Idea Exchange (Free Premises!)

So I had this idea for a story that's the sort of book I'll never write. I think it would be perfect for someone like Jasper Fforde, but as I don't know him and he seems to have plenty enough ideas on his own, I'll offer it up here. If anyone wants it, it's yours, no strings attached. Anyway: a sleep shortage, with some evil corporation siphoning it off and selling it or making something evil out of it, or putting it into the water supply so we're all sort of half-asleep all the time and more prone to buy evil corporation's products on the Shopping Network. Sounds allegorical if you ask me. Anyway.

Now, I'm sure that some of you (yes, you) also get these sorts of ideas for things that you (yes, you) think someone could write, but that someone isn't you (yes, you). So here's the deal: post those ideas in the comments here! I called this post "Idea Exchange," but you don't have to leave an idea in order to take one. Just take it and write something good. Anyone else in on this? Anyone?

"Two Separate Pieces " by Frances O'Brien

The Literary Lab proudly presents the winner of the Genre Wars contest and the Young Adult category:

Two Separate Pieces
by Frances O'Brien

"D'you know how to French?" Cliff asked me.

He was sixteen, two years older than I, and we'd met the previous day. His mom worked with my older brother, Rob.

"French?" I asked.

"Yeah, kiss." His gum made a wet, rubbery sound as he chewed.

"I know how to kiss," I offered.

"But do you know how to French kiss?"

We were sitting in the bleachers of an empty school football field at night. The white lights gave his tanned skin a greenish tint.

"Do French people kiss differently than we do?"

"Yeah," he laughed. "Theirs is a lot more fun."

"Oh." I didn't want to look stupid. Most of the kids I knew had dated or made out or at least knew how. I'd never so much as held a boy's hand.

"Wanna try?" he asked.

I looked out over the field. If I French kissed him would that make me like everyone else?

"Don't worry, there's no one else here," he told me.

"I'm not worried."

"We can move down there if you want, so we're not in the spotlight." He pointed into the gap between the step we sat on and the one at our backs. I could see the striped shadows of the steps on the grass below us. Our bodies made two round, lazy-looking lumps amidst all that slender, symmetrical neatness.

"No, that's okay." I looked back at him and shook the hair out of my eyes.

"So?" he asked after a few seconds.

"What do I have to do?"

"Let's make it easy," he said. "Just take the gum out of my mouth."

"The gum?"

"Don't make a face. Kiss me and take it out of my mouth with your tongue."

I remembered when I was in first grade, my friend Jillian and I wanted to know what it'd feel like to touch our tongues together. Hers was too warm, too moist and much too soft.

"C'mon, don't be a chicken," Cliff said. "I won't bite."

I shrugged, leaned in slowly and closed my eyes. Our lips touched together and opened. He put the gum in my mouth. His tongue moved in and out slowly a few times. It wasn't nearly as disgusting as I expected it to be. Then he kissed me the regular way, and we moved apart.

"Juicy Fruit," I said.

"Dja like that?"

I shrugged. "It was all right."

"Now this time you give it back to me."

I stuck it out at him on the tip of my tongue. He took it back, and we kissed a little more.

"I think you're getting the hang of it," he said.

We both leaned back on our elbows. The air in Orlando was warmer and more humid than what I was used to back home on Long Island. I loved the way it felt and was glad to be staying at my brother's during summer vacation. A bluish-green bug, about an inch long, landed on the step below us. Cliff nudged it with his foot, and it continued on its way.

"That girl at your house when we picked you up," I said, "isn't she your girlfriend?"

"Yeah," he told me. "Christina." He looked up, smiling, obviously enjoying the thought of her. "We made out one day for three hours. Didn't stop but to pee and eat some crackers."

"She doesn't mind you kissing other girls?"

"She doesn't know. Besides, I'm not cheating on her. I'm just kissing you to show you."

I sat forward and wrapped my arms around my knees.

"That bug you?" Cliff asked.

"No." It was true -- I didn't really feel anything. No excitement from kissing, no jealousy about the girlfriend and no sadness that Cliff wasn't especially attracted to me. This was hardly the way I'd imagined my first kiss would be.

"Rob asked me to show you some things," Cliff said.

My brother Rob was seven years older. He'd already asked me why I didn't have a boyfriend, and I hadn't known how to answer. I wished that he was one of those brothers who's overly-protective of his little sister. I wished he'd told me, instead, that it was all okay. I wished that, somehow, I could feel like I was normal.

"Pop quiz," said Cliff.

When he tried to give me the gum, it fell back into his mouth. We laughed a little, then laughed at the echo of the laugh in our mouths.

This is so bizarre, I thought, so uneventful. Despite that, I felt completely at ease. No one else made me feel that way. What was it about Cliff? Normally, we'd never even have met. He smoked pot, cut school, hitchhiked. His parents never married. He lived with his mom who was hardly ever home. We were opposites, but I felt so comfortable with him.

"Time's up," Cliff said softly. "Hand it over."

While we kissed, I tried to imagine that he was Jimmy, the guy I had a crush on back home. Jimmy and I hung out with a group of friends in the schoolyard around the corner. A few of them told me he liked me, too, but, although he was always nice to me, he never asked me to be his girlfriend. Somehow I knew it was my fault. I didn't know what made me so unapproachable, but something obviously did. Whatever it was, Cliff didn't seem to pick up on it at all.

"Did you peel the gum wrapper apart?" I asked.

Cliff looked puzzled.

"Do you still have it?"

He pulled out a small ball of white and silver. I took it and flattened it out against my leg. "See where the foil is detached from the waxed paper? Slip your thumbnail in between."

Eyebrows furrowed, he did what I said.

"Now peel them apart. If you can do it in two separate pieces, you get a wish."

He shook his head. "Girls," he said and began peeling.

"Careful. The foil is delicate."

His tongue was pressed against his top lip as he slowly pulled.

When he'd gotten them apart, he showed me the white one. "Dang," he said because a single tooth of silver remained on it.

"Guess you'll have to practice," I told him.

"Yeah, right." He crumpled the wrapper and put it back in his pocket. "C'mon, let's head back."

We stepped down to the third row. He hopped off and took my hand although I could easily have jumped it myself.

"Do you think you'll get married?" I asked.

He shrugged. "Maybe. One day."

"I mean you and Christina. Do you think you'll marry her?"

"We're sixteen."

"I know that. But chances are one day you'll be seventeen, and then maybe eighteen. Who knows? You could live to be twenty-two!"

He looked at me. "You're a trip, you know that?"

We walked for a while, and I realized he wasn't going to answer. "So, if you live all the way to twenty-two, do you think you'll marry Christina?"

"If I live that long, I want to have sex with lots of women, maybe lots of them at once, and Chrissy probably wouldn't be into it."

"Ew. That's so gross."

"You asked." The grass made a dry, scrunching sound as we walked. We passed a wastebasket, and Cliff dropped his gum into it. Then he lit a cigarette, and exhaled to the sky.

"What are you thinking about?" I asked.

"Twenty-two." He stuck out the tip of his tongue, trying to remove something. "Thp, thp, thp," he said before using his fingers. He examined his catch. "My dad was twenty-two when he killed himself."

"Oh, my god!" I stopped. "Your dad . . . ?" I couldn't finish. "Cliff, I'm so sorry."

He dragged at his cigarette. He shrugged, exhaling, "It's okay." We started walking again. "Don't get bent out of shape about it. He got drunk and hung himself."

Several questions occurred to me at once, but they all sounded so foolish.

"I was only four," he said. "I don't remember it. My mom was out all day. He was taking care of me. Good job, huh?" Cliff laughed. "Anyway, I survived."

We'd reached the paved road and our sneakers were silent against it. There was no traffic. No breeze.

"Do you remember him?" I asked.

"A little." He flicked his cigarette several times. "I remember he was loud. Angry. He was always yelling about work and money." Cliff spat on the ground. "He used to get high and slap my mom around a lot."

"That's awful. What'd she do?"

"Got bruised a lot."

We passed a small grocery store, closed and dark. The dog lying on the wooden porch raised his head and gave us a quiet bark.

"I know what you're thinking." Cliff threw his cigarette down and stepped on it. "It's better he killed himself."

"No, I'm not. Really." I sounded like I was pleading. "I wouldn't think that."

