But first, here's the link if you'd care to give it a try: Head Above Water
My three stories follow. I hope you enjoy these untitled snippets.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
He thrusts his fists against the posts and still insists he sees the ghosts.
The stuttering boy’s vocal exercise ran through the nervous man’s mind like a mantra. He could do this. He knew his presentation. He needed the promotion.
_________________
Rain again. Walking along, drenched, he missed the weather of his mountain village, thunderstorms rumbling through snow-filled valleys. Why had he ever left? Then he looked at the sign announcing his art exhibit. Maybe rain wasn’t so bad after all.
_________________
“Let’s see,” she said aloud to herself. “Pickled eggs, fried chicken, potato chips, chocolate truffles, and wine. They say the way to a man’s heart is through his stomach. Let’s hope they’re right.”
Sarah lifted the picnic basket, shoulders squared.
Thursday, February 4, 2010
Thursday Thirteen
Chronicling careless youthful exploits to a friend, I was reminded yet again what wonderful and patient parents I’m blessed with. I like to think I tell them adequately, if not often enough.
True to their natures, my mother and father don’t complain about my lack of calls or visits. Yes, hints are dropped at how cheap flights to Florida can be, but that’s the extent of their guilt trips. That pattern carried through my childhood. I’d like to make a list of anecdotes to remind myself how fortunate I am to have been raised by these two, not to mention that we still have them in our lives.
1. At the age of fifteen I started walking to the library as I had been doing for a few years, only now my boyfriend’s car waited out front. Our church, of which my mother was a choir member, stood directly next door and she inevitably caught me one practice night. Why I would be so dumb as to go that evening can be blamed on hormones, but try explaining how my enraged mother handled it so well. Rather than tell my strict father, she took me and my boyfriend to McDonald’s, bought us lunch, and gravely explained how we’d let her down. She insisted on being respected with honesty and proceeded to negotiate with Dad for my beau and I to have more time together!
2. Still basically a child at nineteen, I started seeing an older man my parents didn’t like. They didn’t complain, instead letting me see the mismatch for myself. When I wanted to break up with him they happily agreed to be my scapegoat. I calmly lied to the unsuspecting fellow, telling him they didn’t approve and I was forbidden to see him. To me it’s telling that I could even make that request, let alone that they would comply without a hint of “we told you so” in their voices!
3. Terrified of telling my father I was moving out to live with a man, I packed in secret for a solid week. As it turned out, my grandmother had prepared him for the news. She basically saw the inevitability before I did. To his credit, he hugged me and wished me well without a hint of disappaproval in his words or actions.
4. As noted above, I put all my belongings into storage boxes without my parents’ knowledge. What I didn’t say is how. To my knowledge, my parents never once came into my room without an invitation. All they asked was the same courtesy which, when I was a little girl, I didn’t always honor.
5. After I’d been out of their house for a few years I made the drive back to visit and my mother gave me her mother’s engagement ring because she could no longer fit the size. When I protested she argued that I would cherish and care for it, which was better than having the diamond sit in a jewelry box. I have since stopped wearing the ring everyday simply to preserve the stunningly delicate scrollwork which the jeweler fashioned out of white gold.
6. A little girl in our neighborhood was a complete and utter brat. One day she decided to bite me on the arm. Hard. I went home crying and when my mommy saw the teeth marks she told me to go back over and give as good as I got. She spent the rest of the afternoon defending me to the ridiculous mother of my “friend” and never once backed down from the woman’s diatribe.
7. As an adult I went home close to the holidays and my mom, a lovely alto singer, invited me to join her choir for an evening of practice. I hadn’t sung to more than the radio in years and certainly never as the soprano they desperately needed for the piece. What a boost Mom inadvertently provided when the director asked if I could come back for the performance! The evening would have been special without that, which was what she wisely intended all along.
8. Even before our long-awaited wedding, my parents purchased a queen-size bed so my guy and I had a comfortable place to sleep when we visited. Since he usually stayed with his mother in those days, it made the gesture even more meaningful.
9. On one visit to our home, my father reinforced our aging deck, painted the two story structure, then moved on to the ugly cement back wall. I didn’t even know they made paint that simulates stucco. His energy sapped mine but the end result remains impressive.
10. When the transmission went out on my car they lent me their credit card long distance. I had to pay the money back with interest, just enough to make me appreciate the value of money.
