Guest Blogs and other stories
http://deaddarlings.com/training-un-amusing-muse/#more-8452
http://deaddarlings.com/titles-sound-bites/
http://deaddarlings.com/interview-e-b-moore-author-unseemly-wife/
http://deaddarlings.com/inc-news-incubator-grubbing-sex/#more-1132
PUBLISHED Beyond the Margins
The Story, What’s It About?
Boom, the hook, an explosion of possibilities, shrapnel all over the page. A protagonist, let’s call him Dave, rises out of the dust (don’t you love it when that happens). “My mother made me,” he says. “She and her string of biker boyfriends, they…”
He has me by the nose, propelling me into unknown territory. By the second page, two more characters assert themselves. They jabber out of the rubble, each one claiming to be the true protagonist.
Rodney, the loudest: “Action action, forget the mother crap.”
Louise, through her teeth: “Dave you panty-waste, you need me and my…”
“Louise for heaven sake.” Dave brushes bits of cement from his clothes. “Sex isn’t everything, you...”
I slam the lid of my laptop. “Shut up, all of you.”
*
What a quandary. If I assert myself too soon, I risk stunting Dave’s growth. I want to see his full potential. If I hobble him too late, he and his friends will topple what little structure I’ve managed to put in place. Someone has to take charge.
Much thinking done, we compromise. I give Dave a chance to guide the dialogue. Then, to mollify the others, I let them take a whack at Dave.
Petty jealousies turn to introspection. Dave, buoyed by the others, discovers his deadly actions have no relevance to the cause, leaving him in search of redemption and a way to hang himself— done— finished— woof!
I check for typos, print, and seal the pages in an envelope, a row of stamps at the top. The story is ready for the morning post.
Disturbed through the night, I swear at squirrels in the wall, and turn on the noise machine. But no, I should have known, it’s Dave gnawing his way out of the envelope.
“God damn it,” he says. “You can’t do this to me, I won’t take the rap. Louise made me light the fuse. She promised if I did, she’d be mine forever and all the time she was having-it-on with Rodney.”
“Oh Dave,” I say, hands to me head. “Why now?”
“Stop the histrionics, you’re the author, ” he says. “You can make this happen, bend a little here, tweak a little there.”
“It’s not that easy, Dave, I have to rethink the whole thing.” I rip pages from the envelope. “I should have killed you with the hook. But you’re right, I’m the author, I could tweak you out entirely.”
Four rewrites later, I send the story.
It gets published.
Two years after that, Dave rises again. It’s too late I tell him.
“Never,” he says, “Painters retouch work hung in museums. Pestering, pestering, he haunts me into yet another final revision.
Holy crow, is this the writing life?
******
PUBLISHED in Beyond the Margins
Baby-Boomer Warns Women:
Beware the sneaky creature polluting your habits, attacking your time, the destroyer of liberty and libidinous thought. It’s not the mean-girl whose blade you’ve pulled from your back, the wounds sutured and smoothed with age, but more insidious, the one you must watch in her guise so treacley sweet, ‘Tis the good-girl.
Maternally trained and living inside you this placater, peacemaker, caretaker, bends to spouse and spawn, dinner and dishes, even the dog.
The good-girl believes you have privilege while others have rights, her ultimate goal— apple-pie-perfection where time to write is a gift for which you grovel, and being magnanimous she’ll dole it out like Sunday candy.
But here’s the skinny: the only friends in your family abode are dust-bunnies, the ones you leave free to breed in corners, where, the good-girl hastens to tell you, your innocent son will, without guidance, follow. Ignore her.
You can’t be nice to the nice, to the one who wields guilt like a sword. You must tie her and gag her, garrote her and take what you need. Even garroted her head will shriek from the floor, “You’d abandon your family?”
She’s a siren, so stuff your ears, cover your eyes when the family sweatpants march on their own, remember your loved-ones who master a Wii can easily program a washer; and never fall for puppy-eyes, the helpless shrug when they can’t find an app for that vacuum.
Resist, resist I tell you, the good-girl’s parade of aging parents, their quavery voices reciting woe, alone again when others head for work; writing, she’s quick to inform you, doesn’t qualify.