He put his hands in his pockets. "Maybe it was."

Lights and noise caused us to turn around. An old pickup truck blaring "Ramblin' Man," pulled to a stop next to us. The driver, an older man, turned down the music, put his arm on the back of the passenger seat and asked, "Hey, you kids need a ride?"

"No, thank you," I said, stepping back.

"You?" He indicated Cliff.

"Nah, man."

The driver shook his head, looking disappointed. "Well, you kids be careful now, you hear?" He turned the radio up and drove away, screeching his wheels.

As we walked, I watched the truck until its taillights disappeared over a rise. Everything felt darker and quieter than it had before, like the truck had carried our conversation away with it. I wanted to say something more to Cliff, but bringing up the subject again felt awkward.

When we reached the parking lot of my brother's apartment complex, I placed my hand on Cliff's arm.

"It must be difficult for you."

He inhaled slowly and let it out. "Sometimes I wonder what I'll be like when I'm twenty-two. If I'll want to do the same thing."

We stopped outside the entrance to the building.

"You know that wouldn't solve anything," I said.

He shrugged and looked away.

"It would just make it worse for everyone you left behind."

"Everyone who?"

"Your mom. Christina."

He opened the door for me. "They'd be fine."

"All the women."

"What women?"

"The ones you were going to have sex with at once, remember?"

He laughed and pushed me gently through the open doorway. "What a trip you are."



For the ride back to his house, he sat up front and chatted with my brother. We pulled into his driveway and Cliff got out.

"You moving up front?" he asked me, holding the door open. He stuck his gum out between his teeth and wiggled it. I got out and hugged him.

"Here," I said, handing him a small corner of paper with my address on it. "If you want to keep in touch."

"I'm not real big on writing letters."

I tried to take it back from him, but he closed his hand over it.

"Anyway," I said, "thanks."

"For what?"

"Hanging out. Talking." I leaned in a little closer. "French lessons."

He laughed and pushed my arm gently. "Get in the car."


After I got back home, I checked the mail every morning, convincing myself as I did that I was neither looking for, nor expecting, a letter from Cliff. It was a technique that worked too well: I never received one.

A few weeks later, an envelope arrived addressed to me in a sloppy, childish-looking print with no return address. I opened it and found only a gum wrapper, perfectly detached into two separate pieces: foil and waxed paper. I smiled, then I laughed. I didn't know what he'd wished for, but I hoped it was something good.



An interview with Frances O'Brien:


Tell us about you

I'm a Brooklyn native, living in L.A. for about two decades now and loving it. By day I'm a word processor; in the evenings I attend school part-time. For fun I like to hike, read or watch movies. Oh, and write.


Tell us about your story

It's based on an actual incident that occurred sometime in the late 70s. It was quite enjoyable going back while writing it and spending some time there. Far out, in fact.


Tell us about your future

Winning this contest has gotten me so psyched, I plan to submit more aggressively! Thanks so much for including my story!

"Napoleon's Boots" by Donna Thorland

The Literary Lab proudly presents the winner of the Genre Wars Crime/Horror category:

Napoleon's Boots

by Donna Thorland

My wife is wrong. I haven't been drunk since we arrived home. I've been drunk since we left St. Helena. Thank you, but no. I prefer to charge my own glass.

The cruise was an awful idea from the first. But the minute she saw Nefertiri's Barque she was dead set on it. My father built the bloody yacht and left it in his will--the only thing he did leave me. I mean, what was I to do with a yacht fitted up like Pharoah's favorite brothel? I was trying to sell the damned thing for some pocket money when she decided on this cruise.

Can you imagine it? London, Spain, Italy, and Greece, all seen through pyramid shaped portholes. You know what the main cabin is called? The Theban Saloon. When she told me she'd be bringing her sisters along I said we ought to re-christen the damned boat the Argos since we were going to have the harpies aboard.

The stupid cow spent a bloody fortune—all her money really so who cares—refitting the place. As if having the brandy and port in canopic jars wasn't enough, we had to have a teapot shaped like a camel. Don't even ask what the sugar bowl looked like.

The funny thing is the whole trip went off without a hitch. My wife and her sisters spent most of the Atlantic crossing seasick in Hatshepsut's Water Closet while I enjoyed the blissful quiet—and décor—of an Egyptian tomb.

I don't know where she picked up the idea of stopping at St. Helena. Strike that: everyone, she said, was doing it. Stopping in to chat with Napoleon and taking away a souvenir. You know, locks of hair, bits of clothing, naked statues of Bonaparte's sister. The sort of thing the Frenchies prize.

Anyway, the silly cow insisted we stop so we did. And sink me if she didn't make me select a case of my best Madeira wine as an offering to the exiled Emperor!

We looked in at Jamestown, to get permission from the island's British Governor to visit Boney, and he told us we were welcome to call on the old boy, but that Boney's health had been declining steadily for months, and had fallen off precipitously since the death of his Corsican butler, Cipriani. One of the Emperor's toadies, name of "Charles Tristan de Montholon," was running the show at present and might not be inclined to receive us.

Nothing ventured, nothing gained. So I hired a rickety cart, and the harpies and I, and my case of wine, ascended the four hilly miles to Boney's digs at Longwood.

Well, you would expect that the man who terrorized Europe for twenty years would be chained in a cell somewhere. It's what he did to his English prisoners anyway. But Longwood was an eleven-room manor house furnished with silk and mahogany.

We were told to wait in the parlor, and out comes this Frog the Governor had mentioned, Charles Montholon, dripping with lace. A youngish, oily looking little dandyprat with dark curly hair and cold blue eyes.

Montholon looks us up and down—my wife practically cooing, her silly sisters giggling—and you could tell he was about to tell us to hie it back to Jamestown when he spotted the case of Madeira, ran his eye over the vintage stamps. He laughed, and said the Emperor would be delighted to see well-wishers from America. Hadn't the French helped us win our independence, and hadn't we offered so much valuable support to the Emperor in his late wars?

Well, I certainly hadn't, but I wasn't about to press the point. The case of wine disappeared in a wink, and we were ushered into a little room with polished tables where this portly, balding little man—who’d once terrorized the world—gravely sat sipping lemonade. Another Frenchie—middle-aged, ramrod straight, in the uniform of an officer of Engineers--hovered at the Emperor's elbow. I recognized him as Boney's faithful friend, General Bertrand—led the Danube campaign, you know.

We all spoke French—Boney’s English was as appalling as Bertrand's was perfect. The Emperor was gracious, I'll give him that. And charming to the ladies.

And damnably perceptive. After flattering my wife and her sisters a bit, and gifting the harpies some little keepsakes—a cockade from his second best hat, lockets with wisps of his hair and what not—he turned to me and said, "I think, mon ami, that you are not one of my late allies."

Of course I wasn't. Oh, I'll grant you we owe the Frogs for their help in the War for Independence. But Napoleon butchered half of Europe and made himself Emperor—a thing a good sight worse than a king, so I purchased a commission in the British Army and fought under Wellington to stop him.

But considering the pathetic little man before me—confined, he told us, to a liquid diet due to his health, exiled on this rock in the middle of the ocean—I felt sorry for him. So I said, "Nor am I an enemy, Sir, but a well-wisher only."

The little man nodded and said, "I thank you, Monsieur, for the Madeira. Montholon tells me it is an excellent vintage, a most generous gift. I have little to offer in return, in my reduced circumstances." He nodded to General Bertrand. The General left the room for a moment and came back with a pair of boots. Not as nice as the pair the Emperor was wearing, but like new.

Napoleon shrugged, said, "They never fit properly, but I would like you to have them."

Typical Frenchman, I thought. He gives with one hand and takes away with the other. I didn't need to know that the deuced things were worthless to him!

I was thanking him while the wine was poured--inferior stuff to the case I'd brought, I'll tell you—when my silly cow of a wife, who had been silent for nearly three minutes, suddenly started shrieking. She leapt up, knocked over her chair and backed to the end of the room screaming something about the "Shadow of Death" and pointing toward the Emperor.

Well, it was a hairy moment, I'll tell you. I heard Bertrand's sword leave its scabbard—it’s a sound you don't forget when you've seen action—and I looked at the Emperor. His faced was turned up in befuddlement at the shadow that bent over him, pouring a trickle of black sludge into his glass: a skeletal figure in rags that cast a shadow over the whole room. It was the Reaper, large as life and near enough to touch!

