amwriting

The Coffee Tastes Good

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Yesterday, I marked one of my goals off the list for the year: Attend a Writer’s Conference.

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Photo Credit Goes to Sheri Williams

So far my goal list for the year looks like this:

  • Publish a Book done on January 31st
  • Attend a Writer’s Conference done on February 28th
  • Query an Agent done on January 18th (I think that’s the right date)
  • Publish a Second Book by May In the process with “The Devil Within.” 

2015 has been a great year for my writing, because I made it so. I dreamed it, but more importantly I started living the dream.  Right now, I’m struggling to look at edits on my book and swallow my pride. I’m struggling to make necessary changes so my book can become the best book it can be. Stay tuned, because in the next few days I’m going to show you the photo of where the idea for my book came from!

At the Mid-Winter Writers Conference yesterday, I traveled down the road with a friend, writing companion, and my project manager: Sheri Williams.Sheri is just like she is on the big ole world wide web: funny, easy to talk to, and inspiring. She’s one of the most giving people I’ve ever met, without that little word expectation stuck to her.

I think my favorite workshop was done by Ashley Kitchens, “Say It So They See It.” She used poems by Carl Sandburg and e e cummings (reminded me of my days in Mr. Franek’s class) as examples. She started out showing us a sentence, “The Coffee Tastes Good,” and as she went through the poems we changed it.  Interestingly enough, “painted ladies” are apparently better known as prostitutes than whores (and only Sheri will get that!). By the end the phrase, “Coffee Tastes Good,” had changed dramatically showing us how the coffee tasted instead of telling us. My coffee phrase: Poured in the cup, it calls me to my day. That’s how I feel about coffee, it keeps me going at 4:30 AM. Oh and all that delicious, rich, titillating stuff too.

I also enjoyed Ellen Maze’s workshop, “Plot and Characterization: Bringing Fiction to Life.” She had the best sense of humor. She had a list characterization questions that should be answered on your character, at least your main character, before you start writing. I already do this, to a certain extent, but not as deeply as she does. I’ll use her outline in my next book and see if it helps my characters seem more three-dimensional.

Overall, I thought it was a great conference. I met some amazingly talented people. And we know, thanks to Kathryn Lang that it’s all about relationships. Because really it is. To be a writer, you need to have people supporting you, social media contacts, and people who are willing to spread the word for you. You need people to bounce ideas off of, to say, “Does this fall flat? I was trying to convey this, did you understand the picture I was trying to paint, the feeling, the emotion that came with it?”

You need someone to say the phrase, “The Coffee Tastes Good,” doesn’t convey meaning. What are you trying to say? Conferences are great for that, giving you a whole new way to think about your writing, and giving you a community who can help you in your journey, one who specifically knows what you’re going through.

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.

The Clown

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I don’t know why, but I’ve always been afraid of clowns. I saw “IT” way too early, and so I blame it on Stephen King a little bit. Write what scares you, is some advice I’ve always heard. Maybe that’s why King writes so much about rats.

Today for Finish That Thought, I wrote a little piece about clowns. It was hard–I was scared the whole time.

The Clown
@laurenegreene
499 words

“Excuse me, but what on earth are you doing up that roof at this time of night?”

I thought it was Petey, but when he turned around I saw the made up face. A putrid smell hit my nostrils, and my stomach turned with nausea. I’d always hated clowns.

I’d been sitting in my office chair, working on the next great novel, the feel of “Q” and “L” beneath my fingertips when I heard something up on the roof. Up on the House Top. Quick, Quick, Quick. But it wasn’t Christmas—snowy white—so I knew it wasn’t Santa Claus.

I blinked, and when I did, he’d come down from the roof. The dreadful smell of rotting fish filled the air around him, and I leaned closer to see a maggot wiggling out of his nose. I had the strongest desire to touch him, but I didn’t. He stood only about four feet tall. The red spots painted precariously against the white makeup adorning his face.  Just a child. But what was a child clown doing on my roof?

He wore one of those pointed hats, with a red ball dangling off of it. You could imagine him in an ancient circus. The white of his costume was stained around the edges. Was that blood near the torn place on his sleeve? I wiped my eyes, because I had to be dreaming. Maybe I’d fallen asleep in the office chair and this nightmare had come to wreak havoc against my coulrophobia.

