A.D. Sams's Blog

This story began as a writing prompt from Sara Crawford’s The 30 Day Writing Challenge. Leaving my plot to chance, I was to write down random characters, locations, and conflicts and put them in three separate bowls and draw my fate. My choices from the lists provided were: A cat with insomnia, Texas, Someone has to give up an addiction.

The thing is, I found I related to Glory more than I expected, so I pulled the shell of a story from my blog and attempted to make something of it.

 ***

Glory

by A.D. Sams

There was an infernal clacking in her ear. It started off as an annoyance then grew to an intensity that ripped through her head. The room was moving again. The pain, there again. She had just been floating, hadn’t she? She remembered the needle and the sting and the fire and…

No, the bone man came and drew her back to the ground. He spilled the ravens from his chest, their feathers like knives. They flew over her skin and took the red ribbons; the purple stems ripped from her arms and clanged against the ground. She ached a moment of truth before the bone man shattered her body across the floor.

Awake at 4a.m. again.

It’s not as if sleep was a hard thing to do, but the loud noise she heard startled her past salvaging rest. Who was she kidding? She had as much insomnia as the damn cat. Another boom echoed across the wooden floor followed by the sound of a soft thud and a heavy plastic vase rolling back and forth. Dennis, the cat, took offense to just about anything on any surface. Not that she had much money for decorations, but she liked that vase.

Glory swung her thin legs off the edge of the bed. She could see the bruises were healing. The pale, green splotches reminded her of things she’d rather forget. She was sweaty and her hair was stuck to her neck. The house was freezing. No, it was the middle of summer.

Her toes were tender and she could feel every groove in the floor where she slowly she set the pressure of her body weight onto her feet. Her body ached. Every bend, every curve, everything hurt. She was a cavity and her bones were the only thing keeping her together.

The rolling vase finally stopped, but she could hear Dennis pouncing on to something else. She walked slowly into the living room to see a bare mantle and a scatter of magazines, a cup, and that extremely loud vase on the floor. Dennis shoved her purse off the table while he stared at her.

“You’re lucky you’re cute, Mr. Menace.”

He was a pain in her ass, but he was the only thing in her life that never let her down.  After she moved back to her little house, Dennis stopped sleeping. She blamed the country air. It seemed to set everything on end in this little piece of Texas. Maybe she’d grown too used to the ever-present noise of the city to distract her from the noise in her own head. She felt more bare here, raw and electric. This must be what life feels like when you take the blanket off.

She took her fifth trip the bathroom for the night. It was listed as a symptom. Anything that didn’t come out the top, came out the bottom. She felt jagged inside. Her legs were stinging as if her veins had been replaced with needles. That’s all she was, needles and bones. At least she was building up from where she started.

A voice too loud for her head came from the front porch.

“Glory, Glory! Woo hoo, my Gloraaayyy! Let me in, baby,” the voice drawled.

She didn’t need this right now. Not ever again.

She forced herself to leave the bathroom. Dennis hissed. Glory shoved the panic down as she opened the door, leaving the torn screen door shut.

“Well, don’t you look pretty?” Lie.

“What do you want, Merle? It’s 5 in the damn morning.”

“I was just in the neighborhood and thought I’d stop by for a visit.” Lie.

“I live 40 miles from everything for a reason. What do you really want?”

He opened the screen door. She didn’t have the reflexes or strength to try and stop him, so she did what she could and kept her distance. He sneered at her as he walked into the kitchen and sat down.

“You could offer me a drink. Ain’t no reason to forget your manners.” He was digging in his pockets. An unlit cigarette hung from his lips. She watched it bounce when he talked and wondered if he even realized it was there. She grabbed a cup, filled it with water then slammed it down on the table hard enough to spill half of it everywhere.

“Damnit, woman! I thought you’d be happy to see me!”

“Aint’ the first time you’ve been wrong.”

“Heard you were tryin’ to kick. You and I both know that ain’t gonna happen.”

“You don’t know anything about me. Not anymore.”

“Well, we’ll see how you’re doin’ when I come back then,” Merle tossed a little bag onto the table and got up.

He walked over to Glory. He was too close and he stank. A smell like that could only come after one of his famous two week episodes. Glory’s stomach curdled. She could barely make out the features of the man who once seemed like a god to her and wondered how many times he’d shit himself in the past few days.

