I have been writing, “working” on short stories, works of fiction that buzz through my head, full of really cool characters and great back stories. I know these guys intimately. They live in my dreams, haunt my days, talk to me like schizophrenic voices in my head, and manage to stay ever so slightly out of reach as I try to put on paper their very nature, as if taunting me to define them. Defining is the problem. There is a small part of me that doesn’t want them defined. What would happen if I managed to capture their essence in words, and let it flow across the paper in beautifully structured sentences that reach the muses’ ears with delight ? What if with that , the characters had voices and bodies and realities of their own to live, defying the logic of fiction at all? Becoming real for everyone, and not just for me.
So instead, I have been tackling the stair right in from of me, ignoring the voices, letting them stew in their own reluctance to show themselves, and just moving forward with what I can.
Always moving forward. Tiny little steps at a time.
My son has me worried, because he is an amazingly bright kid who is simply shutting down when it comes to language arts and social studies. It is not because he can’t do it; he is still testing way above level in all the things they test you on. He just doesn’t care. I can’t even find fault in his logic behind the not caring, because, in a weird way, I totally agree with him. He says that understanding what happened in the past hasn’t really helped the present much. We keep making the same mistakes, even though we know the outcome of having made the mistakes before. He thinks if we never learned that lesson from our forefathers, maybe would should just stop listening to them. And writing about them? Um. Why? The history doesn’t change, and in his world, the present is hard enough to deal with without having to pay for other people’s crap that they got wrong. He should not have to have someone else decide what is important to him. This is a constant theme, about if things already aren’t fair in life, why bother caring about a bunch of dead people and how they were an influence. In his head, the entire history of California fits in one 370-page book, and, if he were to count actual individuals, there are only maybe 100 listed. One hundred. That’s it. One hundred important people in a 1000 years of history. What the hell chance does a ten year old who can’t even get his dad’s attention have of making any difference? So, he avoids it, and does math instead. Math doesn’t change. Math is a constant. Math solves problems. Math makes no judgments. Math explains the Universe. And his universe is spinning, math is his stationary point to focus on.
This confounds me, and saddens me at the same time. Here I am trying to eliminate absolutes and think in terms of freedom and creativity, and all my son wants is structure and routine. Something tangible and real. That ever elusive quality of something just outside of your grasp. We want what we want to be real. We want what we want when we want it. We want our worlds to show up solidly and keep us from floating away. We want the same thing. Just to tackle the stair in front of us, move forward with what we can.
So I am stepping back and trying to understand my own personal history, and history in general, and trying to understand why the recording of it on paper is important. I am also slowing down enough to help my son understand that stability does not mean things never change. That learning how to be in the world does not mean you never move forward, but that it might just mean you choose a different path. And moving forward means the step right in front of us. Me, maybe it means letting the characters just be there for a while until they tell me their stories. Him, maybe it means telling his own story while still knowing he has a rock that is stationary. Maybe it means I write his story and let us both enjoy that facets of creativity that may bring. Maybe it means I need to embrace his never-changing chaos so he can understand my fluid stability. Both are overwhelming if you feel like you are spinning all alone.
The stair right in front of me. It’s not that big if I only look right here. And it has some really amazing characters already willing to talk.
Showing posts with label story telling. Show all posts
Showing posts with label story telling. Show all posts
Wednesday, February 26, 2014
Wednesday, January 8, 2014
It is harder than it looks.
These are my short stories. I had them published in a 101-word contest that happens annually. Writing a complete short story within the confines on 101 words is challenging, especially to someone like me who likes to write and write and write, expaining things over and over and over, forever and ever and ever (got it?). Every time I have remembered to enter, I have been fortunate to have at least one story published. In 1999 I won the contest. In 2009 and 2011 I had all three that were entered (three is the limit) published. Here they are. Read. Enjoy. Share.
Listed by year
Then the link to the published site.
Then the title and each story
1999:
Link to 1999 Story
Memories
She remembered the way he tasted. Salty. Warm. Of coffee and brandy and toothpaste and cigarettes. She remembered his coal-black hair falling in his eyes. Short and slightly curled above the ears. She knew his eyes. The color of new jeans just washed and damp. Damp, the way his hands were as they touched her face and shoulders and neck and breasts and stomach and back, and between her legs. She remembered every moment. Every detail. Every movement. She remembered. She knew him. Even as she identified him as number three in the rape suspect line-up.
__________
2005:
Link to the 2005 Story
Poetic Justice
A friend of 20-plus years borrowed $500 two years ago Halloween. Having never known her to be a welsher, it was an easy check to write. Until today, I thought she was dead. Turns out she is living in Pismo Beach, and hosting her own Web site and beach blog on self-help and financial independence. She always wanted to be a writer. I guess she writes fiction. She has a link on her site to paralegal services. I wonder if I should use them to sue her. I wonder if she remembers how she spent the money.
