Friday Fiction – A Rare Kindness

For the last few weeks, my Friday Fiction entries have been a bit of fun – a nod to our beautiful hostess, Rochelle, and an admission from the heart of a struggling procrastinator. But this week, I wanted to go back to real story-writing. Then I saw the prompt from Erin Leary and it made me think of a couple of things. Initially, it reminded me of the third FF photo I ever responded to, but then it made me feel much bleaker and darker, helped no doubt by the fact I’m currently reading Cornell Woolrich’s ‘Four Novella’s of Fear’ and getting back in touch with my dark side.

It was the dark side that won out, and I’d love to hear her well (or not) this story works for you.

A Rare Kindness

The weather is so rarely kind. But when I passed the spot next morning, I was pleasantly surprised. The rain in the night had fallen on saturated ground, there and upstream, and the field beside the road was now just more river. No evidence of my labours remained.

Tomorrow, perhaps, or next week, or next month, when the waters recede, her grave might be visible. The water might even reopen it and free her body the way I freed her soul. But for now, my crime escapes detection. And tomorrow I will be far enough away to do the same.

The Story Behind The Stories

I know that some followers of this blog enjoy reading the story behind the stories I write, so here’s a bit of “process” for last week’s shorts. Spoiler Warning – if you haven’t read the stories, click on the titles and read them first!

Man, What Are You Doin’ Here?

When I saw this prompt, what sprung to mind was the joke which forms the final line of the story. It became the first line, and I imagined initially that it was said by an actor on stage. I envisaged a teenage girl, watching the play and not enjoying it. She was cynical and angry (aren’t a lot of teenagers?!) at the people laughing around her. I wondered why she was there, pondered her being on a bad date, or even being an escort. I added a leery older man beside her, his arm creeping around her shoulders… But the story didn’t go anywhere. It was too long to squash into 100 words and the short version just felt like a prurient snippet rather than a story.

I backed off, but kept the first line. It seemed like a corny joke, but what to do with it? I’ve done stories of Dad Jokes before, so I didn’t want to repeat that. When I hear bad jokes, I often feel like laughing even though they are terrible. And hence Miranda’s reaction was born. The bad date idea returned and I wrote the rest of the story right to the last line. But I wanted her to make a joke back to him, and the pedals line didn’t seem strong enough to end on. Jokes aren’t my forte and I couldn’t come up with anything better, so in the end I swapped the two jokes around, and I think it makes the story work better.

Curiosity Shop

The unhappy escort from the theatre was still in my head when I came to write my InMon story the next day. I liked the idea of someone going into a shop out of curiosity (rather than a shop full of curiosities) and the first few paragraphs came easily after that.

I wanted the girl’s name to tell us a lot about her, especially combined with her Mum’s outlook and behaviour. I hope I’ve made it clear enough that she’s from a rich family, but trying to make her own way in the world.

Having written most of the scene, though (up to the Dad with the credit card), I knew that Minty wasn’t a hooker, high- class or otherwise. But she was doing a job her Mum wouldn’t approve of, and working on the streets, so I wondered what else she could be doing? It came in a flash of inspiration (If the muse is on holiday, at least she’s sending postcards) and then all that was left was to craft the reveal.

A World Of… continued

Apparently, the boys haven’t quite finished their argument…

“Anyway, it’s not an elegra… whatever you said,” Matty continued. “If you put the words together, you get el…gi…ti…zeli … elgitizeli!”

I was inclined to agree, but Luke is clever. And a perfectionist. If he’d picked a name for the creature he’d drawn, he’d have his reasons.

“No it wouldn’t, stupid.”

“Don’t call your brother stupid,” I said automatically, feeling stupid too.

“Those are all the head ends of the words,” Luke continued. “It’s got the middle of a tiger, so it needs the middle of the word. El…ra…ge…br…on.” He spelled it out slowly.

“Explain it to me like you’re talking to a four year old,” the guy in Philadelphia says. If he’d met my youngest, he’d have said “Explain it to me like you’re a six year old”.

Friday Fiction – A Couple More

One of the amazing things about Friday Fiction is how many widely varied stories one prompt can produce. In the region of 100 writers respond to the prompt and while there is often some overlap in themes and subjects, there is always a huge spectrum among the pieces. I’m sure this week will be no exception.