11. Right when we were moving for my father’s new job my baton corpse finally got real uniforms. Though I’d be long gone before the parade, my mother scrounged up the funds and purchased the pretty spangled jumpsuit. I still remember parading the spacious upstairs hall and twirling my baton for all I was worth.
12. While these days I buy vintage concert T-shirts on eBay, as a child I hated hand-me-down clothing. One time I actually told my mother’s cousin that I didn’t need anything. Mortified, my mother handled me very gently in that little etiquette lesson.
13. When his twenty-year-old girlfriend fell to pieces for the first time in his presence, my boyfriend called her parents. My pet snake had just died and I felt like I’d failed the poor creature, despite a trip to a reptile specialist who tried to treat Jake for something akin to a bad cold. Anyway, my dear father advised me to put him in the freezer until the weekend when I could drive up to visit. We had another Air Force Airman as a roommate, which made it awkward, but I didn’t care. When I made the trip it turned out my father had actually built a square wooden coffin! Now my colorful corn snake has a final resting place next to our family’s two elderly, deceased dogs. I try to imagine what archeologists of some future race will say when they discover the site.
True to their natures, my mother and father don’t complain about my lack of calls or visits. Yes, hints are dropped at how cheap flights to Florida can be, but that’s the extent of their guilt trips. That pattern carried through my childhood. I’d like to make a list of anecdotes to remind myself how fortunate I am to have been raised by these two, not to mention that we still have them in our lives.
1. At the age of fifteen I started walking to the library as I had been doing for a few years, only now my boyfriend’s car waited out front. Our church, of which my mother was a choir member, stood directly next door and she inevitably caught me one practice night. Why I would be so dumb as to go that evening can be blamed on hormones, but try explaining how my enraged mother handled it so well. Rather than tell my strict father, she took me and my boyfriend to McDonald’s, bought us lunch, and gravely explained how we’d let her down. She insisted on being respected with honesty and proceeded to negotiate with Dad for my beau and I to have more time together!
2. Still basically a child at nineteen, I started seeing an older man my parents didn’t like. They didn’t complain, instead letting me see the mismatch for myself. When I wanted to break up with him they happily agreed to be my scapegoat. I calmly lied to the unsuspecting fellow, telling him they didn’t approve and I was forbidden to see him. To me it’s telling that I could even make that request, let alone that they would comply without a hint of “we told you so” in their voices!
3. Terrified of telling my father I was moving out to live with a man, I packed in secret for a solid week. As it turned out, my grandmother had prepared him for the news. She basically saw the inevitability before I did. To his credit, he hugged me and wished me well without a hint of disappaproval in his words or actions.
4. As noted above, I put all my belongings into storage boxes without my parents’ knowledge. What I didn’t say is how. To my knowledge, my parents never once came into my room without an invitation. All they asked was the same courtesy which, when I was a little girl, I didn’t always honor.
5. After I’d been out of their house for a few years I made the drive back to visit and my mother gave me her mother’s engagement ring because she could no longer fit the size. When I protested she argued that I would cherish and care for it, which was better than having the diamond sit in a jewelry box. I have since stopped wearing the ring everyday simply to preserve the stunningly delicate scrollwork which the jeweler fashioned out of white gold.
6. A little girl in our neighborhood was a complete and utter brat. One day she decided to bite me on the arm. Hard. I went home crying and when my mommy saw the teeth marks she told me to go back over and give as good as I got. She spent the rest of the afternoon defending me to the ridiculous mother of my “friend” and never once backed down from the woman’s diatribe.
7. As an adult I went home close to the holidays and my mom, a lovely alto singer, invited me to join her choir for an evening of practice. I hadn’t sung to more than the radio in years and certainly never as the soprano they desperately needed for the piece. What a boost Mom inadvertently provided when the director asked if I could come back for the performance! The evening would have been special without that, which was what she wisely intended all along.
8. Even before our long-awaited wedding, my parents purchased a queen-size bed so my guy and I had a comfortable place to sleep when we visited. Since he usually stayed with his mother in those days, it made the gesture even more meaningful.
9. On one visit to our home, my father reinforced our aging deck, painted the two story structure, then moved on to the ugly cement back wall. I didn’t even know they made paint that simulates stucco. His energy sapped mine but the end result remains impressive.