__________
2009:
Link to the 2009 Stories
Freeze Frame
The last painting hung, as always, on the south wall, corridor 6, gallery 17. The curators removing exhibits took down other paintings, placed them in sleeves, then crates. What remained, proving the painting had not been alone, were faint square and rectangular scuffs that ringed the room. It was as it always had been; paintings coming, going, enhancing the last painting’s beauty by their meager presence. The last painting’s perspective never changed. It only saw the north wall, the velvet stanchions, the admirers. It longed to be stolen, taken to a home in some no-extradition country, just to change the view.
Young Innocence, Old Guilt
“Mom, can I tell you a joke?” “Sure, honey.” “Why did the barbeque cross the road?” “I don’t know, why?” “To get to the CHICKEN!” I laughed again, thinking it was just as funny this time. My sweet 4 year old crawled up on my lap. “Mom, when is dad getting here?” It was Wednesday night, 30 minutes past the scheduled pick up time. “I don’t know, babe.” I did know. It was why I’d left. He called at 7:30, after bedtime. I’m sure he would explain. “Hello.” I could smell the brandy before the first word was said.
Family Style
My ex-husband’s mother, and her charming, but unrealistic spouse invited me, and her grandchildren, to spend Christmas Eve at their house. Having spent every holiday there, being offered punch and English toffee, for the past 10 years, you might think I would have been delighted at the prospect. But here, in the sanctity of the house my children and I rented alone in May, away from alcohol-induced tirades, and words seething with cruelty and humiliation, we have a new tradition. It’s called happiness. I have been told they are inviting everyone, including the new fiancé. I’ve heard she likes punch.
__________
2011:
Link to the 2011 Stories
The Closet
For my eighth birthday, my mom bought me a new pair of purple Converse All-Stars. My old shoes were worn, and too small. I put the old shoes in the trash. I found them today, in boxes in her closet, with one-hundred-fifty other pairs. I’d moved out when I was eighteen, escaping, leaving behind everything I was now sorting, plus twenty-five years more. The 42-year-old in me wondered how my mother’s hoarding had gotten so bad. The eight-year-old in me touched every pair on the shelf, searching for the purple birthday shoes.
The Loss
The week before had been joyous, until the ultrasound showed that the baby’s heart had stopped beating. She’d been unable to call him from the doctor’s office, she had said, shaking, and the nurse had called instead. He remained calm. Two days and a stillbirth later, she had taken her few packed possessions and left the hospital. “I’m going. I can’t come home until the bedroom is an office again.” It had come down to a choice between flying elephants and pastel crayon scribbles. Sitting on stacked paint cans in what would have eventually been the nursery, his emotions overwhelmed him.
The List
Her current partner, a sweet man with sparkly green eyes, knew a thing or two about sex, but lacked a little in the erotica department. A future “erotic memoir” entrant, but only just. She wanted the tingly feeling on the surface of her skin, just because the object of her longings was in the room. Tingling not from touch, but from knowing. Desire. Warmth deep at the core, that a person knew you, even if you never met. She wrote his name down as the last on the list, sighed, and then added the next number and left the line blank.
__________
2012:
Link to the 2012 Stories
About Face
I knew you didn’t expect me to go. Not after all this time. As you sat there. Staring. I knew I wouldn’t save you. Couldn’t save you. You didn’t want to be saved. Not really. And I had long since thought saving you was beyond my ability. It was true. I could only save one life. The life would be mine. If I could get it right. I knew the bottle in my hand would be mourned. Not by me. So I spilled the amber liquid. Purposefully. On the sidewalk. And I, for the first time in years, walked away. Sober.
By a Hair
She’d cut her hair “flapper” short, dyed it fuchsia, when the vomiting first started, grateful no one had to hold back her hair over the toilet. She’d shaved it completely when the tufts left after chemo reminded her of a neglected Chia-pet, and kept it that way, alternately choosing to wear a Santa hat or bunny ears as the season dictated. Her reward, on the last day of her life, was a little girl of 7, also baldly fighting cancer, using her head as a canvas with colorful body-paint crayons as the pair laughed, sitting by the koi pond.
__________
2013:
Link to the 2013 Story
Ground Up
It wasn’t enough, that casual piece of affection, given daily in the form of a perfect foam heart on top of his latte. Maybe “enough” would have been an extra stamp on his frequent drink card, or a free mini-scone. But having given all that at one time or another, it still wasn’t enough for him to read her badge correctly. So when he spoke while taking his change, “Jordy” came out as “Judy” and her whole world fell apart. In the reality of completely unreturned love, Jordy quit her job, went home, and smashed all of her coffee mugs.
Listed by year
Then the link to the published site.
Then the title and each story
1999:
Link to 1999 Story
Memories
She remembered the way he tasted. Salty. Warm. Of coffee and brandy and toothpaste and cigarettes. She remembered his coal-black hair falling in his eyes. Short and slightly curled above the ears. She knew his eyes. The color of new jeans just washed and damp. Damp, the way his hands were as they touched her face and shoulders and neck and breasts and stomach and back, and between her legs. She remembered every moment. Every detail. Every movement. She remembered. She knew him. Even as she identified him as number three in the rape suspect line-up.