What’s different this week is that the picture generated three very different ideas in my head, all of them crying out to be written. I posted my first story yesterday and commented there that I had other ideas. I’ve now had a chance to pen them into stories and I can’t even tell you for sure which is my favourite, but in case you are interested, here are the other two, all based on the same picture prompt.

Justification 2

“She was beautiful. Gnarled, craggy and deformed, but absolutely beautiful.”

“So why do it?”

“It was her time.”

“Euthanasia? You’re telling me this was an act of kindness?”

“Absolutely. You’re too young to understand, but us old folks, there are some places we can’t stand to be.”

“You cut down a centuries-old tree because you didn’t want to hurt its feelings?”

“If I left her there, how’d she have coped? Concrete tower blocks all around; kids hanging swings from her lower branches; dogs crapping on her roots and pissing all over her bark… I couldn’t bear to see that happen.”

 

Loyalty

She’s always been there, shared everything: my first kiss with Lily Spacek, when she told me afterwards my sister paid her to do it; the time my brothers dared me to swing out over the creek and I came home with one missing tooth and a mouthful of blood; when Amy agreed to marry me and the tears I cried when our daughter was born.

That tree comforted me after Amy’s funeral and now they say it has to be cut down? Well, they can use it to make my coffin. Bury me with the best friend I ever had.

Friday Fiction – Fibonacci’s Tower

I was very excited to discover that Rochelle chose my picture for this week’s prompt. I’m really looking forward to reading all the responses. My story is below the picture. I haven’t included edits this week (they weren’t very interesting). Instead, an explanation of my thoughts and inspiration follows the story. As ever, feedback – good or bad – feeds the muse, and you are very welcome to just read the story if you don’t have time for explanations!

Fibonacci’s Legacy (Genre: Historical Fiction)

From a chair beside the best fruit stand in Pisa, Leonardo stared at the great campanile. Something wasn’t right. He stood on aching legs and walked towards it.  The tower was leaning, he realised: sloping towards the North.

He stopped to make a sketch in his notebook: a third stage, with each floor slightly taller on that side, correcting the problem as it grew.

Inside, he gazed up at the receding stairs with a smile. The tilt was not evident here. Instead, he was reminded of natural perfection – the population numbers of rabbits, or the spiral of a snail’s shell.

*  *  *  *  *

Notes:

The picture is actually taken inside a lighthouse on the Suffolk coast. I love lighthouses, and my friend, Joy, was kind enough to accompany me on a pilgrimage to this one. One of the things I love about them are the spiral staircases winding up the inside, and this one cried out for a photograph. Because of the equipment, I couldn’t take the photo square on, but I loved the effect this picture captured so I took it anyway.

Looking at it now, a few years later, I was reminded of a snail shell, which got me thinking about Fibonacci, so I looked him up. Turns out he lived in Pisa – suddenly I had my inspiration. Then I looked up the tower : turns out it was built in 3 stages and the third stage was built wonky, to correct the tilt created by poor foundations. An aged Fibonacci would have seen it between the building of stages 2 and 3, so I wondered what he would have made of it.

Fibonacci was a mathematician and a scientist. He was a problem-solver and a thinker. I was fortunate to grow up knowing a man like that. My Grandad (shown below with his lovely wife, my Grandma) was a physicist by training, and most definitely both a problem-solver and a thinker. In Fibonacci’s place, I can’t help but think he would have been trying to find a solution to the problem of the leaning tower.

Inspiration Monday – Haunted Word

This week’s InMon prompts are extra exciting because I think one of them will meld well with the Friday Fictioneers prompt for tomorrow. Check back then to see if I manage to fit both in. For now, however, I’m going with the prompt Haunted Word.

Haunted

There’s a ghost in our family. You can’t see it, it doesn’t throw crockery and, unlike whatever presence lingers over our stairs, it doesn’t spook the cat. But it’s there nevertheless. It’s in a look that crosses Jerry’s face, a knot in my stomach, tears in our sons’ eyes. It hides for days on end, leaving us to pretend we live a normal life, then it jumps out and catches us unawares.