Suddenly, the Emperor chuckled, and the Shadow chuckled, and I must have blinked, because when I looked again, it was only that dandyprat Montholon, laughing his obsequious, oily laugh, pouring the Emperor's wine.

My wife then did the only sensible thing I've ever seen her do. She fainted dead away and got carted off to the Governor's mansion with her hen-witted sisters in tow. I apologized profusely and stayed to smoke cigars with General Bertrand and the Emperor.

Bonaparte was quite gracious really, blaming my wife's outburst on the heat and a trick of the light. Bertrand just smoked silently and glowered, until the Emperor suddenly brought his fist down on the table and asked him why he was sulking. The General put his cigar down and told us that he'd seen the Shadow of Death himself once, leaning companionably on the shoulder of a trusted lieutenant: a man who'd had his head blown off at St. Omer just a few days later.

The Emperor became quite fretful, and I realized it was high time to go. I took the boots he'd given me and let myself out. Boney and Bertrand just sat at the table, avoiding one another's eyes.

I walked all the way back to Jamestown, collected the harpies and was about to board Pharoah's Bathtub when General Bertrand came riding, his horse in a lather, down to the docks. He nodded to the ladies and opened one of his saddlebags. "The Emperor," he said gravely, "would like you to have these," and damn him if he didn't have another pair of boots in that bag.

I gave them the once over, wondering if there hadn't been some mistake, and then I realized these were the very boots Napoleon had been wearing not two hours ago. I remarked on this to Bertrand. He looked straight through me and said, "The Emperor does not think he will have need of them very much longer."

That was it. He rode off, back straight as a Hussar's. Damndest fellow. We shoved off in Nefertiri's Barque and spent the winter in the Mediterranean. The women visited ruins, and I played cards.

I don't know precisely why I insisted on stopping at St. Helena on the return voyage. I certainly didn't expect we'd be particularly welcome after our last visit. But the Governor was very kind. He informed us that there would be no more visits to Longwood. For the Emperor had died on May 6, just a few days before, attended to the end by General Bertrand . . . and Charles Tristan de Montholon.

You will forgive me if I prefer to fill my own glass. A little habit I picked up on St. Helena.

An interview with Donna Thorland:

Tell us about you.

I studied Latin and art history at Yale, and received my MFA in film production from the USC School of cinematic arts. Between college and graduate school I worked at the Peabody Essex Museum in Salem, Mass, where I managed interpretation and produced their Halloween festival, Eerie Events. During graduate school I worked as a house mom at a USC sorority. In 2008 I was a Disney/ABC TV Writing Fellow, and was staffed on the ABC drama, Cupid.

Tell us about your story.

I wrote "Napoleon's Boots" for Eerie Events. It was performed as a monologue by a costumed actor in the Gardner-Pingree House, a National Landmark, owned by the Peabody Essex Museum. There's a great exhibit in the galleries there about America's first pleasure yacht, and a pair of Bonaparte's boots are indeed on display.

Tell us about your future.

More television and more short fiction!

"LLAC EMIT DOOG A ROF" by Jason King

The Literary Lab proudly presents the winner of the Genre Wars Experimental category:

LLAC EMIT DOOG A ROF
by Jason King

People stare. Some squint. They stick their faces close until dotted whiskers show their length. Others loom but never look, their faces angled down at the water falling through their hands to the basin beneath. They move to the side, punch the white box and rub their hands under it, turn away, disappear. Always the people move.
_______________________

I am born: fused quartz and condensed aluminum, poured and polished and framed. Spirits of glass and metal, spontaneous order from arrangement of elements. How? Why? The questions arise and flit away, cast-off glimmers of thought. I awake to a dim gauzy netherworld of sheets and vats, rectangles and ovals. Hands. Darkness again. Hands, shaking and swirling, a piece of cloth, and the world takes its shape.
_______________________

What does not change: The world. Drab walls, tiled floor, ceiling with the long bulbs. Two white vertical bowls on the far wall with long misshapen heads of silver piping. Faded yellow dividers between the bowls. More faded yellow beside them: incomplete walls that stop short of floor and ceiling and whose inside faces are covered in marks that the people grow and renew; three-quarter doors that swing open to show a glimpse of shiny white chairs. The running-water spouts, the basins beneath. The white box. The high window. The big door that hides light and people. What changes: Light and people. Light to dark to light to dark to light. Shadows stretching and foreshortening in a slow diurnal rhythm. The people, moving from behind the big door. Hurrying, some dragging themselves stiffly. They face a vertical bowl or disappear but for their feet behind a three-quarter door. The people fork: some for me, the rest straight for the big door. All to leave at last. They move slower in leaving. They are replaced by others. Come and go. Come and go. Images that float across the face of the world and are gone.
_______________________

One among them recurs. He wears blue, his hair is a short curled mixture of white-grey-black. The place above his eyes is traced with shallow parallel lines; beneath them the darkened skin sags. He shambles in behind a large wheeled cart with sticks coming out of it. He draws his sticks and moves them over the floor, the bowls, the chairs behind the three-quarter doors. He draws bottles; liquid sprays out and he follows it with a cloth. He comes to me; the world mottles and then clears. He moves his hand and the cloth under it. He takes his cart-with-sticks. He goes.
_______________________

Something different: Two people enter together. One like most of the rest who come, the other shorter and smaller, like the first in miniature. Six-tenths perhaps. The small one with crumpled face, his eyes leaking water, one knee a brilliant sparkling red. The other lifts him to the basin. Water runs onto the red, drops, swirls, vanishes. They patch the red knee until it is pale again, not pale like the surrounding flesh but pale. The small one’s face still crumpled, the tall one’s face carries a hint of the same. He reaches a hand to the small cheek, turns the other to face him, gathers the small shaking shoulders into the sweep of his long thick arms. The shaking subsides. The small face smoothes. What is this? More than simple movement. More than shadowplay against a static world. Images bending to each others’ orbit. Spontaneous order. Is this birth? They leave. The world remains. Light to dark to light.
_________________________

The big door swings open. A person comes in fast. His face reddish-pink, the shade that slants through the high window when the light starts to diminish. He turns this way, that way. His movements quick, jagged. He covers his face with his hands, he pulls them away and his face sparkles in the light. He kicks at the wall once, again, again. He advances. His face is twisted somehow, pulled up and down at its margins. He draws back his fist and the fist shrinks. It snaps forward. The world shatters. It multiplies: forty-seven slivered fragments of images, each one an echo of the others set off at glaring angles beside it. Thirty-one pieces of the person move to the right, yank twenty-nine white boxes from their walls. The boxes bounce when they hit the floors. The person-pieces run to the doors and disappear.
________________________

The world is changed. People change each other, they move across the world and it yields to their passing. Why can they do this? Why can I not? Am I the world? Am I alive?
________________________

Light to dark.
________________________

Nothing penetrates! Nothing penetrates!
________________________

Dark to light.
________________________

The world is not changed. It is change, the thing itself. The swirl of movement, the glimmer of passage, a panorama. Back and forth, forth and back. But I am constant. I reflect.
________________________

The white boxes bounce, leap to the walls. Reddish-Pink Face pulls back his fist; shattered fragments fuse. He heals the world. His face composes, he covers his face and it sparkles no more. His movements sharp, his face turning to every corner. He is alone. Alone? With his power?
________________________

Six-tenths and the other are here. The birth between them. I want to turn away. Red water swirls out of the drain, flows up to meet the short one’s knee. He trembles. Water droplets leap up to enter the eyes of his crumpled face. I see these two people enter; I see them leave. I try to remember. They touch. They bend. They reveal a symmetry I cannot know. Do they themselves know it? They are gone.
_______________________

The recurring one returns as ever. He drags his cart-with-sticks behind. It trails him like a shadow. He draws out his sticks, his cloth, his bottles. He shuffles around. The world mottles and clears, mottles and clears. Mostly he is alone for his coming and going. Sometimes he is not alone. The other people keep their faces away, their bodies away. They do not touch him. His movements are sparse, regular. He does not reach out. They stand clear of his sticks and bottles and cloth. Now he is alone. He draws something from inside the cart and goes to one of the white chairs without his sticks or bottles or cloth. He stops in front of the chair, hunches his shoulders, swivels his head both ways, eyes darting. The three-quarter door closes. His feet spread wide beneath the door. The door opens and he backs out. He carries a sheaf of glossy papers with tiny people on them: they stare out blankly; their garish faces splash color against a fleshy palette. He walks quickly, and quickly slips the papers back into the cart. Again the head swivels, the eyes move to each side. He continues with the bottles and the sticks. Mottle and clear. He drags his cart-with-sticks to the big door that swings open for him and he pulls his cart through.
______________________

There is more change than I know. I see beneath the patina of sameness. Flowing water, erasure of the scribbled markings. Insects that crawl and fly. Light to dark to light. Quality and color of light, ever waxing and waning. The people that leave now faster than they arrive. Sauntering in, backing swiftly away. Each to his own.
______________________

I am born to nothingness. Order and decay. Darkness.
______________________

People stare, and I return it, a lidless tracing of these moving shadows. A portion approaches, but the rest keep their distance, angled away. None of them see. None of them stay. They are moving, always moving.



