Teaser Tuesday

While I'm working on revisions on my novel, I thought I'd post a short story that's been sitting in a drawer for a long time. I wrote this for a class years ago and it just never found a home, but I really like parts of it. It's one of the few contemporary things I've written (or at least it was current ten years ago) and is about 2900 words, so I'll break it up into 4 chunks and post them over 4 weeks. And just so you're warned, it does have some sexual content/language.



Never Buy Another Self-Help Book Again!™


I knew our marriage was in a rut when my husband, Steve, and I went a whole month without sex and I didn't notice right away. I don't want you to think I'm a nympho or anything; it's just that sex usually showed up on my schedule at least once a week and I'd gotten used to it.

I guess it took me a while to notice the lack-of-sex thing because I was trying to pick a major in college, now that I could afford to go back to school full time. I took classes in art, drama, women's studies—just about every subject, but I was having a hard time deciding which way to go.

If I decided to get a degree, I'd be stuck with that subject for years. I wasn't sure if I was ready for that kind of commitment, especially with my tendency toward flakiness. Like when I say I took all those classes, what I mean is that I took the classes for a month or so and then decided they weren’t what I was looking for, so I dropped out. Except sometimes I forgot to officially drop at the Admissions office, so my transcript shows all these F’s that I didn’t even earn.

Maybe now is a good time to say I was born under the sign of Gemini; my friend Kristal says that Geminis are notorious for starting a million projects at once and only finishing half of them. I met Kristal at a support group for Wronged Children, and she's really into astrology and numerology and stuff. Nothing like black magic or voodoo, just harmless things about how the planets control your destiny.

Anyway, Geminis are also supposed to be really good at everything, but they only stick with it if they excel right away. Otherwise they lose interest and move onto the next project. To help me stop scattering my energies so much, my other friend Tammy gave me this book on how to organize your life and stop procrastinating.

That's what it's called—Organize Your Life Now and Stop Procrastinating! It helped me a lot because I got in the habit of making lists of things to do. I got this wonderful feeling of accomplishment whenever I crossed an item off. Since I started cutting back on fat at the same time, that was really the only treat I allowed myself.

All on my own I took that list idea a little bit further. I started giving myself a deadline for each task and making it into a schedule, like this:

8:15-8:30 Wake up
Mentally go over a list for the day

8:30-8:53 Shower

8:53-9:00 Dry off
Free time to squeeze blackheads, pluck eyebrows, etc.

9:00-9:15 Get dressed

9:15-9:30 Style hair and put on makeup

9:30-9:55 Eat
and so on . . .

I usually scheduled all my waking hours this way so that I was never without something to do. In fact, if I did something that wasn't on my list, I added it on so I could cross it off and get that extra little kick.

My husband always teased me about my lists. If I left one lying around, Steve would add things like, "Breathe every three seconds," and "Read horoscopes to determine best time to empty bowels." He thought he was being cute, but it was just more work for me because I had to recopy the lists. Which reminds me, I started out talking about our relationship.

It was obvious to everyone except Steve that we were having problems. My friends gave me all kinds of advice, but my sister said it was all my fault for marrying a guy eleven years older than me. After all, she argued, he peaked sexually like twenty years ago, and I should just be getting started. I wasn't sure whether or not to believe that because I've heard older guys stay primed longer, as long as they don't have a heart attack right there on top of you.

Tammy told me that the thing that first attracts you to a man is also the first thing you come to hate about him. Like if you're charmed by his boyish playfulness, by the end of the relationship you can't stand his childish behavior. I think that’s so true because when we first started going out, Steve was nothing like the other guys I had dated; he was stable, tender, and easygoing. Of course after a few years, I saw him as predictable, soft, and apathetic. It was the mediocre sex that was really starting to worry me, though.

Now I know it's (nearly) summer . . .

Because I'm cooking in my solar cooker! Roasted some potatoes to use in Herbed Potato Salad and now I've got some Chimichurri Tilapia cooking. So nice not to heat up the house with the stove or oven.

I got my solar cooker from Solar Cookers International, a really great non-profit organization that promotes the use of solar cookers around the world.

What does this have to do with writing, you ask? For one thing, this is a great cooking method for the busy writer, it's like cooking in a slow cooker: you put everything in the pots and leave it alone for a few hours. It's also an unusual article topic for green magazines.