His hair was greasy and his eyes glassy. He tried to kiss her, but she turned her head.

She almost threw up. He laughed at her as he walked out the door.

“See you later, baby.”

She knew that part wasn’t a lie.

She sank into the kitchen chair and stared at the bag for a long time. Time pounded away in her head, but still she sat and still she stared at this little piece of snow. Glory was a stubborn woman and when her mind was made up there was no freight train big enough to push it. She moved her toes across the groves in the floor again. It still hurt, but she chose to feel it.

Taking the bag full of everything her body screamed it wanted, Glory walked to the bathroom. She tried to hold her stomach in as she dumped the heroin into the water. She shook, but the tremors weren’t as bad as they were the day before. She flushed.

Dennis wrapped himself through her legs, the sensation almost too much.

“Let’s go to bed,” she said as she resisted the urge to scoop up her cat. The feeling of his fur and claws would overwhelm her, another facet of withdrawal. She watched him walk to the bedroom, feeling better just because he was there.

The cat jumped onto the bed and curled himself into a ball, waiting for Glory to join him before he drifted to sleep.

A while back, I wrote through several writing prompts from my friend Sarah’s book. One of those really stuck with me (here is the initial version of this story), so I decided to flesh out the prompt into something a bit more.

With that, here is the finalized version of a story that I’ve titled “Eggs”.

***

Eggs

by A.D. Sams

 

Babies know when they come out unwanted. I did. I was born with a hole right inside my heart and spent too many years tryin’ to fill a space that didn’t want to be filled. I never knew the empty could be so heavy. Daddy already flew away by then and Momma didn’t care enough to use her own healin’ touch. She shoved me off on Rayanne, who never wanted me anyhow.

We lived down a long, dirt road and out past a barn older than my Momma. She told me once that she kissed a boy in the hay field down the way. She said he smelled like fresh dirt and had a freckle by his left ear. She’d never a seen a wayward freckle like that, so she decided to kiss him. Her daddy saw them from the house and when they made it back he took a switch to the both of ‘em. After that, she did her kissin’ in that old barn as the good Lord intended.

That’s how she ended up with Rayanne.

She didn’t give me many of her memories, so I tried to hold on to every word. Mama preferred her stories on the TV. She liked her special drinks and her nerve pills. She’d take ‘em whenever she was blue. That’s what she called it. I didn’t know what made Momma so unhappy. My sister was never home so it must’ve been me.

Rayanne never liked either of us, really. She had long, black hair like Momma did in her old pictures. I had blond hair. Rayanne would tease me and say that I couldn’t be her sister, that I must’a come from the dog next door. Momma told me that when Rayanne found out she was havin’ a little sister and cried for a week.

“Fonda,” Momma laughed, “Rayanne would’ve traded you for some turnip greens if I’d ‘ve let ‘er. Hell, she probly still would.”

I always laughed when Momma laughed. It was the only thing we shared.

Rayanne didn’t laugh with us. My big sister was in charge of makin’ sure I was fed and washed. If I didn’t do what she said fast enough, she got mad as a swatted bee and pushed me down. I remember the day she bleached her hair to look like Farrah Fawcett. Only her hair wasn’t like any lady on TV. It was orange. I told her as much and she hit me with a briar switch. Momma never noticed.

Once Rayanne was allowed to go off with boys, I didn’t see her much. Momma was sleepin’ all the time. I think I was 9 then. I don’t really know. I never thought to ask about my birth day. When I was a few years older, I bled like a woman. Rayanne threw a lady pad at me as she walked out the door and told me to stay away from her boyfriend. Momma was asleep again.

That’s when I started takin’ walks at night.

I’d walk out to that old barn in the dark and imagine my momma, young and pretty, kissin’ that freckled boy. It smelled like summer and chicken wire and I laid down in the hay and pretended to have my own boy. All I really wanted was to have somebody close enough so’s I could feel somethin’ warm that wasn’t my ownself.

I remember the night I found the nest with the blue eggs.

That’s how I met Harlan. He’d lost one of his daddy’s chickens. His eyes were as green as a juniper tree. He told me I was pretty and my skin glowed white in the moonlight. I liked the way his hair ruffled around his ears and the sound he made when saw the nest. Harlan said his chicken was Americana. I thought that’s what he named her, but he laughed at me.