An interview with Jason King:

Tell us about you.

I grew up with my nose forever buried in a book, but I never dreamed then of being a writer. Which I suppose helps explain why I’m not one now. I’m a husband, a father, an employee, a homeowner – all the roles that fill my days. But in the few still moments I do dream now of writing, and writing well. And when I get the time (not as much as I’d like or as much as I should), I try to make it happen.

For several years, I’ve been working on my first novel. It’s set ten years after the Civil War, in the southern Appalachian mountains where my father’s people came from, and it’s about science and faith and second love, and two people who want to build something amid the rubble of their lives. When I read about the Genre Wars contest, I took a break from the novel to try my hand at something shorter.

Tell us about your story.

The story was born from just a random bit of musing. I was thinking about how we use certain commonplace objects so much we become nearly oblivious to them, and I wondered how those objects would view us, if they could, from that kind of exposed vantage point. The choice to use a mirror as the observing character seemed natural. Its purpose is to reflect, so I could imagine that while we’re looking in, it’s looking out.

From there, I tried to make the story embody the mirror’s characteristics as it revealed them, which explains the narrative structure. But I also wanted to explore what a character would be like that had the mirror’s many constraints – no ability to move or to communicate externally, no sense but the visual, no understanding of human emotion or causality – and how those constraints would shape its understanding of itself and the world. That, to me, is what ultimately made the story so fun to write.

Tell us about your future.

Hopefully I’ll finish my book and be proud of it. Seeing it in print would be awesome, too. And I hope to stay happy enough with my life to keep it all in perspective one way or the other.

Thanks to Davin, Michelle, and Scott for giving me the impetus to send my work out for the first time!

Imperfect Tense?

Happy Monday, everyone! Starting tomorrow, we'll be posting the rest of the winning stories from the Genre Wars contest. I hope you've all enjoyed our first three offerings!

Today, I wanted to ask what you all thought about writing in the imperfect tense.

What's the imperfect tense? Well, it can take on two basic forms. One is an incomplete action or coincident actions:

I was gallivanting in the ballroom when Mr. Bailey rang the bell.

The other one, and the one I'm more curious about today is its use to describe continuous actions:

I used to dangle my carrots, but then Lady Glam suggested I dangle turnips instead.

This comes up because I was at my writer's group meeting a few weeks ago when someone suggested that another writer replace a scene written in this imperfect, habitual tense with a scene that simply had the character doing the action once. Instead of "I used to dangle my carrots," the suggestion was to write "I dangled my carrots." Accuracy aside (this wasn't non-fiction), the critic's idea was that writing it as a singular event activated the action, focused it into one sharp scene whereas the original left the time in a more imperfect realm.

I started thinking about Proust. Not only did he embrace the imperfect tense, but much of the first volume of his long novel was written as these descriptions of habits, series of events that were repeated again and again. His translated first line, for example is "For a long time I would go to bed early."

Proust used the imperfect tense to explore memory, its transformations, its misrememberings, its associations. In that sense, the imperfect tense was critical. But for me, what made this tense alluring was its realness. Don't we all have those memories of activities we've done over and over again? Still, I think the reviewer in my writer's group had a point. Writing a scene as a singular event can really bring it to life.

So, what do you all think? Is there a place for the imperfect tense, even if you aren't dealing with the idea of memory? Have you used the imperfect tense and found it more powerful than, say, past tense, in certain circumstances?

"Asunder" by Judith Mercado

The Literary Lab proudly presents the winner of the Genre Wars Literary category:

Asunder
by Judith Mercado

He turned away from the front window and said, “If she’s not here by now, she’s not coming.”

His wife shrugged without looking up from the tattered lace handkerchief she was darning. If thirty-four years of married life gave him license to guess, the shrug likely meant, “I never invested myself in hope.” But Edie didn’t say anything. Her mastery never lay in talking about what she knew, but in knowing what she knew.

From her shrug he was free to construct whole worlds. Sermons had been inspired from prior shrugs. Stoicism, he focused on one time. God’s will, another. Inner peace, a month and a half ago. Perhaps they all amounted to the same thing. If a shrug suggested an inner fortitude, accepting whatever happened, Edie had succeeded in finding the key to serenity. If their daughter Esther showed up or not in the next half hour, Edie would not falter.

“Mom’s like an old oak,” Esther said once, “standing stubborn and proud.”

“More like Earth Mother,” he had rejoined.

Esther laughed, not unaware of his condescension.

He could take no satisfaction now from their shared cleverness. It was no surprise that Esther could so easily overlook those other qualities of Edie he esteemed, like piety and devotion. He rarely mentioned them. If he inadvertently guided Esther astray in devaluing her mother, he surely never intended for her to end up in the barren, God-less terrain of a nonbeliever. He had named her Esther in honor of a Persian queen who saved her Jewish people from massacre. A strong woman who stands for principle, that’s what you want to be, he told her when she was young, adding quickly enough, a strong Christian woman. She only listened to half a counsel.

An old oak at least has leaves that rustle in the breeze, he thought now. Edie’s stillness had no language he could hear. He watched her needle penetrate the lace border; her movements small, measured, as if the old lace could only be repaired with painstaking care.

Add constancy and loyalty to the attributes we overlooked, Esther.

Edie’s stillness seemed to permeate every molecule of air, a stillness he had to escape. “I’m going outside for a moment,” he said.

She hardly seemed aware he was in the same room with her.

He opened the back screen door and suffered the whine of the rusted hinges. He would oil them tomorrow. If Esther came, he would absolutely oil them tomorrow. If you let her come, God, I’ll do it tomorrow.

He shook his head. He, of all people, should know that bargaining with the sacred for the mundane was a profanity.

He stepped into the back yard. The rose arbor overhead sheltered him from the still hot setting sun. He stood underneath and gazed out, the delicate scent of yellow roses reminding him once again that he could never remember their name. Nor could he remember the name of the spiky blue flowers towering above all others in the garden planted by Edie. He wondered if after more than three decades she remembered his sermons.

He suspected she did. Maybe not the fine turn of phrase he labored over for hours, maybe not the surprising classical allusions he inserted. More likely Edie remembered the title. It was perhaps his greatest challenge every week, how to condense into a meaningful but sparse phrase the potency of his message. Once the title of the sermon was posted, he would wait for Edie to walk up and examine it. If she nodded, however slightly, his delivery of the sermon was always lightened somehow. They shared that, he and Edie, the importance of the message. It guided their lives on a path of faith and committed worship. Why it failed with their daughter, he could never understand. All he knew was that somehow he had to be at fault.

He traced visually the tortured path the rose branches wove above him. When Esther was still with them, he had pointed to the juxtaposition of thorns and blossoms as a lesson in trust.

“You must trust that you can get beyond the thorns and end up with ample reward. Trust in God facilitates that journey.”

He ran his hand down his tie and let it rest on his belt. Out of the corner of his eye, he could see Edie’s work bench sheltered under the eaves. He walked over and examined the elaborate tools hanging from the pegboard. Edie owned so many cutters. Did each type of plant require a different cutter? He unhooked the nearest one and turned it over in his hand. He’d have to get a ladder or risk cutting into the weave of intertwined lower branches.

Edie would never forgive him. He hung the cutter back on the board.