__________
2005:
Link to the 2005 Story
Poetic Justice
A friend of 20-plus years borrowed $500 two years ago Halloween. Having never known her to be a welsher, it was an easy check to write. Until today, I thought she was dead. Turns out she is living in Pismo Beach, and hosting her own Web site and beach blog on self-help and financial independence. She always wanted to be a writer. I guess she writes fiction. She has a link on her site to paralegal services. I wonder if I should use them to sue her. I wonder if she remembers how she spent the money.
__________
2009:
Link to the 2009 Stories
Freeze Frame
The last painting hung, as always, on the south wall, corridor 6, gallery 17. The curators removing exhibits took down other paintings, placed them in sleeves, then crates. What remained, proving the painting had not been alone, were faint square and rectangular scuffs that ringed the room. It was as it always had been; paintings coming, going, enhancing the last painting’s beauty by their meager presence. The last painting’s perspective never changed. It only saw the north wall, the velvet stanchions, the admirers. It longed to be stolen, taken to a home in some no-extradition country, just to change the view.
Young Innocence, Old Guilt
“Mom, can I tell you a joke?” “Sure, honey.” “Why did the barbeque cross the road?” “I don’t know, why?” “To get to the CHICKEN!” I laughed again, thinking it was just as funny this time. My sweet 4 year old crawled up on my lap. “Mom, when is dad getting here?” It was Wednesday night, 30 minutes past the scheduled pick up time. “I don’t know, babe.” I did know. It was why I’d left. He called at 7:30, after bedtime. I’m sure he would explain. “Hello.” I could smell the brandy before the first word was said.
Family Style
My ex-husband’s mother, and her charming, but unrealistic spouse invited me, and her grandchildren, to spend Christmas Eve at their house. Having spent every holiday there, being offered punch and English toffee, for the past 10 years, you might think I would have been delighted at the prospect. But here, in the sanctity of the house my children and I rented alone in May, away from alcohol-induced tirades, and words seething with cruelty and humiliation, we have a new tradition. It’s called happiness. I have been told they are inviting everyone, including the new fiancé. I’ve heard she likes punch.
__________
2011:
Link to the 2011 Stories
The Closet
For my eighth birthday, my mom bought me a new pair of purple Converse All-Stars. My old shoes were worn, and too small. I put the old shoes in the trash. I found them today, in boxes in her closet, with one-hundred-fifty other pairs. I’d moved out when I was eighteen, escaping, leaving behind everything I was now sorting, plus twenty-five years more. The 42-year-old in me wondered how my mother’s hoarding had gotten so bad. The eight-year-old in me touched every pair on the shelf, searching for the purple birthday shoes.
The Loss
The week before had been joyous, until the ultrasound showed that the baby’s heart had stopped beating. She’d been unable to call him from the doctor’s office, she had said, shaking, and the nurse had called instead. He remained calm. Two days and a stillbirth later, she had taken her few packed possessions and left the hospital. “I’m going. I can’t come home until the bedroom is an office again.” It had come down to a choice between flying elephants and pastel crayon scribbles. Sitting on stacked paint cans in what would have eventually been the nursery, his emotions overwhelmed him.
The List
Her current partner, a sweet man with sparkly green eyes, knew a thing or two about sex, but lacked a little in the erotica department. A future “erotic memoir” entrant, but only just. She wanted the tingly feeling on the surface of her skin, just because the object of her longings was in the room. Tingling not from touch, but from knowing. Desire. Warmth deep at the core, that a person knew you, even if you never met. She wrote his name down as the last on the list, sighed, and then added the next number and left the line blank.
__________
2012:
Link to the 2012 Stories
About Face
I knew you didn’t expect me to go. Not after all this time. As you sat there. Staring. I knew I wouldn’t save you. Couldn’t save you. You didn’t want to be saved. Not really. And I had long since thought saving you was beyond my ability. It was true. I could only save one life. The life would be mine. If I could get it right. I knew the bottle in my hand would be mourned. Not by me. So I spilled the amber liquid. Purposefully. On the sidewalk. And I, for the first time in years, walked away. Sober.
By a Hair
She’d cut her hair “flapper” short, dyed it fuchsia, when the vomiting first started, grateful no one had to hold back her hair over the toilet. She’d shaved it completely when the tufts left after chemo reminded her of a neglected Chia-pet, and kept it that way, alternately choosing to wear a Santa hat or bunny ears as the season dictated. Her reward, on the last day of her life, was a little girl of 7, also baldly fighting cancer, using her head as a canvas with colorful body-paint crayons as the pair laughed, sitting by the koi pond.
__________
2013:
Link to the 2013 Story
Ground Up
It wasn’t enough, that casual piece of affection, given daily in the form of a perfect foam heart on top of his latte. Maybe “enough” would have been an extra stamp on his frequent drink card, or a free mini-scone. But having given all that at one time or another, it still wasn’t enough for him to read her badge correctly. So when he spoke while taking his change, “Jordy” came out as “Judy” and her whole world fell apart. In the reality of completely unreturned love, Jordy quit her job, went home, and smashed all of her coffee mugs.
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