We met every day for a month before I kissed him. He laid down on me for the next week or so, then never came back. I can’t say as I blame him much. It hurt when he laid down on me and I cried. It had to be my fault.

Two months after that is when I felt the pain in my stomach and the blood ran down my legs. I felt an ache in my chest and I didn’t know why. It was heavy and if I leaned over too far to one side, it lobbed right over like a loose egg. I looked at the blood that ran like yolk.

Momma was asleep again.

I wandered out to the yard and saw Rayanne kissin’ on a boy with eyes like a juniper tree. That’s all I can recall about that.

A few years later Momma took a man for a few months. He looked at me in the same way he looked at Momma. He laid on me like Harlan did. I didn’t come home too much after that. Momma sent him on and went back to sleep.

I kept myself to myself. I’d found a chicken and kept it in the barn. She was sweet and laid little blue eggs. None of them hatched though. She was broken like me. I named her America.

One day I came home after school and saw Momma’s pills spilt all over her night gown. I picked each one of ‘em up while she slept and put the bottle in my pocket. I covered her with the afghan. She seemed still and cold.

I knew that Momma was dead. She had her reasons to go. She probably went to find that freckled boy who didn’t bleed down his legs. We hadn’t seen Rayanne for over a year after she stole Momma’s gold jewelry and ran away. My sister escaped us. Momma escaped me. I stood there and felt the pills in my pocket.

All my momma had in the end was me and I reminded her too much of things she didn’t want.

Sometimes a hole is too heavy.

Sometimes the loneliness wanders away with you. At least, that’s what I told my baby girl.

A while back, I wrote through several writing prompts from my friend Sarah’s book. One of those really stuck with me (here is the initial version of this story), so I decided to flesh out the prompt into something a bit more.

With that, here is the finalized version of a story that I’ve titled “Eggs”.

***

Eggs

by A.D. Sams

 

Babies know when they come out unwanted. I did. I was born with a hole right inside my heart and spent too many years tryin’ to fill a space that didn’t want to be filled. I never knew the empty could be so heavy. Daddy already flew away by then and Momma didn’t care enough to use her own healin’ touch. She shoved me off on Rayanne, who never wanted me anyhow.

We lived down a long, dirt road and out past a barn older than my Momma. She told me once that she kissed a boy in the hay field down the way. She said he smelled like fresh dirt and had a freckle by his left ear. She’d never a seen a wayward freckle like that, so she decided to kiss him. Her daddy saw them from the house and when they made it back he took a switch to the both of ‘em. After that, she did her kissin’ in that old barn as the good Lord intended.

That’s how she ended up with Rayanne.

She didn’t give me many of her memories, so I tried to hold on to every word. Mama preferred her stories on the TV. She liked her special drinks and her nerve pills. She’d take ‘em whenever she was blue. That’s what she called it. I didn’t know what made Momma so unhappy. My sister was never home so it must’ve been me.

Rayanne never liked either of us, really. She had long, black hair like Momma did in her old pictures. I had blond hair. Rayanne would tease me and say that I couldn’t be her sister, that I must’a come from the dog next door. Momma told me that when Rayanne found out she was havin’ a little sister and cried for a week.

“Fonda,” Momma laughed, “Rayanne would’ve traded you for some turnip greens if I’d ‘ve let ‘er. Hell, she probly still would.”

I always laughed when Momma laughed. It was the only thing we shared.

Rayanne didn’t laugh with us. My big sister was in charge of makin’ sure I was fed and washed. If I didn’t do what she said fast enough, she got mad as a swatted bee and pushed me down. I remember the day she bleached her hair to look like Farrah Fawcett. Only her hair wasn’t like any lady on TV. It was orange. I told her as much and she hit me with a briar switch. Momma never noticed.

Once Rayanne was allowed to go off with boys, I didn’t see her much. Momma was sleepin’ all the time. I think I was 9 then. I don’t really know. I never thought to ask about my birth day. When I was a few years older, I bled like a woman. Rayanne threw a lady pad at me as she walked out the door and told me to stay away from her boyfriend. Momma was asleep again.

That’s when I started takin’ walks at night.