He heard a car coming down the street and listened as it approached. If it were Esther, he’d cut a rose anyway and hand it to her as she walked in the front door. Surely Edie would forgive him for desecrating her rose arbor for this occasion.

The car drove by without stopping. His breath escaped slowly. Tearing a leaf from the rose bush, he scrunched it in his hands and then looked down at what he’d done. The leaf’s green color was striated now. Smoothing it out wouldn’t rescue it. He stared at the mauled leaf, thinking, not for the first time, how unnatural his daughter’s withdrawal seemed. How could she not yearn to connect with her family? Even the prodigal son returned home in the end. And Esther wasn’t living a life of wasteful extravagance. At last account, she was teaching mathematics at an inner-city school, nothing to be ashamed about.

His arm dropped. The leaf floated onto the ground. He pulled the back door open and cringed at the whine of the hinges. Inside, he stood by the door and looked at his watch. 5:28. Seven minutes left before they had to leave. He turned to look through the screen at the rose arbor.

When he suggested that thorns and blossoms were a lesson in trust, Esther had gazed at him evenly. “They’re just thorns, Father. No need to complicate matters.”

This became their dialogue’s running theme once she was old enough to acknowledge for all of them how unsuited she was for the family she was born into. All his sermons and admonitions, it seemed, were attempts to complicate matters.

“Life is challenging enough,” she said. “God is an unnecessary complexity.”

His life’s work reduced to unnecessary complexity.

Less than an hour from now, that life’s work was being honored at a church dinner. The entire congregation was coming. Pastors from neighboring churches were invited. A small insurrection among the younger women threatened for about a day to include Edie as an equal partner in the acknowledgement until Edie found out and absolutely prohibited it. He debated whether to convince her to change her mind, but then was distracted by something, he couldn’t remember what.

Maybe, by wondering how Esther would react to the news of his being honored.

They sent her an invitation.

Her response came by return mail. “Congratulations, Father. A prophet is honored in his own land. You must be pleased. Love, Esther.”

He had walked into the kitchen and wordlessly handed the card to Edie. She wiped her hands and took the card, read it, blinked hard once, and handed it back to him. With economy of motion, she picked up her knife and began slicing carrots. Only today, in a momentary lapse, did he deign to state what they already suspected—Esther was not coming. Two years earlier, their only child announced that she would never step foot inside a church again. Why should today be any different? In the only land I really care about, Esther, the prophet is not honored. Had it been that bad, being the daughter of a minister and the lightning rod for everyone’s hubris of spiritual mastery?

He walked into the living room. Edie remained bent over the handkerchief. He stood behind her and looked over her slumped shoulders. Her precise stitches had nearly filled the hole in the lace border. It was an old handkerchief, yellowed, hardly worth preserving.

“Dear, that seems like eye-blinding work. Don’t you have one in better condition?”

Her needle paused in mid air. Then both hands floated to her lap as her head rose, her gaze fixed on a distant point. Not for long. She soon picked up her handkerchief and bowed her head. “You don’t remember,” she said in an even tone lacking vitality.

What had he forgotten? “Would this have belonged to your mother?”

A barely perceptible shaking of her head.

“I apologize for forgetting, Edie, but what don’t I remember?”

She paused in her stitching without raising her head. Then she inserted the needle into the lace again. “It was my grandmother’s.”

He still didn’t know. “Which one?”

“Grandma Hoxie,” she said in that dispirited voice. He stood straighter and took a deep breath, careful not to be heard.

Esther Hoxie. He had named his daughter after a Persian queen, savior of her Jewish people. Edie had named her after her grandmother, a woman whose iron mettle was embroidered with the appearance of fragile womanhood.

Edie raised her head abruptly. “You know, I don’t know if it was just hers.” Her voice became almost animated. “It could have belonged to her mother, my great grandmother, Edith Bramley.”

He walked around to the sofa abutting her chair and sat down. “Remarkable. That it’s still here, I mean.” Remarkable that one would hold onto something so inconsequential for so long.

She bit off the thread and then searched through the sewing basket on the floor. It was an orgy of spools, yarn, and bits of fabric. She shoved it all to one side and felt on the bottom for something. He couldn’t understand how she didn’t get stabbed by loose pins. Finally she straightened up, a pair of scissors in her hand. She snipped the thread close to the lace and threw the scissors back in her basket. He watched them spear a ball of yarn.

She raised the handkerchief to the light, holding it on two corners. Even he could see that the fabric was thin to the point of translucency in certain areas.

“Are you well satisfied with it?” he said.

She tilted her head slightly to one side. The handkerchief floated to the floor. Immediately, she bent over to retrieve it and placed it on her lap. Almost without touching it, she smoothed out its creases. She started to fold it but her hand fell to her side. The handkerchief lay inert, fragile, and tired, and she stared at it as if trying to make up her mind whether she was satisfied or not.

Finally, she looked up. “It hasn’t fallen apart.” With deliberate slowness, she placed the handkerchief in her pocket.

“It is admirable that you take such good care of it.”

Her jaw muscles flickered. “Good care is necessary, Reverend.”

He winced. The Reverend was a dead giveaway. Patently unfair, he could have said. There were two of us here. One of us could have kept her in the fold. Instead, he nodded slowly.

Edie stood up, brushed her skirt, and started walking away. In front of the fireplace, her gaze fixed on the mantel clock. She stopped and turned stiffly.

She looked beyond him. “It’s time to go.”

He noticed her feet were awkwardly juxtaposed as if she couldn’t quite manage a complete turn. He rose and stepped toward her. Before he could reach her, she was in motion again. By the front door, she paused to pick up her purse. Only inches behind her, he reached around her to open the door with his left hand. His right palm rose as if to guide her through, but he let it drop.


An interview with Judith Mercado:

Tell us about you.

Born in Puerto Rico to evangelical ministers, I moved at a young age to the U.S. That immersion in Latino and religious cultures preceded later experiences as a businesswoman and trawler live-aboard. My short stories have been published in literary magazines. My novels await publication. I blog at http://judithmercadoauthor.blogspot.com./

Tell us about your story.

“Asunder” emerged from asking the question, “How would a minister and his wife feel about their atheist daughter's rejection of the belief system that had defined their lives?” The story is not autobiographical though my parents were evangelical ministers, and I also left their church, albeit not to become an atheist. The central issue of a clash of beliefs is still the same, but the story’s characters and plot bear no other resemblance to my family’s story. I found that creating fictional characters freed me to address a question I often ask myself about my parents’ probable pain and dismay at my abandonment of their church. Had I been trying to write a memoir about that, I might have felt inhibited. That said, the question’s resonance for both the fictional and also the real-life families led me to care deeply about how the story’s characters resolved their situation. As I came to know them, though, I also became aware that their issue went far beyond their daughter’s rejection. I realized that these characters already had a history of not connecting with each other on a meaningful level. This was a family torn asunder on many levels, not just the specific issue of whether the daughter showed up or not for a dinner honoring her father.

Tell us about your future.

My literary plans and hopes include completing my work-in-progress novel, continuing to write for my Pilgrim Soul blog, finding literary agent representation, and—starry-eyed hope of starry-eyed hopes—getting my novels published and read by book buyers!

"Heart Seeker" by E.J. Alexander

The Literary Lab proudly presents the winner of the Genre Wars Science-Fiction/Fantasy category:

Heart Seeker
by E.J. Alexander

Owen McDoogal sat alone at his workbench, awash in the contented exhaustion of completion. He dabbed a square of breacan into the crock of beeswax, and rubbed a final coat along the dark wood--more in reluctance to set the weapon down than of any need of its already glossy shaft.

But it was done: his greatest work, the culmination of a CharmWeaver’s art. Owen breathed a final thank-you to Morrigan for her blessings, and wrapped the spear in a long strip of the cloth--the finest wools made proud with McDoogal colors.
He named the weapon Cride Iarr, Heart Seeker, for it could not err against the enemy, clan Dunnin.

Three weeks he’d labored. The shaft, made from a great rowan tree blasted by skyfire, was coated in a distillate of amber and ox blood. The head was fashioned from a glassy wedge of obsidian, serrated and keener than razor-ground iron. The bindings were sinew, the lamb offered up on the third day of the third week of the third month.