Don’t follow us Boomers raised in the numbing-fields, resist the ’50s, the begging and borrowing, the thought of stealing precious minutes. Don’t wait for the nest to empty, it’s all in the training here and now. Live like a dust bunny, be productive. Write.
Q4U: 1) Are you a good-girl?
The Story, What’s It About?
Boom, the hook, an explosion of possibilities, shrapnel all over the page. A protagonist, let’s call him Dave, rises out of the dust (don’t you love it when that happens). “My mother made me,” he says. “She and her string of biker boyfriends, they…”
He has me by the nose, propelling me into unknown territory. By the second page, two more characters assert themselves. They jabber out of the rubble, each one claiming to be the true protagonist.
Rodney, the loudest: “Action action, forget the mother crap.”
Louise, through her teeth: “Dave you panty-waste, you need me and my…”
“Louise for heaven sake.” Dave brushes bits of cement from his clothes. “Sex isn’t everything, you...”
I slam the lid of my laptop. “Shut up, all of you.”
*
What a quandary. If I assert myself too soon, I risk stunting Dave’s growth. I want to see his full potential. If I hobble him too late, he and his friends will topple what little structure I’ve managed to put in place. Someone has to take charge.
Much thinking done, we compromise. I give Dave a chance to guide the dialogue. Then, to mollify the others, I let them take a whack at Dave.
Petty jealousies turn to introspection. Dave, buoyed by the others, discovers his deadly actions have no relevance to the cause, leaving him in search of redemption and a way to hang himself— done— finished— woof!
I check for typos, print, and seal the pages in an envelope, a row of stamps at the top. The story is ready for the morning post.
Disturbed through the night, I swear at squirrels in the wall, and turn on the noise machine. But no, I should have known, it’s Dave gnawing his way out of the envelope.
“God damn it,” he says. “You can’t do this to me, I won’t take the rap. Louise made me light the fuse. She promised if I did, she’d be mine forever and all the time she was having-it-on with Rodney.”
“Oh Dave,” I say, hands to me head. “Why now?”
“Stop the histrionics, you’re the author, ” he says. “You can make this happen, bend a little here, tweak a little there.”
“It’s not that easy, Dave, I have to rethink the whole thing.” I rip pages from the envelope. “I should have killed you with the hook. But you’re right, I’m the author, I could tweak you out entirely.”
Four rewrites later, I send the story.
It gets published.
Two years after that, Dave rises again. It’s too late I tell him.
“Never,” he says, “Painters retouch work hung in museums. Pestering, pestering, he haunts me into yet another final revision.
Holy crow, is this the writing life?
******
PUBLISHED in Beyond the Margins
Baby-Boomer Warns Women:
Beware the sneaky creature polluting your habits, attacking your time, the destroyer of liberty and libidinous thought. It’s not the mean-girl whose blade you’ve pulled from your back, the wounds sutured and smoothed with age, but more insidious, the one you must watch in her guise so treacley sweet, ‘Tis the good-girl.
Maternally trained and living inside you this placater, peacemaker, caretaker, bends to spouse and spawn, dinner and dishes, even the dog.
The good-girl believes you have privilege while others have rights, her ultimate goal— apple-pie-perfection where time to write is a gift for which you grovel, and being magnanimous she’ll dole it out like Sunday candy.
But here’s the skinny: the only friends in your family abode are dust-bunnies, the ones you leave free to breed in corners, where, the good-girl hastens to tell you, your innocent son will, without guidance, follow. Ignore her.
You can’t be nice to the nice, to the one who wields guilt like a sword. You must tie her and gag her, garrote her and take what you need. Even garroted her head will shriek from the floor, “You’d abandon your family?”
She’s a siren, so stuff your ears, cover your eyes when the family sweatpants march on their own, remember your loved-ones who master a Wii can easily program a washer; and never fall for puppy-eyes, the helpless shrug when they can’t find an app for that vacuum.
Resist, resist I tell you, the good-girl’s parade of aging parents, their quavery voices reciting woe, alone again when others head for work; writing, she’s quick to inform you, doesn’t qualify.
Don’t follow us Boomers raised in the numbing-fields, resist the ’50s, the begging and borrowing, the thought of stealing precious minutes. Don’t wait for the nest to empty, it’s all in the training here and now. Live like a dust bunny, be productive. Write.
Q4U: 1) Are you a good-girl?