I’d walk out to that old barn in the dark and imagine my momma, young and pretty, kissin’ that freckled boy. It smelled like summer and chicken wire and I laid down in the hay and pretended to have my own boy. All I really wanted was to have somebody close enough so’s I could feel somethin’ warm that wasn’t my ownself.

I remember the night I found the nest with the blue eggs.

That’s how I met Harlan. He’d lost one of his daddy’s chickens. His eyes were as green as a juniper tree. He told me I was pretty and my skin glowed white in the moonlight. I liked the way his hair ruffled around his ears and the sound he made when saw the nest. Harlan said his chicken was Americana. I thought that’s what he named her, but he laughed at me.

We met every day for a month before I kissed him. He laid down on me for the next week or so, then never came back. I can’t say as I blame him much. It hurt when he laid down on me and I cried. It had to be my fault.

Two months after that is when I felt the pain in my stomach and the blood ran down my legs. I felt an ache in my chest and I didn’t know why. It was heavy and if I leaned over too far to one side, it lobbed right over like a loose egg. I looked at the blood that ran like yolk.

Momma was asleep again.

I wandered out to the yard and saw Rayanne kissin’ on a boy with eyes like a juniper tree. That’s all I can recall about that.

A few years later Momma took a man for a few months. He looked at me in the same way he looked at Momma. He laid on me like Harlan did. I didn’t come home too much after that. Momma sent him on and went back to sleep.

I kept myself to myself. I’d found a chicken and kept it in the barn. She was sweet and laid little blue eggs. None of them hatched though. She was broken like me. I named her America.

One day I came home after school and saw Momma’s pills spilt all over her night gown. I picked each one of ‘em up while she slept and put the bottle in my pocket. I covered her with the afghan. She seemed still and cold.

I knew that Momma was dead. She had her reasons to go. She probably went to find that freckled boy who didn’t bleed down his legs. We hadn’t seen Rayanne for over a year after she stole Momma’s gold jewelry and ran away. My sister escaped us. Momma escaped me. I stood there and felt the pills in my pocket.

All my momma had in the end was me and I reminded her too much of things she didn’t want.

Sometimes a hole is too heavy.

Sometimes the loneliness wanders away with you. At least, that’s what I told my baby girl.

I’ve done this tagged meme before, but since my favorites list is ever-changing, I thought I’d do it again.

List 10 books that have stayed with you long after you read them. Don’t think too much about the exercise. Be spontaneous.

You’re supposed to tag other people here.  I don’t tag people. Just participate if you want to. I would love to see your lists here in the comments!   In no particular order…. (and it was hard even narrowing this down….I could list 500.)

 

The Hobbit – J. R. R. Tolkien
Good Omens – Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett
The Complete Sherlock Holmes – Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator – Roald Dahl
Red Bird House – Alice Hoffman
The Rapture of Canaan – Sheri Reynolds
The Sea Wolf – Jack London
Piercing the Darkness and This Present Darkness – Frank Peretti
We Have Always Lived in the Castle – Shirley Jackson
Harry Potter Series (more specifically The Half Blood Prince) – J.K. Rowling
And because I like to break rules, you get an extra – Lamb – Christopher Moore

My friend Sara Crawford (author of The 30 Day Writing Challenge), tagged me in the Writing Process Blog Tour. Because she tends to be able to bend me to her will with the alluring awkwardness of her puppy dog stare, I’m participating. Aren’t you excited? I sure am.

Visit Sara’s blog here and check out her answers to these fine questions. She’s really got this writing process thing down.

Here’s how this blog tour basically works: You’re given four questions regarding your writing process. You answer them then tag two of your writy friends. Yes, writy friends who then answer the same questions in their blog and tag others.

Let’s see how I did.

What are you currently working on?

What am I NOT working on? I don’t think there’s ever a time where I whittled my project list to single digit status. Let me see if I can make this brief.

I’m working on the second edition of the Bayou L’Abeille stories. This entails approximately 25-30 short horror stories (of which only a select few are completed). There are also two separate fantasy novellas I have in the works. Gargoyles and bards and magic, oh my! I also have a short steampunk piece that I’ll finish one day. Maybe. Because I tend to write in a lot of genres, I do have a children’s story that I’m writing and illustrating that is almost complete.