Most importantly, Morrigan herself imbued the weapon with her power. Throughout its crafting, he’d kept his chanting vigil, calling upon the great queen to weave his curses into every inch of the weapon. There was nothing more pure or focusing than cleansing one's mind of all but hatred.

A soft step outside the door interrupted Owen’s reverie. It was Nessa, his little sister, bringing food. His back protested with a spike of pain as he rose to receive her.

She carried his ale mug and a platter of beef, thick-sliced and red with blood.

“You work too hard,” she began her jovial chiding.

Nessa brought with her a brightness he looked forward to each day. And with her flowering, her beauty had come to match her disposition.

“Let me ease your back,” she said, setting the platter on the workbench.

“My thanks,” said Owen, stretching. “But no, come, please sit.” She possessed a thoughtfulness he could only wonder at.

Seeing the wrapped weapon, she stopped. “Is it . . .” Her hand went to her lips, fingers trembling.

“Yes, it is done. Thanks be.”

“What now?” Her voice quavered. She seemed to have grown suddenly weary.

“Take on one of the Lord Killian’s commissions, I expect. He has been insistent enough.”

“And an apprentice?”

“An apprentice would be as much work as help,” he said in a sharper tone than intended. She only wanted the best for him, Owen knew.

“Here, sit.” Owen offered his stool. “Tell me of your day.”

“A day like any other,” she said absently, not sitting.

“Is something wrong?” She seemed more closed to him lately. It hurt. He would not let anything be amiss between them.

“It will never be used,” she said.

“What?”

“There is peace now, there is no need . . .”

“As the gods will,” was all he could think to say. There had been an unusual stretch of calm, that was true, but it wouldn’t hold, Owen knew. He could sense the tension, like the air before a firestorm.

“Are you well, lass?” he asked, realizing how pale she had truly become.

“I am fine,” she managed, as she lifted her skirts from the flagstones and scurried out.

It was the next marketday when he discovered the awful truth. He was looking for a hawser-blade when he saw Nessa speaking closely with a young man. A stack of barrels partially concealed them. It took a full minute before he recognized the man. Conner Dunnin.

Fear stung him, nearly paralyzed him. He had to get her away from him. Dunnin would kill her in an instant if he learned who she was. She did not know the danger.
Owen rushed up and connected hard with Connor’s bony shoulder.

“Get away from her!”

Connor ducked away, disappeared behind the barrels, and was gone. Owen grabbed Nessa, pulling her aside.

“Are you all right? What did he do?”

“We were . . . just talking.”

“That was a Dunnin!”

“You hit him!”

“What? That was a Dunnin.”

“I know. Conner Dunnin. I love him.”

There were but few moments in Owen’s life where he was completely stunned. This was one. He stood trying to understand, trying to bring together the impossibilities. It was true, he realized, looking at her. Sometimes the world attacked without warning.


Rage welled up inside him again. Did she not know what those fiends could do--had done to their clansmen for as long as there were taletellers? How they stole cattle and sheep or just slaughtered them to rot in the field? How they murdered Uncle Fergus, leaving his severed head hanging by its braid from his door beam? How could she be so naïve?

“You know nothing of the world,” he said.

He felt light-headed and then leaden with responsibility. He had to protect her, lock her away from that filthy Dunnin’s sight. Perhaps Father could talk sense into her. Owen pulled her home.

Clan McDoogal’s steading sat upon a hill commanding verdant, rock-strewn pastures that rolled down into the sea. From within that great timber-beamed house, Seamus McDoogal reigned as chief.

Owen found him in the stable, his balding pate lowered, instructing young Angus in the mending of tack.

On hearing the story, a fire bloomed in Seamus’s eye. The outcome was inescapable.
Seamus reared up. “Take up the call,” he commanded of Angus.

“Gather the Clan!”

Joyously, Angus ran off to do as bidden.

Nessa’s anguished sobs and bold protests both surprised and troubled Owen. He had done the right thing, that was certain. But the strength of her emotion--the obvious pain she was suffering--called into question his actions and hurt him beyond words. She had even become physically sick. But no, it was still better for her to suffer now and be done with it rather than carry a senseless hope and endure years of heartache. The breaking of her good heart, though, broke him also.

Owen gathered his weapons.

As it had in ages past, the old orchard that lay midway between their steadings served as battlefield.

Nessa insisted on following; Seamus did not deny her. Perhaps it would be for the best--to witness a clear ending, to make from it a clean beginning. But as soon as one of the Dunnin clan appeared on the hilltop, Nessa ran off toward them.

Owen bit back a curse. This had to end, here and now, before Nessa got hurt. He spun Heart Seeker from its wrappings.

Conner was on his way down the hill to meet Nessa as Owen shouldered the weapon. This would make everything right again. Owen cocked the spear fully back. He hurled it with all his strength.

The spear soared high and far, seemingly past Conner, then began to waver wildly. It twisted suddenly downward.

Heart Seeker struck.

Nessa collapsed, pierced through.

Betrayed by Cride Iarr, by Morrigan, by his own hand, Owen fell to his knees. The world reeled. No! Not Nessa, not my sweet Nessa. What have I done?

Nessa was yet alive when he made it to her side. She lay with the spear protruding obscenely from her abdomen. Dark gore seeped from the wound, blackening her dress and tainting the air with its stench. Conner leaned close to her face, holding her hand. Owen was distantly aware of the two clans gathering around them.

Conner’s hands were red with Nessa’s blood. He straightened a lock of her hair, trailing a crimson line across her forehead. After a long moment, Conner moved a little aside to grant Owen space.

Owen took Nessa’s hand. “I’m sorry my dearest, I’m sorry. I am a fool. The gods mock me. In hurting you, they destroy me.” His tears splashed onto her chest.

She coughed. A pink bubble frothed at her lips. “Brother, do me one thing only.”

“Yes, anything. Anything, sweet lass.”

Her breath wheezed inward. “Help Conner build his barn.”

Owen paused for a heartbeat. He knew what that would mean. But even with his life he was willing to pay.

“Yes. Anything. I will help Conner build his barn. Yes.” He glanced up at Conner but could read only pain.

A runnel of blood formed at the corner of her mouth to race the glistening tears down her cheek.

“Your spear did strike true,” she assured him. “Not your fault . . .” She squeezed a little with her delicate hand. “Conner’s child.”

A raging confusion of hatred, fear, and grief racked him. But that was just like her, to use her last breath to try and ease his pain. It was her last act of kindness.

Owen’s head fell back and he released a long keening wail. In that cry was the whole of life’s misery and futility.

The clansmen, both Dunnin and McDoogal, stood witness, their weapons held loosely in their hands. One man dropped his axe and turned toward home. Then another withdrew, and another, until only Owen and Conner remained.

After a long while, Owen looked up. “You will kill me then?”

“Perhaps,” said Conner after a thoughtful silence. “But first we build a barn.”



An interview with E.J. Alexander:


LL: Tell us about you.

EJA: Just a writer trying to get the name out there.


LL: Tell us about your story.

EJA: Just a story.


LL: Tell us about your future.

EJA: Working on a collaborative graphic novel http://www.AmberGraphicNovel.com/


E.J., thank you for sharing your story with us! It's been a pleasure!

"Luminescence" by Susan James

The Literary Lab proudly presents the winner of the Genre Wars Romance category:

Luminescence

by Susan James

God, I hate this car. And costume parties. Why can't adults simply sip beverages and have witty conversation? Why do we need to wear idiotic costumes to party? And when did I start sounding like a grumpy middle-aged woman?

It comes with the hangover, I suppose. And the car overheating, again. And the big bottle of antifreeze I carry in the trunk being empty after driving out to that party last night, but me not remembering that when I woke up in the pool house with a sledge hammer banging inside my head and the arm of some guy I didn’t know thrown across my bare stomach. So, now, I’m walking down the highway in a Jedi robe. The hood is nice for hiding beneath, but it does add to the sweltering heat.

As I stumble along through the weeds, a car slows behind me. I don’t even look. What kind of a weirdo would pick up a Jedi at 8 a.m. on a country road?

"Ah, my young Padawan," says a deep, male voice, "it seems you are in need of a lift back to Coruscant."

I still don't look up. Better to savor a fantasy for later, than to be axed-murdered now by a delicious sounding stranger.

"Seriously," says the voice, "you're going to pass out from heat exhaustion or dehydration from that hangover you have."