10. When the transmission went out on my car they lent me their credit card long distance. I had to pay the money back with interest, just enough to make me appreciate the value of money.
11. Right when we were moving for my father’s new job my baton corpse finally got real uniforms. Though I’d be long gone before the parade, my mother scrounged up the funds and purchased the pretty spangled jumpsuit. I still remember parading the spacious upstairs hall and twirling my baton for all I was worth.
12. While these days I buy vintage concert T-shirts on eBay, as a child I hated hand-me-down clothing. One time I actually told my mother’s cousin that I didn’t need anything. Mortified, my mother handled me very gently in that little etiquette lesson.
13. When his twenty-year-old girlfriend fell to pieces for the first time in his presence, my boyfriend called her parents. My pet snake had just died and I felt like I’d failed the poor creature, despite a trip to a reptile specialist who tried to treat Jake for something akin to a bad cold. Anyway, my dear father advised me to put him in the freezer until the weekend when I could drive up to visit. We had another Air Force Airman as a roommate, which made it awkward, but I didn’t care. When I made the trip it turned out my father had actually built a square wooden coffin! Now my colorful corn snake has a final resting place next to our family’s two elderly, deceased dogs. I try to imagine what archeologists of some future race will say when they discover the site.
Tuesday, February 2, 2010
Internet Addiction – Who? Me?
I'm sure many of us can relate to this quandary. Please click the link for my tiny epiphany.
Writer's Retreat Blog
Writer's Retreat Blog
Friday, January 29, 2010
Flash Fiction Friday
The Barter
“Are you listening to me? Or are you just waiting for your turn to speak?”
Varton turned his head with a scowl. He wouldn’t even honor that with a reply. Bester knew better.
Better, best. Had he been anyone else, Varton would have laughed at the pun.
“Hand me the Shimadzu.”
Bester huffed. Sure, the HPLC analysis was important. And Var knew his stuff when it came to selecting the best chromatographer for the job. He lost his train of thought, though, just as he’d expected. They’d been using the Phenomenex and he had to sort through the contents of the shelf to find the Japanese model.
“Here. Now, where was I?”
“You’d just gotten Teradezara’s number when you realized that your girlfriend saw the whole thing.”
“Oh, right. You were listening.”
Varton grunted. Practiced fingers turned on the helium valve.
“Anyway, there I was. Shana looked like you could cook a Terzian egg on her forehead. So I told her Tera had asked for the name of Shana’s hairdresser. It instantly changed her tune, let me tell you.”
“Read that.”
“Is that right?”
“So you’re seeing what I’m seeing? Time to call in the diggers,” Varton rumbled. “Soon you’ll be able to afford Terzian eggs for Shana, Teradezara, and any of your other conquests.”
Bester’s silence told more about the magnitude of their find than Varton’s flippant remark. Not many things left the tech speechless. Impossible riches on the planet below proved to be one. He wouldn’t be complaining about share percentages for the haul from now on. They’d be set for life when they returned home, especially with annuities compounding during cryo-sleep.
The first diggers the corporation sent were manned. That decision proved to be a tragic mistake and each employee’s speculative earnings increased to absurd proportions. In addition, the bereaved families would be awarded a stipend for their loss.
If, that is, the company could find a way to mine the rich veins of Planet 37926.
Or, as they were being asked to call it, 010010. And the humans quickly learned not to shorten the “zero” to “oh”. A major oversight costing nearly a hundred lives did not need to be compounded.
The first misstep had been taken by early surveyors, who’d indulged in foolish shortcuts. These statisticians had assumed the evidence of some ancient civilization was strictly that – ancient. That had always translated to abandonment. At least it had in the past. Nobody knew to check for nonorganic life forms. No digital or radio signal or heat signature alerted anyone.
Formal negotiations began at once. The Prime, who had no use for Tantun, nevertheless expected to be richly compensated for those resources. They did have a use for water, which had long ago evaporated from the planet’s surface. By the Prime’s estimation, three hundred twenty-one more of the invading organic life forms would yield what they needed to rebuild their world.
Varton and Bester decided all Prime looked alike. For all intents and purposes they not only shared appearance but were literally interchangeable. Address one, address the entire population of 010010. The two lowly techs also agreed that they’d rather be poor the rest of their priceless little lives than hand over walking, breathing beings meant to save lives in a medical emergency.