I’ve also been debating a second book of poetry, but we’ll have to see if the inspiration strikes as hard as it needs to in order to get me motivated on that. I have a hard head.

2. How does your work differ from others of its genre?

I think it’s accurate of most writers that we play in and out of many genres. The truth of the matter is that the only thing that differentiates us from one another is our voice. My voice makes me different. It is unique because it is mine (is it time to quote Full Metal Jacket yet?). To give a more appropriate answer, between the mix of Southern charm, humor, descriptive visualization and a touch of the poetics here and there, my differences are subtle, but recognizable. I kind of feel like that sounded really pompous. Bless my heart. :)

3. Why do you write what you write?

Why? Such a short question that has such a big answer. I write what I write because if I don’t get my stories out, it gets physically uncomfortable. I know that sounds Super Lame(tm), but it’s true. My stories come from so many places. It’s strange the things that spark the writing bug for me. I think, though, that I write what I write because I want to make people think, feel and laugh…and sometimes I want all of those things at the same time. One of my favorite moments since I published Bayou L’Abeille was sitting with someone who was reading one of the stories and witnessing them absolutely crack up. I wanted to bottle that and keep it.

4. How does your individual writing process work?

While I know I need to schedule a designated writing time, that doesn’t always work. Should I be writing daily? Yes (sorry, Sara). I’m working on it.

Usually, I’ll sit down and create an outline of where I want to go. It might start in the middle of the story and spiral outward and it might start at the end and tumble back to the beginning. After that, I write my characters. Sometimes it’s just a small moment in time, a simple reaction to their energy.  Then sometimes I fill a few pages just trying to understand what they’re about.

It’s a rare thing that I start a story at the beginning and write through the end. Often, I start in the middle. I liken my process, at times, to how a movie is filmed. I write what works that day, even if the scenes are out of order.

***

Now I’m going to tag two writers…no, I’m not. I make my own rules. I’m tagging one, because she’s awesome.

Sophie Childs is the amazing person who allowed me to reach one of my dreams. She published Bayou L’Abeille through Fey Publishing. She’s also a very talented and creative writer. You can find her words on her Facebook page (and on rare occasion on her Twitter).

 

I have a gift.

If someone hands me a lump of muddy rock, I see a galaxy of diamonds in my hand, shining and revolving and shattering through the limitations left behind by the earth that birthed a lump of sullied mineral. It happens with everything in my life. Every thing. Every creature. Every person. No matter how small, I can always see the Things That Could Be.

I consider it my super-power.

There is, however, a blind spot. Of all the magical things in the world, the lights stop when I look at myself.  There’s a black hole where a mirror should be.

Depression is not easy.

Explaining depression to anyone else is not easy.

The best you can do is string one thought to another and hope the lanterns light up some semblance of an idea once you finally get the courage to hang them up.  I don’t expect many people to understand, so much as to say – if you do, there’s someone out here that knows how you feel.

Today was a very hard day for no real reason. In fact, my worst days are never set off by anything in particular.

A blank page.

A crooked line.

An intangible, empty thought.

None of those are important things.  They are just lacking, which all comes back around to that dark eye of depression.

Today started as a regular day. I nuzzled into my over sized chair with my lap top to do a bit of writing and watch a string of movies in my queue. Before I could catch it, the dark eye had arrived. Today, I uttered something that I never thought I would say. It really showed me where I was mentally and it, quite frankly, scared the crap out of me. My thought?

“Maybe I should just stop writing.” Yes, that meant forever.

*sits and really absorbs that for a moment*

Admittedly, I had a myriad of not so lovely thoughts, but that was the one that really stopped me. Some depression hits you like a ton of bricks and some depression sneaks in as a fog. Both are dangerous and the worst possible thing is just pacify the gloom.  At least, that’s how it works for me.  That being said, this is not written as a cry for help or comments, because it’s absolutely not. This is a post of accountability on my part.

I have power and control over my perception. I am of the strange and the real and have as much capacity for light as anything else.So I have to think about circling around, becoming a muddy lump of rock, becoming something that the dark eye doesn’t recognize. I have to become something brighter than before.

Do I know how I’m going to do that? No.

Baby steps are good, so I’ll just take the very wise advice of Mr. Magorium and hire an accountant. ” An accountant. According to the word, must be a cross between a counter and a mutant and that may be precisely what we need.”