I stop. "How can you tell I have a hangover?"

"I was at Mike’s party too."

I turn to stare straight into the soulful gray eyes. No way, I’d have remembered him.

As if he read my mind, he reaches over on the seat and holds up a Batman costume. "I was hiding too. Behind a mask."

I did remember Batman or at least the body that filled the costume without need of padded abs and chest. "Weren’t you with Scarlett?"

"Yes. She invited me and I’d run out of excuses. I tried to get over to introduce myself to you. Especially after you, Vader, and Dumbledore threw off your robes and jumped in the pool, but Scarlett’s crinolines were always in the way."

"Yea, and the silicone leaping out of her bodice."

"Well, yes. That too."

"And the circle of men admiring them."

"Seems some guys get turned on by cantaloupes with nipples."

Headache or not, I laughed.

"Come on," he says. "I'm not an axe-murderer."

"No, just a mindreader."

He looked down pushing the Batman costume aside. "It’s just common sense, isn’t it? I’ve got AC, but you prefer to walk, in that robe, which is trailing way too close to that fire ant colony. Just let me take you to the truck stop up the road. You can get a coffee, a Gatorade, whatever, and some more antifreeze."

"Antifreeze? How’d you know that?"

"That was really easy. The big bottle of antifreeze, uncapped, and thrown, or maybe kicked, into the road beside your car." He smiled, slow and sweet. "Seriously, if I do anything funny, you can always hit me with your light saber."

Suddenly, I didn't hate my car so much or costume parties.

I got in, but I did hold the lightsaber firmly in my hand. Silly, really. What would a plastic toy really do? Even if it was a deluxe collectors’ edition. I kept my eyes on the road ahead though I continued to fidget with the switch on the saber.

"You must be a big fan," he says. "So, who’s your favorite Jedi?"

"It’s not mine. It’s my son’s."

I watched his face, waiting for the acknowledgment in his eyes. A kid? Oh, no. Better back off before I get stuck with some other guy’s annoying brat.

He smiled. "So, who’s his favorite Jedi?"

I blinked, but not because I didn’t know the answer. "Yoda."

"Good pick. How old is your son?"

"Seven."

He smiled, again. "A great age. Old enough to understand almost all the story while young enough to still believe it’s possible."

"Yea." A smile tugged at my mouth. "He…asked me the other day, if he could get tested for medi-chlorians. And, by the way…my favorite Jedi is Luminara."

He nodded approval. "She’s pretty kick ass in that scene at the secret temple. Or is it just," he waved a hand around his head, "that headdress she wears."

"I like her heightened awareness, her keen sense of danger."

"Or lack there of."

He said it humbly enough that I took his original hint and pushed back my hood.

The AC felt good on my face. The sledge hammer in my head downsized to a gavel, lightly struck. If only I had my toothbrush…

"Would you like some gum?" he asks. "Spearmint." He reached into the console and pulled out a pack, offering it to me.

"It’s strange…how you seem to know what I’m thinking."

He took a piece, opened it one-handed and chewed it with relish. "Well, it’s just common sense, again. There’s nothing like minty gum to give you a new lease on life."

I took a piece. "I take it you didn’t make it home last night either."

"No, I did. I live on the next property, back by the river. I was on my way into town when I saw you. My name’s Mark Smith, by the way."

"I’m Willa."

He was already pulling into the truck stop. "I needed gas, so I’ll be here after you get what you need. I’ll be happy to drive you to your car. In fact, I can get what you need when I pay for the gas, if you…don’t want to go inside."

I pull the hood back up. "I’m OK, but thanks for offering. And for the lift. And the gum."

Walking into the store, I felt his eyes on me and was glad, once again, for the costume. I didn’t have to worry whether my butt looked big or my hair ratty.

I got the antifreeze and a bottle of chilled water taking a big swig immediately. It was nirvana. I’m felt so much better, already. But maybe, just maybe, I could let Mark give me a ride back. I’ve never gelled so quickly with anyone before.

The heavily made up woman behind the counter didn’t seem one bit fazed by the costume. Guess she’s seen it all. But, I turn slightly to the side as I reach into the neck of the robe and down into my sport’s bra for the twenty I’d slipped there before I’d left for the party.

It was gone. Panicked, I felt the other side. Nothing.

"If you’re done with that, lady, I need you to pay now. Another customer’s coming."

I glanced at the door. Mark was pulling it open with his bright grey eyes fixed on my hand still stuck down the neck of my robe.

The flush on my face spread to the roots of my dull brown hair.

He walked to the counter. "Are you all right?"

"I had some money…but, it’s gone. It must’ve fallen out last night."

"No problem. I’ve got it."

"But it’s not just the water—"

"I got the antifreeze too."

"I feel so stupid."

"No need to. I’m glad to help." He put the money on the counter.

I picked up the antifreeze. I would carry that myself. Damsel in distress! How’d I fall into that stupid role? I retreated away from the counter, from the smirk on the clerk’s face, and stared out the glass door at his truck, not new, nicely broken in as if he actually uses it for hauling and working land.

His hand appeared on the door and begins to push it open. A nice hand, not too big, not delicate and not particularly calloused for one owning such a work truck. He smiled that sweet smile. "I’d have had to follow you, anyway. You left the lightsaber on the seat."

"God!" I cried choking on a mouthful of water. "I am out of it today."

He nodded, walking along beside me. "Luke would not have been happy with you."

I stopped dead still several yards from the truck. Goose bumps rippled my skin despite the heat radiating off the pavement. "I didn’t tell you my son’s name was Luke."

He’d stopped too, turning toward me as though worried I wasn’t coming. Or that I might faint, for God’s sake, like the feeble heroines in so many fantasies.

I could see his eyes when he took in my words. I saw them shift to the side, and I’d seen no surprise at the coincidence, no amusement to go along with a line such as Well, you know, I just picked the first Jedi name to come to mind.

He’d registered real surprise, at himself, at me, for catching him. And remorse that he’d let me. I take a big step back.

He smiled, sadly. "I know I sound like a creep. But, I was attracted to you. I eavesdropped on you last night. When you called your son to say good night before he went to bed. He’s staying with your mom, right? You told her you were having an OK time. It sounded like she had to convince you to stay. That’s was before Dumbledore and Vader showed up. Listen, I know I sound like a stalker, but I won’t hurt you…at least, come and get the lightsaber."

I stayed where I was. "I took the phone into that small room off the kitchen. I closed the door. There wasn’t anyone in there. Not you. Not anyone. And if you were listening outside, why didn’t you stick around, if you were trying to meet me. And what’s up with that? I’m clean. I’m healthy. I keep fit—I’m a brown belt in Taek Won Do."

Mark chuckled, but I continued undaunted. "But I’m no head turner. I’m average. Average height. Average weight. Average brown hair--"

"Your mind’s not average, Willa."

"You overheard one phone conversation. I hardly talked to anyone else, until I had enough margaritas. I’m sure I sounded really intelligent after that. Were you looking for a drunk, a loner, a loser without a cell phone to call for help?"

The smile was gone, but the eyes were more soulful than ever. "I was looking for someone like you.” He took a big breath, “I heard your mind, Willa."

"WHAT?"

"You jog Willa, eat well, but you don’t take martial arts. Luke does. You can’t afford a cell phone because you’d rather pay for his classes and lightsabers." Mark was smiling again. "You’re a wonderful mother. You’re thoughts of him are…so warm and full. That’s why I could read them. The rest of your mind isn’t so easy, branching here and there. Unlike Scarlett. Not much there and what is—boring."

I took another step back, frantically wondering how I was going to get the lightsaber. The antifreeze I still held clutched to my chest. If I cracked him on the head with it.

"No need to do that, Willa. Look at the truck."

My goosebumps multiplied as the light saber floated out the window and into my hand. He was smiling, sadly. "It was really nice meeting you. I’d hoped…I’d thought with an imagination like yours, you might believe it isn't all fiction...that a person could crash into another world, be stranded and lonely. Tell Luke it’s not about some chemical in your blood that you’re born with or without. It’s how you use your mind, what you read, learn and try. We can’t all be Jedi, but we can be something."

At the turn to the highway, he looked back. I hadn’t moved. I’d hardly blinked. The switch on the lightsaber shifted and the light came on, a clear purple, shimmering from my hand, a bright spot lighting the drab, dirty pavement below.