There’s a van I’ve seen in town sometimes. It’s black, with white writing and symbols etched on the side: “Paranormal investigators”. I looked them up online once, just to see. They specialise in haunted houses and in removing the ghosts of former occupants who died there. It’s not right for us, of course, because it isn’t the house that’s haunted. I almost feel as though it could be sometimes – I catch myself seeing a flash of dark ponytail out of the corner of my eye, or I go into her old room and think for a moment I can smell those awful concoctions she used to make by adding dried petals to my shampoo. My little chemist.

But she isn’t there – in human or in spirit form. The house isn’t haunted, though I sometimes wish it was. Our family is haunted, by memories, and by a word. Her name. Emily.

An Honour and An Admission

Last week, I was included in a list of “Most Influential Blogs of 2012” by SilentlyHeardOnce, so I want to start by saying thank you to her for this great honour.

The “rules” of the honour are that you must pay it forward, listing the blogs that are most influential to you, but here’s my problem, and the Admission I mentioned in the title. Whisper it … I don’t read many blogs. In fact, the only blogs I read are my fellow writers for InMon and the Friday Fictioneers. So the most influential blogs on me are our great leaders:

BeKindRewrite

Rochelle Wisoff-Fields

and until recently, Madison Woods

These groups bring together writers and provide us with inspiration and community each week. So our leaders have the most influence on me as a blogger. But I don’t read blogs that influence me as a person – political commentary, or tips on how to [insert ambition here] etc.

I see them a bit like Twitter – too high noise to value ratio, and I’m just not willing to commit my time to that. So, I use blogs to supply some of my fiction reading, a few musings on writing from writers who interest me, and not a lot else. Which is pretty much what my own blog is made up of too.

I’m glad so many of you take the time to read it, and thanks again for the honour of your company.

Merry Christmas!

Inspiration Monday – Imaginary Research

Those who pop by every other Thursday for submission suggestions might be disappointed to see another InMon post. Eventually, I’ll get back into the swing of things but at the moment, I seem to have more brain power for writing than researching, and since my blog is the only place I’m writing at the moment, I enjoy the extra chance to exercise creativity. I hope you’ll bear with me for a while longer

Talking of research…

Too Clever For His Own Good

“What does Santa have for dinner?” asked Joshua, pushing his peas around the plate in attempt to make them disappear.

“Peas,” said his father, unable to hide his frustration. “And so should you.”

“How do you know?”

Ian sighed. He should have known better than to put one over on his son. At six years old, Joshua already had his mother’s sharp eye for when he was being fobbed off.

“Dad’s hotline,” he tried.

There was a hint of an eye roll from Joshua. “I’m going to ask him in my letter. I bet he has nice things, like ice cream and turkish delight and sausages.”

“All on one plate?”

It was more pronounced this time. “Not all on one plate!” For a second Ian thought he was going to get angry; then the boy caught his eye and giggled. “Although… he is magical, so maybe he would have them all together and magically make it taste good!”

Ian felt the laughter run across his heart and found himself joining in. “Well, be that as it may, my research clearly indicates that Santa eats peas. And Rudolph – carrots too.”

Joshua picked up a forkful of peas. It approached his mouth, but came to a halt between his open lips. Joshua laid the fork back on his plate and ran to the kitchen. He returned with a clean plate and two carrots. He quickly shovelled the peas onto the plate.

“What are you doing, Josh?”

“We’ll leave these for Santa tonight. Instead of sherry and mince pies.”

 

 

Travels with their pens

Somehow, it’s Monday again. And Little Miss Muse seems to have taken the day off to batten down the hatches against the impending storm. We are far enough North and inland that Sandy shouldn’t mean more than high winds and torrential rain here; my thoughts are with those up and down the East coast USA who are in its path. I suspect LMM is rather more concerned about another imminent arrival – Baby’s due date is tomorrow, and even if he’s held up, he’ll be here within the next couple of weeks. Hubby didn’t look thrilled when I suggested we name the baby as the hurricane though…

Anyway, as a consequence of LMM’s vacation, I have nothing useful to say about writing and no successes (or even failures) to report on my own writing. So instead, I’d like to tell you about two inspirational writer friends of mine who have taken trips this month in furtherance of their writing plans.

Claire Larson is planning to write about her family history, which involves some nasty events which happened in Paraguay several decades ago. I only heard about that a few weeks ago when she announced that she was heading down to South America on a research trip, which involved meeting some rather unsavoury characters, being smuggled across borders and all the time negotiating the corruption and other risks of travelling in that part of the world. To help a local family (including the man who saved Claire’s father’s life) to make their way out of poverty, Claire and her family have returned the proud owners of a pregnant cow, and half a farm in Paraguay. Presumably the cow is staying there, and hasn’t been freighted back to Canada!