 

(If that quote isn’t good enough for you, let’s depart on this note, “We Breathe. We Pulse. We Regenerate. Our hearts beat. Our minds create. Our souls ingest. Thirty-seven seconds, well used, is a lifetime.”)

There are plenty of times where I just need a change. Whether it’s a change of scenery, office set up or even a new theme for my journal, change is always inspiring. I write a lot of short fiction and sometimes it can get tedious. What do you do to remedy that? Try a new medium. Write a comic book or try a few new poetic forms. Change it up and learn something new.

What I’m sharing today is an older piece of writing. I wrote it about 7 years ago (never edited as you can see) and it was my first time trying to write a stage scene. It’s very short and probably all sorts of jacked up in terms of formatting, but I do have a soft spot for it. I want to say the challenge was to write a scene that was supposed to last a few minutes. Read it slowly and maybe it will. :)

***

Setting: Fabritzio is closing his small, but well-known and loved, clock shop. Clocks cover every last inch of the walls and shelves of the store, and a lone clock is setting in the center of the main counter. There are various tools scattered around it, but the clock itself is in one piece. The cat is not actually on stage, but implied by action and sound.

Fabritzio (standing behind the main counter, the door bells jingle as the neighborhood cat has pushed the door open to enter): Oho! Who is this wandering into my shop at closing time? You know, kitty, if you were a customer, I’d make you buy a clock just for being so late. (pause) We could work out a trade. If you catch that mouse in my cellar, I’ll let you pick out any clock you like. I make the best clocks in Italy. (He pauses again with a smile)Just ask me. (He laughs a full belly laugh and sits on the stool behind the counter to fiddle with the clock there. The cat meows.)

You like this one, do you? This is my most popular item this week. Tell me, cat, should I give you this clock or should I sell it to that American family and their daughter with the pudgy fingers? Hmm? They will be back tomorrow with money. (looks over his glasses at the cat on the floor) How fast can you catch that mouse?

The truth is, I do not know if I can let go of this little treasure.

(somber) Of all the clocks in my store and in my home, I never paid attention to the time. Maybe that’s why Isabella was taken from us. She was so young, and as beautiful as butterflies on a summer afternoon. (points to the clock on the counter with the tool in his hand) This was the clock I made for her sixteenth birthday. I didn’t make it to her party. I was working, as always…working the time away. She had been quite ill for a long time, and…and…she was gone before I made it home.

I never paid attention to time, but it seems that time pays attention to us. (He is visibly shaken, but regains composure. Comes around the front of the counter and to the side of the clock.)

Enough of that! Would you like to see why this clock is so special? Every hour it plays Farfallina…Butterfly. Isabella loved butterflies. Listen. (He moves the minute hand to twelve so the chime will play, sounds of an Italian children’s song, Farfallina, fill the room. He sings along –in English for the audience- and dances a little old man dance.)

Farfallina                                     Translation – Beautiful Butterfly

(Italiano) Farfallina bella Bianca                            Without tiring,

Vola, vola mai si stanca                                              fly and fly

Gira di qua, gira di la                                                 Turning to here and turning to there 

Fin che ‘posa su Papa                                                  Until she rests on Daddy’s chest.

(Pauses for a moment in the silence and smiles) I think I will sell the clock. Maybe that family, eh, what where their names…The Johnson’s (he says mocking the American accent with a very thick Italian one), maybe the Johnson’s will fill their time together better than an old man and a cat. I’m not a shoe maker, but I know his shoes. That is a man that makes time for his daughter, pudgy fingers and all.

Yes, the Johnson’s. (said more to himself than to the cat)

(Fabritzio snaps back to attention and smiles brightly at the cat) Come now!

(He opens the cellar door and turns off -dims stage- the shop lights) I’ll show you the cellar, and you can decide if a bowl of cream is good trade. (The cat meows agreement.)

(Exit)

Yes, I know how to count. I know I’m out of sync/order/my mind.  I also know that I don’t want to give Sara’s Entire book away in my blog, so we get to jump around the listed exercises (though I’ve been completing all 30 of them at home).