Katherine Paterson Prize for Young Adult and Children's Writing

Got sidelined this last week with allergies and revisions, but I'm back with a post on the Katherine Paterson Prize for Young Adult and Children's Writing

Quick facts
Deadline: Postmarked by June 30, or enter electronically online
Entry Fee: $20
Length: Up to 10,000 words (can be a story or a stand-alone excerpt from a novel)
Judge: Holly Black

If you don't make this deadline, the Hunger Mountain journal is also a paying market year round:

"YA and Children’s Writing
We accept picture book, middle grade, YA and YA crossover work (text only—for now). We’re looking for polished pieces that entertain, that show the range of adolescent experience, and that are compelling, creative and will appeal to the devoted followers of the kid-lit craft, as well as the child inside us all."

Poetry today

Instead of teasing on this Tuesday, I'm spending the day submitting some poems and an article for reprint. While going through my files, I found this one that I wrote just after our dog Blue passed away. It's probably one that I'll never sell (too many sentimental dog poems appear in editors' inboxes!), so I decided to post it here.


Feeling Blue


The cat has her pick
Of the overlarge beds.
And at the dinner table,
My hand falls on empty air.

Teasers

Wow, such good comments on my teasers that now I'm feeling the pressure to keep the rest of the manuscript up to those standards! Or perhaps that's my sinus pressure I'm feeling, it's hard to separate them at this point since the allergies have been nonstop for a few weeks now.

In any case, we've just finished going through my novel in my critique group, so I'm going to be tackling some rewrites in the next few weeks. That means I may not post teasers, depending on how confident I am that a specific scene is going to stay in the final draft.

Or, I may post some excerpts from other works. Guess you'll have to check back on Tuesday and see!

Contest to win a manuscript critique from Barbara Poelle

Yes, that's a critique from Slithery Barbara Poelle, a coveted agent. This contest is through Sophie Littlefield's blog.

First prize is the critique, a signed copy of A Bad Day for Pretty by Sophie Littlefield, and some racy nail polish. Enter your first 5 sentences by following the instructions.

Notice that there are 3 separate rounds you can enter, so you can enter more than one work that way. I'm entering today, so that will be part of round two.

Luck, everyone! (A typo made that read "Lick, everyone!" the first time I typed it. That works for me, too.)

Teaser Tuesday--Prologue continued

I realized that a line got dropped in last week's teaser, so I'm backing up a bit and then finishing out the prologue this week. You can see the first part of the prologue here



I froze in place, holding my breath and straining to pick up the slightest noise. Suddenly, there was a flurry of whispers around me, dry and fluttery as the cries of moths. The voices of three girls, overlapping and swirling together, so agitated that I could only pick out a few words.

"You shouldn't be here—"

"Get out—"

"There is still time—"

My mouth was dry; it took me a few tries to ask, "What happened here?"

"We'll show you—" they said together.

Since I ordinarily could hear spirits but not see them, their cascade of images caught me unawares. I struggled to make sense of the pictures: this room filled with moonlight and candlelight, three girls weeping over a bloodied woman lying still on the carpet. And the figure looming over them, coming out of the shadows with axe raised and ready to strike.

I must have fainted; I came to on the floor, the scent of dust and old blood filling my nostrils. As I tried to re-orient myself, the whispers started again.

"You see? He's too strong."

"We tried to tell you—"

And then, "He's coming," and I felt I was alone again.

But I was not alone for long, as I saw the dust motes by the window begin to swirl and coalesce. The very air boiled, blood-red and seething as it took on the outline of a human form. I didn't wait to see more, stumbling in terror as I ran to the door.

I pressed my lips to a crack. "Miss Bonney, Miss Bonney! Please, you have to let me out!"

The steps on the other side were muffled, and far too slow. "Hurry!" I called. I spared a glance over my shoulder; the figure was becoming solid, I could see the man's wild hair and demented grin. This spirit looked substantial enough to do me real harm, and I scrabbled at the door in panic.

The key scraped into the lock, but Miss Bonney asked, "Are you ready to admit you were lying?"

"Yes, yes, I was lying," I cried. "Let me out!"

"I want to hear you say, 'There are no such thing as ghosts and I cannot communicate with the dead.'"

I heard a dragging step behind me as I repeated, "There are no such thing as ghosts and I cannot communicate with the dead."

The key rasped in the lock and the door opened in front of me, spilling me into the corridor. I rolled to my feet and ran down the gallery, hardly registering the sound of the door closing to muffle the frustrated roar beyond it.

I ran until my shaking legs would no longer support me, and one of the other teachers found me and took me to the infirmary. I lay in bed, raving, for four days, crying over and over, "There are no such thing as ghosts and I cannot communicate with the dead."

And with time—and much practice—the latter became true for me.