Claire’s back in Toronto now, and even just the story of her trip – let alone the events she was researching – makes for exciting reading. The extent of my research tends to be a laptop or a library, so my hat is firmly off to her for going the extra (thousand) mile(s).  I can’t wait to read her novel!

On the subject of long-distance travel, another writing friend is back from Scotland this morning. Not quite the same level of danger, but certainly an epic journey with its own trials and tribulations to overcome. The gentlemen of the Wayfarer’s Quest walked a gruelling 500 miles across the Highlands of Scotland during October, most of it in costume as adventurers from times gone by.

They met with some serious obstacles on the way, both in the planning – when a number of team members had to drop out for health and other reasons – and in the execution. Just a few days into the trip, Wayfarer Dan came down with a severe case of food poisoning. The Doctor’s advice of bed rest and then “no strenuous activity for a few weeks” nearly put paid to the Quest, but these boys don’t back down easily, and they managed to fit in the full distance in spite of a shortened time schedule and reduced health.

This time, the main aim of the game was not writing, but fundraising. The Wayfarers have raised over $15,000 for cancer charities, and are still looking for ways to increase that figure. And one of those, is potentially going to be a book about the trip. Again, it makes me feel like I should do more to write more! You can read about the trip and how to contribute to the Wayfarers’ cause at http://www.wayfarerquest.com/ The blog has some fantastic photos too, and I’m sure there will be more to come now that the boys are back in Toronto (Just need to drop off a Timmies voucher first to help them get over the jet lag!)

 

How far have you been in pursuit of a story? Where would you like to go to finalise that last detail or even a huge plot point? And what’s stopping you?!

 

A Brief Literary Interlude

A few weeks ago, I was in the Peak District (that’s a rural area of England for those from further afield) spending a few lovely days with a few lovely friends. In spite of the changeable weather, we had decided to go for a walk. Those of us with “conditions” had decreed that said walk should be reasonably flat, and so it was decided to walk around a lake. We had a choice of two lakes, and eventually decided on Tittesworth Reservoir – man-made with a fancy dam at the end (there are enough engineers among my friends that “engineering porn” is a well-worn phrase where I come from, and dams count).

However, the OTHER lake, the one we didn’t visit, is Rudyard Lake. The story goes, that Mr and Mrs Kipling -to-be spent some time at Rudyard Lake and thought it so beautiful they named their son after it. Presumably an early precursor to the Brooklyn Beckham school of thinking. It has since been voted the “3rd most romantic spot in Britain” or some such honour.

It’s probably a good job the courting couple went to Rudyard Lake, Tittesworth Kipling doesn’t have the same ring to it!

One of Mr Kipling’s exceedingly good poems came to mind this week. It’s been a favourite of mine and an inspiration for years; I learned it by heart as a teenager, not for a class project, but simply because I wanted to take it with me wherever I went. The last line has proved controversial in our modern age of gender equality, but I think the point stands regardless of the wording, and I enjoy it for what it is.

If…

If you can keep your head when all about you, are losing theirs and blaming it on you,

If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you, but make allowance for their doubting too,

If you can wait and not be tired by waiting

Or being lied about, don’t deal in lies;

Or being hated, not give way to hating

And yet don’t look too good or talk too wise.

If you can dream and not make dreams your master

If you can think, and not make thoughts your aim;

If you can meet with triumph and disaster,

And treat those two impostors just the same.

If you can dare to hear the truth you’re spoken,

Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,

And watch the things you gave your life to broken,

And stoop and build ’em up with worn-out tools.

If you can make one heap of all your winnings,

And risk it on one turn of pitch and toss,

And lose, and start again at your beginnings,

And never breathe a word about your loss.

If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew,

To serve your turn, long after they are gone,

And so hold on when there is nothing left within you,

Except the will, which says to them “Hold on!”

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,

Or walk with Kings, nor lose the common touch,

If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,

And all men count with you, but none too much.

If you can fill the unforgiving minute,

With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run,

Yours is the Earth, and everything that’s in it

And, which is more, you’ll be a man, my son.