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A Writer’s Conundrum

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I wrote today for Mid-Week Blues Buster. My goal today was sunshine and unicorns, but obviously I’m just not that type of writer. I write emotion, drama, conflict, and real life through horror. It’s just the way I’m made. Everyone has a gift, and as someone told me recently, mine is to make people cry. What a wonderful gift (I jest). Anyway, the song Another Nail In The Heart didn’t exactly lend itself to happy, but I did my best. And I’m pretty happy with the product! Enjoy!

A Writer’s Conundrum
@laurenegreene
443 words

“Another Nail In My Heart,” she wrote, then crumpled up the paper. The words dripping from her pen were filled only with sorrow. And why? She had a charmed life.

The next sheet of lined yellow paper sat before her, a blank slate for her to fill. And this time, she wanted to fill them with happy words, words of rainbows and lollipops. Words of hope and inspiration. Instead of her usual: horror, pain, and sadness.

Diego plopped down beside her on the couch craning his neck to see what she was writing. She covered it with her arm like a child trying to keep someone from cheating off of her paper.

“Oh come on, I just wanted to see what you’re writing. Let me guess, another tale of killer clowns. Or divorce on a hike?”

She nodded towards the four crumpled balls of paper on the floor, and he reached forward and squeezed her leg gently.

“Maybe that’s your gift—making people cry…or scream.”

“Very funny,” Ana said. “How do you make happy interesting? Drama is much more fun, because it produces conflict immediately. There is always an issue to resolve.”

He took a swig of Sam Adam’s and put his arm around her. “You’re the writer, I defer to you.”

“A lot of help you are.”

He found the remote and started clicking through football games until he found the right one. Ana leaned up against him, tapping her pen against the empty pad, leaving tiny ink marks in her wake.

“Oh, did I tell you? Nick Hutchins and his wife are getting divorced.”

Ana sighed, set the pad down next to her on the couch and turned her attention to her husband.

“Didn’t they just adopt twins?”

“About six months ago, yeah. But turns out Nick was sleeping around. And guess what? She caught him in bed.”

“With who? Oh wait, don’t tell me, Shelly from accounting?” Diego was always telling Ana about what a slut Shelly from accounting was.

“No. With Patrick Weasler.”

“Oh God, that’s even worse. Who did you hear it from—Nick?”

“No, I heard it from Shelly. She’s best friends with the wife—what’s her name—and went over to pick up the pieces after Nick left.”

Ana picked up the pad, the blank lines seemed to suddenly fill up with words of woe, sorrow, divorce, infidelity and unhappiness: the shit of life. Diego flipped through the channels absentmindedly, not content with any of the games on T.V. as his wife scribbled furiously across the paper.

“Unicorns and rainbows?” he asked.

“Divorce and despair,” she said. “I guess, it’s just what I’m fated to write.”

The Great Distractor

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Writing for Flash!Friday today.

1) Use “aspiration” as a theme.

2) Photo Prompt

Whetting Interrupted

Whetting Interrupted, 1894. Public Domain painting by Jose Ferraz de Almeida Junior.

I usually follow the prompt, almost to a tee, but today I didn’t. I used it as a jumping off point. And as a writer/author, I’m all too well aware of distractions that can pull you away from your goals.

The Great Distractor
@laurenegreene
205 words
Sharpen the blade. Akin to sharpening the pencil, in some ways at least. When he met Adele she whetted his appetite. Instead of focusing on his writing, he spent countless hours staring into her blue-gray eyes listening to stories of her youth. He focused on unbuttoning her dresses and rolling around in bed instead of molding his characters.

He had always wanted to be a writer. And by the time he met Adele, he had achieved that goal. But she was a distraction—albeit a pleasant one. After Niels called and told him he’d missed another deadline, he decided writing wasn’t for him. Too much pressure, too much time locked up in a lonely room, away from her soft, pliable body.

She was the one who suggested they get away. Her father had a cabin in the woods. They could spend six months there, and he could focus on his writing again. Walden Pond, he thought. But when they’d arrived there’d been no electricity. He had to write everything out in long form. He had to cut up firewood just to heat the stove. He and Adele stayed under the down comforters snuggled together most days, as his dream of writing slipped further into oblivion.

A Tale of Two Elvises

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I haven’t participated in much flash fiction over the last week. Edits came back, and I’ve been forcing myself to work through them. Edits are to writing as cleaning is to my house. I just hate doing it. I know they’re a necessary evil, and they have the ability to make “The Devil Within” such a good book, it’s just, “ughh..I don’t want to do them.” I’d rather be writing.

Anyway, today I wrote for Micro Bookends. I wasn’t enthused by the prompt, and again writing a whole story in 110 words still is almost impossible for me. I can’t get the jab in, the beginning, middle, and end. I think a lot of mine fall flat, but at least they’re letting me practice my craft while I procrastinate editing.

I hope you like Elvis:

A Tale of Two Elvises
@laurenegreene
110 words

Old Father Benedict stepped into the sunshine of the day and inhaled a deep breath, before looking down. He had seen everything in his 96 years. So, he wasn’t surprised at the naked man snoozing at his feet, wearing only sunglasses. A star studded collar peeked out of the paper at his feet.