It was a no-brainer, Bester kept repeating as a mantra. Varton voted to leave. Unfortunately, the ship’s CEO did not preside over a democracy and the company’s bottom line trumped compassion. Cloning units cranked into high gear and the price was met in just under one Standard Galactic month. Superstition ran rampant through the men and women watching mirror likenesses march to their doom.
Mining didn’t take much beyond another month, even with the discontented rumblings of those doing the work. They wanted out of that sector of space as soon as humanly possible. Everyone on board the commercial vessel was exceedingly glad to leave 010010 and its frighteningly alien inhabitants far behind.
Three years later, with her crew waking from stasis, the George Washington V arrived home. The storage capacity nearly exceeded legal limits, every nook and cranny laden with valuable Tantun.
Groggy and stunned to silence, the five hundred nineteen souls on board looked at nothing. Where earth had once spun they found only a void. An ominous electronic blip appeared on the radar, setting off alarms that echoed all through the metal halls of the lightly armed trawler.
“Crap, Bester,” said Varton.
“I couldn’t have said it better myself.”
~the end~
Thursday, January 28, 2010
Thursday 13
In the process of writing, I have found that certain misspellings are inevitably overlooked by the software spellchecker. For today’s Thursday Thirteen I decided to make a list of them.
I’m happy to report that it took several days. Many are prevalent, which is especially annoying. Number seven defies logic. A few are downright funny. I'll let you guess which word I was trying for.
Perhaps you can relate to a few of these.
1. Form vs. from
2. This vs. his
3. Worm vs. worn
4. Mattes vs. matters
5. Officer vs. office
6. Loose vs. lose
7. O vs. to - ???
8. Dual vs. duel
9. Grin vs. grim
10. Differed vs. different
11. God vs. good
12. Melting vs. meeting
13. Lace vs. place
I’m happy to report that it took several days. Many are prevalent, which is especially annoying. Number seven defies logic. A few are downright funny. I'll let you guess which word I was trying for.
Perhaps you can relate to a few of these.
1. Form vs. from
2. This vs. his
3. Worm vs. worn
4. Mattes vs. matters
5. Officer vs. office
6. Loose vs. lose
7. O vs. to - ???
8. Dual vs. duel
9. Grin vs. grim
10. Differed vs. different
11. God vs. good
12. Melting vs. meeting
13. Lace vs. place
Tuesday, January 26, 2010
The Path Not Taken
I just learned that a good friend is taking a long train trip next month. The thought stirred memories of my own railroad experiences. Certainly, I have visited some beautiful places by airplane. And the car is an essential part of my life. A train, however, is almost magical.
Whatever the mode of transport, my imagination often makes it an interesting thing. When driving down the road, I might wonder where parallel railroad tracks lead once they split off from the freeway. Spotting even a mundane freight train from behind the wheel never fails to kick up a little curiosity.
So I find it interesting that the reverse occurred when the world spooled before my eyes from an Amtrack window. A pickup truck kicking up dust on a country road suddenly became a source of speculation. Where were they going? The interest, I think, stemmed from no hope of ever knowing. While the truth was likely not the least bit interesting, I could make up any scenario I wanted.
But usually, I simply let the question hang. Then the next car would inspire that tiny wonder all over again. Maybe it’s time to book a trip of my own. Or I could just write. Guess which I’ll probably choose?
Happy travels, dear! And thank you for the constant inspiration and encouragement.
Whatever the mode of transport, my imagination often makes it an interesting thing. When driving down the road, I might wonder where parallel railroad tracks lead once they split off from the freeway. Spotting even a mundane freight train from behind the wheel never fails to kick up a little curiosity.
So I find it interesting that the reverse occurred when the world spooled before my eyes from an Amtrack window. A pickup truck kicking up dust on a country road suddenly became a source of speculation. Where were they going? The interest, I think, stemmed from no hope of ever knowing. While the truth was likely not the least bit interesting, I could make up any scenario I wanted.
But usually, I simply let the question hang. Then the next car would inspire that tiny wonder all over again. Maybe it’s time to book a trip of my own. Or I could just write. Guess which I’ll probably choose?
Happy travels, dear! And thank you for the constant inspiration and encouragement.
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