I’ve been a bit absent as of late, but for very good reason. I was working on a piece of writing to submit to APS for the chance at a writing fellowship. Let’s hope for the best! No announcements until June, I believe.

SO, next up on Crawford’s 30 Day Writing Challenge, we take a look at word choice (day 12) and character creation (day 13). While the book offers a list of random words to use, it also suggests a visit to The Random Word Generator. I think I’ll give the link a try. What we’re going to do is take the list of random words and incorporate them into a bit of writing (pick a format).

The random words provided me by the generator are: outside, broom, gravitational, blue, function, knuckle, gumption, and jerk.

I’ll use the given words to create a fictional character. The book lists a set of questions to answer about the character, which I’ll not list here (you really need to purchase the book). Think of this as more of an insight of rambling thought as to who this person might be rather than a cut and dry outline.

As usual…unedited.

***

 “Conglaciation,” he stated. “The act or process of changing into ice or the state of being converted to ice, a freezing.” Junior dug his notebook out of his pocket to write down his word of the day before he forgot. He tucked the pad away in his shirt pocket in case one of the diners said a word he wanted to keep. He rolled his new word around in his mouth for a moment before slipping the edges of his paper hat down around his broomy hair. Junior was a jerk. More to the point, Junior was a soda jerk.  Each day was a race through getting dressed, absorbing as much as he could through the school day, and then off to work at Knuckle’s Diner. He loved his job.

This is a cover of the Saturday Evening Post as painted by Norman Rockwell.

Junior took pride in his duties. He moved the can of Gumption that Knuckle had left out, again, and cleaned the counter until it shined. He took special care around the end of the counter where SHE sat.  The girl with the blue eyes and the big nose. Junior didn’t know why he liked her nose so much, but every time she smiled, her nostrils flared just so. He found it most intriguing.

He refilled the straws by the register and looked out of the front window. He could see his father walking down the street with two large staves. Wilford Sr. worked in the counting-house, when he still worked, and had little use for people. He preferred his numbers. Once he retired, he spent his free time indulging his hobby of baculometry. Wilford Sr. knew exactly how many staves it was from his front door to any business in town, but he couldn’t tell you his neighbor’s first name. He used to tell Junior math was life. It was even in their family outings, a function with relations. Then he would laugh his gravely little laugh and go back to his calculations.

As the son of a strange man, Junior learned to navigate people like his father navigated numbers. People were drawn to him. Anyone would tell you. It was gravitational. Junior pulled people in because of the way he made everyone feel that there was something out there bigger than themselves. Wilford Sr. lived on the inside. Junior lived on the outside. Wilford Sr. was ice. Junior was fire, but he loved his father just the same and waved at him through the window.

The bell by the door cheerfully brought the diner to life. SHE didn’t have to order. Junior was already making her cherry cola before she sat at the end of the counter.

“What’s our word for today, Junior?”

He smiled as he fumbled getting the notebook out of his pocket. SHE giggled.

 

Day Seven of Sara Crawford’s 30 Day Writing Challenge. Music is the theme of the day. Basically, you put your music playlist on random and listen (no writing yet) to the next song that plays. Once you’ve let it sink in, free write using the music as a base. The book lists a few questions to help you connect with the music and what you’re writing.

“What I’m asking you to do in this exercise is allow a piece of music to move you and inspire you. “

I’ve done this quite often. I actually have playlists to go along with the genre I’m writing. The play list for my own Bayou L’Abeille is an epic list of blues. Let’s hit random on my Slacker Radio station and see what happens….Nickel Creek – “Reasons Why” happened.

Day Eight is absent, but I’m bending the book to my blog, so we have to make a few compromises. Day Eight requests that you go see some art and a museum visit will have to fall on another day.

Day Nine wants you to connect with the outside world. There’s nothing more inspiring than getting outside, so I did just that. Actually, since I combined the two exercises, I listened to the chosen song and took some pictures of my outside inspiration. This is what happened.

UNEDITED.

***

Baby’s know when they come out unwanted. I did. I was born with a hole right inside my heart and spent too many years tryin’ to fill a space that didn’t want to be filled. I never knew a hole could feel so heavy. Daddy was already gone by then and Momma didn’t care enough to use her own healin’ touch. She shoved me off on Rayanne, who never wanted me anyhow.