Father Shaw came up behind him.

“Another bum?”

Benedict nodded, “Heartbreak Hotel was my favorite. You think he’ll sing for us?”

“The real Elvis has left the building,” Father Shaw said.

“Huh?” Old Benedict scratched his head.

“Overdosed on drugs. I doubt the bum can croon the way Elvis did, not in this day and age.”

The Ear

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Today for Mid-Week Blue’s Buster, the song prompt was Gil Scott-Heron’s “Me And The Devil.” How appropriate, since my next book is “The Devil Within” (teasers to come shortly). This prompt took me dark, into the mind of a killer.

The Ear
@laurenegreene
549 words

Clay knew it was wrong. He had a conscience. Contrary to popular belief, most murderers did. He wasn’t an exception. When he’d gone to her house, the painted lips had disgusted him. The swirling vortex of anger slammed into him like a car slamming straight into a brick wall.

He had met her at the park, playing Frisbee. Picnic basket filled to the brim with pork rinds. When he’d seen her face, so innocent, so young, he thought he could be with her. He thought he could change. He imagined kissing her lips, so sweet and full of promise. He imagined rubbing his hands down her body, but somewhere in the back of his mind was that nagging voice of reality: she’s your next victim.

He was standing in the bus line now, and looking down at his hands—blood red in the light. Pick up your life, move everything, start again somewhere else. A rebirth. A resurrection. He was renewed after each kill. He would stand over their bodies and clean them, and in the process he became a newborn babe, a piece of clay waiting to be formed.

When he’d shown up at Georgette’s apartment, he’d expected her to be wearing the same school girl dress she’d had on in the park. But her face was made up like a clown. Red rouge smeared across her cheeks like the sign of the devil. He hadn’t let on the boiling rage he felt. He hid it deep down, as he kissed her cheeks, disgusted by the waxiness coating her lips. He unzipped her immodest dress, a slit up the side showed too much of her leg. She was not who he thought she was.

He pushed himself into her, and then the rage hit, and with one twist of the neck her head lolled to the side like a ragdoll’s. He zipped up his pants, and spit on her face as he did to all of his victims. The knife came out of his back pocket, and with a quick flick of his hand he sliced off an ear.  He went to her kitchen, glancing at pictures of her youth, all smiles next to her friends, hiding the whore she was. The devil takes on many forms.  He found a soft kitchen towel, then he raided her bathroom for soap, and he took a bucket full of water. First, he wiped the lipstick off her mouth, the red of it staining the towel like the blood on the sheet. Then he washed her whole body, careful to scrub behind the remaining ear. She looked peaceful and innocent lying there, the way she was supposed to be in the first place.

When he finished, he wiped off all the fingerprints. He put his token into a Ziploc baggy and slid it into his Jansport book bag.

At home, he removed the ear and he whispered sweet nothings into it. You are perfectly formed.  He slid it into a jar of formaldehyde, and then packed up his belongings, including the thirteen other ears he had hidden in the air duct in the wall.

A new place. A new life. Another Georgette, but maybe this one would be innocent and free from sin, and he wouldn’t have to fill another jar.

Little Boy Blue

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I think I’m a pretty happy person. But, for some reason writing sad or tragic comes easiest to me. I love the emotionally charged feeling that comes with describing tragic scenes. When I’m reading, I love how an author can make you feel anguish through their use of words. As I’m writing every day now, my description has changed and evolved. I’m finding new ways to convey the feelings in my stories.

For Mid-Week Blues-Buster this week I wrote, “Little Boy Blue.” With the music choice, you’d think I would have picked adult protagonist, but this just came to me, and what do you do? You write what comes.

Here’s the song:

And here’s the story:

Little Boy Blue
621 word count
@laurenegreene

She lay on her back on the floor of the blue room, dirt securely stuck under her tiny fingernails. She stared at the mobile, gently swirling around as the light rays streaming through the window seemed to make it move. The crib sat, empty in the corner. She had peeked into it earlier, looked through the slates to make sure no one was there. Empty. Abandoned.

“Hattie.” Daddy was leaning against the doorjamb, the shadow of a beard had started to creep across his face. “Your mother would be upset if she saw you in here.”

“Where did he go, Daddy?”

But Daddy just shook his head and waited for her to stand up and come to him.

He took her small hand in his and they crept down the hall, passed the room where her mother stifled sobs all day long. Bury your troubles. Hattie didn’t know what had happened. Her brother, chubby cheeks, flailing arms, all smiles, was there one minute and gone the next. An empty nursery—the ghost of the baby haunting their house.

Daddy lifted her to the counter and kissed her cheek, the scratchiness of his five o’clock shadow made her giggle.

“Peanut Butter and Jelly?”

“Mommy usually makes me lunch.”

“Turkey sandwich?”

He pulled out the meat and the bread, slapped mayonnaise on both sides, shook a few chips from the bag, as Hattie scrambled down from the counter and to her seat at the table.