“Hey mister, want to play?”

The pint-sized clown suddenly was holding two hula hoops. The streetlight shined on the lawn, as I grabbed one from his hand. I placed it over my body and securely on my hips, then I started wiggling, but it kept falling down to the ground, thudding loudly against the grass. The clown laughed, but his hula hoop was spinning around Clown Clip Artfast, even though he wasn’t holding it.

“You’re good at this.”

“Lots of practice in the circus,” the clown said.

I reached out, wanting to touch him again, but he backed away from me.

“Look, no touch—like the bearded woman at the circus. She bit a man’s finger off once,” the boy clown said.

“What are you doing here?”

“You should ask yourself that question.”

I looked around me. The street was dark and silent. The houses all shuttered like eyes closed for sleep. The moon shined, a giant ball sitting in the sky. When I looked back, the clown smiled at me, a sincere grin. I heard the front door squeak open; it needed some WD40.

“Dad, what are you doing out here?” Petey asked

I looked at him. “I was just talking to the clown.” But when I turned back the clown was gone.

“Sleep walking, again. I’ll help you get into bed.”

The smell followed me back into the house, putrid, rotting meat. I knew it wasn’t the last I’d see of him. They always came out at night.

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.

The Lily

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I’m sorry this is so sad. I wrote it for Mid-week Blue’s Buster over on The Tsuruoka Files.  It’s what came to mind, and it’s a little heartbreaking. This particular flash fiction site uses music as a prompt. I’d never heard this song, Faded Flowers by Shriekback.

Here’s a video of it, if you’re interested:

And here’s the story:

The Lily
578 words
@laurenegreene

The petals from the lily in the red vase had fallen to the table. Marcie knew she should get up and throw it away, but the lily reminded her of the fragility of life. She could feel the disease spreading through her body like a vine, and when she looked at the flower she thought about the night out with Brooks.

Only a week ago, they had gone out to dinner and it had been just like old times. Before the slammed doors, before the separate bedrooms, before the silence had crept up between them like a plague. Her heart hurt for the way things used to be between them, and that night she had felt a little of the old spark return.

She had planned the dinner. It had been her intention to tell him what the doctor had told her.

“Colon cancer. Metastatic.”

“How long do I have to live?”

And he had just shook his head, and then droned on and on about treatment options. In that moment, she had a desire to set things straight with Brooks. An affair was an affair, right? And she could forgive him for that. We’re only human, she thought.

At dinner, he’d slid his hand across the table and grasped hers, and she felt the long lost flutter fill her with a longing for him she hadn’t felt in so long.  She wanted to go home and crawl into bed with him. She wanted him to hold her tight all night long to comfort her and tell her everything would be alright, even when she knew it wouldn’t.

He bought the flower from the vendor in the courtyard outside the restaurant, one of the petals brushed off into the snow: white on white. And so she thought with the kindness of the night, they would go home and make love. The babysitter would have already put the kids to bed.

But when they came home they went their separate ways. She curled up in the middle of her bed and the tears ran rivers down her pillowcase as she thought about what little time she had left and everything she still wanted to do. She wanted to feel Brooks’ arms around her, she wanted to cuddle into him, but more than that she wanted to fix what had gone wrong in the first place: whatever that was.

So she hadn’t told him, and a week had gone by. She hustled the kids off to school in their winter coats every day and watched Brooks walk out the door. Slowly, the petals began to drop from the flower, one by one, dying as she was.

He came home early one day, and he was shocked to see her there.

“I thought you’d be at knitting club or something?”

“I have something to tell you,” she said.

“I have something to tell you too.”

“You first,” she said.

“I don’t love you anymore,” he said, as he sank into his chair. “I want a divorce.”

She stared at the petals resting on the table. The words stung, but they’d be nothing compared to the words she could throw back at him.

“I’ve been googling.”

“Huh?”

She focused on the flower petals curled up, browned at the edge, laying on the table and did not look at him. The pain in her chest was unbearable.

“I wouldn’t go through the cost of the divorce, if I were you. I’ll be dead in six months anyway.”

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.

♥♥♥