We lived down a dirt road and out past a barn older than my Momma. She told me once that she kissed a boy in the hay field down the way. The boy smelled like fresh dirt and had a freckle by his left ear. She’d never a seen a wayward freckle like that, so she decided to kiss him. Her daddy saw them from the house and when they made it back he took a switch to the both of ‘em. After that, she did her kissin’ in that old barn as God intended.

She didn’t tell me many stories, so I made up my mind to remember every word. Mama preferred her stories on the TV. He liked her special drinks and her nerve pills. I didn’t know what made Momma so unhappy. My sister was never home so it must’ve been me.

Rayanne never liked either of us, really. She had long, black hair like Momma did in her old pictures. I had blond hair. Rayanne would tease me and say that I couldn’t be her sister, that I must’a come from the dog next door. Momma told me that Rayanne found out she was havin’ a little sister and cried for a week.

“Fonda,” Momma laughed, “Rayanne would’ve traded you for some turnip greens if I’d ‘ve let ‘er.”

I always laughed when Momma laughed. It was the only thing we ever shared. Rayanne didn’t laugh with us. My big sister was in charge of makin’ sure I was fed and washed. If I didn’t do what she said fast enough, she got mad as a swatted bee and pushed me down. I remember the day she bleached her hair to look like Farrah Fawcett. Only her hair wasn’t like theirs, it was orange. I told her as much and she hit me with a briar switch. Momma never noticed. Once Rayanne was allowed to go off with boys, I didn’t see her much. Momma was sleepin’ all the time. I think I was 9 then. I don’t really know. I never thought to ask about my birth day.

When I was a few years older, I bled like a woman. Rayanne threw a lady pad at me as she walked out the door. Momma was asleep again. That’s when I started takin’ walks at night.

I’d walk out to that old barn at night and imagine my momma, young and pretty, kissin’ that freckled boy. I pretended to have my own boy, but all I really wanted was to have somebody close enough so’s I could feel something warm that I didn’t make myself. That’s how I met Harlan. His eyes were as green as a juniper tree.

We met every day for a month before I kissed him. He laid down on me for the next week or so, then never came back. I can’t say as I blame him much. It hurt when he laid down on me and I cried. It had to be my fault.

A month after that is when I felt the pain in my stomach and the blood ran down my legs. Momma was asleep again.

One day I came home after school and saw Momma’s pills spilt all over her night gown. I picked each one of ‘em up while she slept and put the bottle away. I covered her with the afghan. She seemed still and cold.

I knew that Momma was dead. She had her reasons to go. She probably went to find that freckled boy who didn’t bleed down his legs. We hadn’t seen Rayanne for over a year. All she had was me and I reminded her too much of things she didn’t want. Sometimes a hole is too heavy.

Sometimes the loneliness wanders away with you.

Sara and I always enjoyed our poetry writing prompts. I believe we might have even shared a writing class or two back in college.

Today’s assignment in her book The 30 Day Writing Challenge is to create what’s called a Found Poem. Basically, you take phrases from any source (book, magazine, poetry, commercials, blog posts, etc.), remove the context, and put together a brand new poem. The point is to alter or enhance these sentences that were intended for another purpose.

“Write a found poem no more than 1 page in length using text from another source such as a magazine article, a book, a webpage, a blog post, etc.”

You can find poetry anywhere.

My source, since I’m at work and can’t use work documents for anything (we follow the rules here), I’m going to use the only book on my desk, The Complete Sherlock Holmes.

This came out way more fanfic than intended. Again, unedited.

***

There can be no question as to their nature

I saw

in the gaslight that Holmes wore

an amused smile at this brilliant departure of mine.

He, heartily, as my friend.

There was no chance of either of us forgetting that peculiar ruddy tweed suit.

He sat

with his mouth full of toast

and his eyes sparkling with mischief -

watching my intellectual entanglement.

My mind is like a racing engine,

tearing itself to pieces

“Well, Watson,

what do you make of this?”

You arouse my curiosity

It was a prosaic way of forming a friendship

but it was effective.

Here was one of my fixed points secured.

It’s not easy to express the inexpressible.

221B Baker Street

He is off duty now.

A seven-percent solution.

RACHE

“Come along, Doctor.”

We are both brain workers.

You worked a love story

into the fifth proposition of Euclid.