When he put the food in front of her, Hattie wailed, “It’s not right.” She started kicking her feet, a tantrum rising up in her blood like a tsunami ready to destroy anything in its path.

“What’s not right?” Daddy asked.

“Mommy cuts it in triangles. Not a square. I don’t want a square!”

Hattie pouted, pushing her lower lip out, and tears sprang to her eyes.

“Fine,” Daddy said, taking the plate to the counter in a huff. “You just won’t eat. Go to your room.”

Hattie stomped off, but she didn’t go to her room. She ran outside into the backyard instead. She’d put the shovel behind the shed. She pulled it out, and she emptied her pockets: a little pile of treasures lined up. The shovel was hard to manage for her six-year old muscles, but after a few minutes she’d dug a hole, big enough to drop the treasures into and cover up.  She set the shovel down beside her and dug a little bit more with her hands, dirt staining them a dusty black. She put the items into the hole, lined up one by one, next to each other. There were seven filled in holes now. Daddy and Mommy hadn’t noticed them. They’d been too busy crying and hiding away from the world.

She patted down the dirt and felt satisfied. She stood up and started walking towards the shed.

“Hattie.” It was Mommy—red-rimmed eyes and hair askew.  Mommy didn’t look like herself.

Hattie flung the shovel behind her back, but she knew it was too late. She stepped back, and Mommy’s eyes traveled to the holes behind her, half covered, remnants of the past rising to the surface.

“What are you doing, Hattie?”

“Daddy didn’t know the sandwiches were supposed to be triangles!” Hattie shouted, throwing down the shovel and then running for the safety of the house.

Mommy, puzzled, drained of all emotions leaned down into the dirt. Her nightgown swept the ground, picking up dirt as she started digging.

The first thing she pulled out was a teddy bear, soft and blue. Then a rattle. Then a pacifier. Grief threatened to consume her when she pulled out the photo: Daddy, Mommy, Hattie and baby Grayson. Bury your troubles.

Fly Me To The Moon

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I had fun with this one today, and it’s actually put me in the mood to maybe write something more. The prompts came from Flash! Friday. There are a lot of super talented flash writers who write for Flash! Friday, and I love to go out and read what they have to say after I finish my story. So here’s mine:

Fly Me To The Moon
@laurenegreene
210 words

Sitting on the corner of hope and despair, chin resting on her hands, suitcases loaded to the brim beside her, Charlotte looked up at the moon. The clouds passed in front of it, in and out, changing the shadows around her.

She knew Tad was up there, somewhere, bouncing around on the new settlement. She wanted to see him. She looked back at the door behind her, hoping against all hope it wouldn’t open. It wasn’t the first time she’d thought about leaving, and it wouldn’t be the last. She kept telling her mom she wasn’t a child anymore. Twenty-Six years old and married.

“To a spaceman, yar?” Her mother chuckled the words out beside the cigar that was perpetually stuck in her mouth.

Charlotte stared at the moon, imagining Tad hoeing away at a garden in a biodome, stuck in space. She hadn’t heard from him in months.

“Probably screwing some space chick,” her brother had said.

The taxi cab pulled up.

“Where to?”

“Fly me to the moon?”

“Can’t go that far,” the man said, scratching his beard.

“Take me to Plasco Station.”

“You might get a pass,” the driver said. “I heard they were opening it up to civilians again.”

That’s what she’d been hoping to hear.

No Turning Back

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No Turning Back

After years of talking about being a writer, I finally decided to do something about it.

In January, I self-published “No Turning Back” on Amazon. I had worked on it for several years: pulled it out, put it up, pulled it out again. Finally, I had a few people beta read, and they gave me great feedback. They also made me believe the story was worth telling. Then I decided if I was going to go for it then I just had to do it.

I set myself a deadline, and I worked towards making sure I had everything ready for that deadline. I wish, now looking back, that I had been a little more flexible with my deadline. I should have probably talked the book up a little bit more than I did, promoted it, marketed it. But overall, I think the release went well.  And what was better was that people talked to me about it: what they liked in the book, what they didn’t, how Kaia’s character frustrated them but seemed so real.

I had several authors from various writer’s groups I’m involved in spread the word. Being a writer means being part of a big community, and writers are great at helping out their own fledglings. Something I’ve learned recently and really love.  It’s great to know there are so many people in the same journey as I am.

So now Kaia is out in the real world, and people react to her in different ways, some predictable and some not.

From I hate her to What a strong woman–there is conversation about the characters that lived in my mind and were put down on paper. And I think that’s pretty effing cool! I’m figuring out how to juggle promotion, writing, editing, and publishing my second book (not to mention family, day job, and exercise). Writing is time consuming, and it’s not nearly all writing. In fact, about 50% of it is other stuff. At first, I hated the other stuff, but now I’m finding ways to like it.

I’m realizing if I want to tell my stories, and have people react the same way they did to Kaia, Patrick and Asher in “No Turning Back,” that I have to put in the work. A lot of hard work, even when I don’t want to. It will be worth it in the long run.

♥♥♥