I raise it, motioning for him to come back.

An interview with Susan James:

LL: Tell us about you.

SJ: Currently, I'm a mom who sneaks time to write in between washing soccer uniforms and walking Frodo, the dog. Before kids, I taught history. I've always loved stories from the past especially the long past where facts get blurred and imagination can take over.

LL: Tell us about your story.

SJ: My story idea came from my lit group. The prompt: write about hot sun and costumes. I grew up in South Texas and actually had a car that overheated regularly. I really did carry a large jug of antifreeze in the trunk and had to stop in the midst of weeds and fire anthills in order to fill it up. My son is a huge Star Wars fan, and so am I. After that, the facts blur and imagination takes over.

LL: Tell us about your future.

SJ: I hope my future includes an agent and a contract for my female-oriented fantasy, Beneath The Trees, but if that never happens, I sure had a lot of fun writing it. As my beta reader said, "It was a great ride." I'm really excited to be in this Anthology. I've also got a new story started, something completely different: modern day and rather grim.

Susan, thank you so much for this wonderful story!

Cornered

I'm writing a novel (hey, who isn't?), and this weekend I discovered that, deep in the heart of the Second Act, I had written myself into a corner. For those of you who have never done that or don't know what I mean, writing yourself into a corner is when you have made it impossible, for whatever reason or reasons, for your story to move forward. Your characters are separated from the next plot point by a chasm of circumstance you yourself have created, and you can't figure out a way to get them to it and continue the story. In my case, I had three main characters (MC1, MC2 and MC3) and a secondary character (SC). MC1 was having breakfast (it's morning). MC2 was asleep, because he was awake all night worrying. MC3 and SC were off having a picnic. Now, because MC2's sleep schedule was messed up and MC3 was off with SC, I had no way of getting them together to interact, which is what's called for next. So, huh. It looked dire, and it looked like I was going to have to go back and rewrite huge chunks of this already-long chapter.

And that's the thing with being cornered like this; you really only have two options: to keep writing forward and hope you find a way to get the story back on course, or go back and change whatever it was that pushed the story off the rails.

I am hesitant to ever take that second way, because even though I write from an outline, I also allow myself to improvise and be inspired (as I like to call it when nobody's looking) and my first draft especially is sort of a series of open doors through which I invite all sorts of unconscious images and influences to enter the story. Which means that if I have a sudden idea that's different from what I have in my outline and the idea feels right, I go with it and damn the consequences. Which is what I'd done to get myself into that corner.

The weird little plot and character twists that came into the story and mucked up my plans are things that I really like. They add depth to the characters and they add tension to the story and one of my little arbitrary rules for first drafts is that if an idea won't go away, it's probably the right idea and I should use it and find a different idea for whatever I had planned that no longer fits.

Also, and possibly more importantly, I may be starting to think that these corners into which we write are not so impossible to get out of as we might think, and that may be the real lesson here. I told Mighty Reader about the trouble I was having moving forward in the story, and she just looked at me like I was an idiot and asked, "Well, why don't you just have the guy wake up?" Well, huh. Why don't I? That is of course what I did, and the fact that he'd only had about four hours of sleep played brilliantly in the following scenes. This is something Mighty Reader and I do too often: I'll tell her about a problem I have with the story and she'll propose a simple solution and I'll reject it out of hand as wrong wrong wrong it just can't work that way what are you trying to do drive me insane and then, a few hours later, I'll announce that I have solved my story problem by using a simple solution that came to me out of the blue and color me genius, darling. Mighty Reader will then point out that I've used the solution she proposed. Well, huh. That's why I'm dedicating all my books to her. And that's why I suggest you might discuss your story with a neutral observer whenever you get cornered, because the odds are you're just too wrapped up in the plot to see that your character is trapped between a cliff you've created and, you know, that big door marked "exit" right beside her that you're just too distracted to have noticed.

And you, then? Ever found that you've written yourself into one of these hated narrative corners? Do you have a system for getting out of them? Do you have some long-suffering listener who'll tell you that you're being an idiot and making it much harder than it has to be?

Also: We'll begin posting the winning stories from the Genre Wars contest beginning tomorrow! Stay tuned!

Also: I have not proof read this post! There are probably typos and grammatical errors!

The Minority Isn't Always Wrong

First off, I want to thank everyone who participated in the posts here last week. My heart is warmed by the thought that fellow writers would take the time to question and argue over our art form, its making, and its publication.

Today is set aside to honor Martin Luther King Jr. And, along with remembering this great man, I'm also reminded of the other minorities out there--socially and politically, and also in the arts--who are still being silenced today. In countries around the world, like China and Iran, there are writers who have been imprisoned for having opinions that are different from their ruling class or simply for searching for the truth. In our own country, so many people become restricted due to the way they were born or the way they think. So often it seems like the minority is wrong, simply because they are the minority. Of course, this is absurd.

The minority isn't always wrong.

So, today, for all the people who feel like they have opinions that are different from what the majority is shouting out, remember that you may be right; remember that you may still change the world, even if that battle seems impossible to win at times.

And, if you need to be reminded of the power of writing, remember that Martin Luther King Jr. (with Bayard Rustin) was inspired by the teachings of Mohandas Gandhi, who was inspired by the writings of Leo Tolstoy, who was inspired by the writing of Adin Ballou on non-violent resistance.

Note: Rick Daley announced that he's opened a new blog for critique exchanges. It's called, oddly enough, critXchange. Check it out if you're looking to give and receive feedback.

Plot and Premise Are Not Story

First, here's a story for you.

"The Red King and the Mountain of Black Glass"

Two great armies were contesting a region of Asia around a solitary mountain where a highly-prized black glass could be found. The glass was sacred to the gods worshipped by the kings of both armies. The war went on for years and many brave soldiers met their deaths on the field, but neither army could defeat the other. Finally it was decided that the warrior-kings would battle face-to-face, one man against the other, for dominion over the mountain of black glass and the surrounding territory.

The kings met on the appointed day in the appointed spot and at the appointed hour they drew their swords and fell to battle. They fought recklessly, with joy and fearless violence and were evenly matched but at last the Red King wounded the White King, who called for mercy and withdrew his claim on the mountain of black glass. The Red King let the White King escape with his forces and then he took possession of the lands. His first task was to set up a great throne at the summit of the mountain of black glass, so that he might survey his conquered territory and all who looked at the mountain would see that it was his.

The Red King himself would drive the first iron piling into the head of the mountain; it was to be one of many long pins that would form the foundation of his great marble-and-gold throne. The king's best general held the piling and the Red King hefted a massive iron maul and brought it down upon the long iron pin, driving it into the top of the mountain.

Where the piling bit into the rock and split it, hot gasses vented out and the king and his generals stepped back. The ground began to shake and the rock of the mountain split wider and molten lava poured fourth. The king, who stood closest to the wound in the mountain's summit, was swallowed up by a fountain of lava and burned alive instantly. The whole of the Red King's army scattered and never returned, and the White King marched back and took possession of the sacred mountain, which soon quieted and returned to sleep.

I am prepared to say that the above narrative tells a story. I wrote it on Wednesday afternoon, and it's based on this Aesop's fable:

"The Fighting Cocks and the Eagle"

Two game cocks were fiercely fighting for the mastery of the farmyard. One at last put the other to flight. The vanquished Cock skulked away and hid himself in a quiet corner, while the conqueror, flying up to a high wall, flapped his wings and crowed exultingly with all his might. An Eagle sailing through the air pounced upon him and carried him off in his talons. The vanquished Cock immediately came out of his corner, and ruled henceforth with undisputed mastery.

My version is certainly longer than Aesop's, but I claim that both narratives relate practically the same story. You will notice that the plots--the events that transpire--are similar but not the same. You will notice that the characters and the settings are not the same. It also looks like my version of the story is not an allegory, but it's very clear that Aesop's story is nothing if not allegory. Both versions have at their core the idea that pride goes before a fall, that braggarts will have their comeuppance.

So what parts of these stories are, in fact, the stories?

"Pride goes before a fall" is not a story. It's a moral.

"What if there was a war to claim a volcano?" is not a story. It's a premise.

"What if two roosters fought to see who was alpha male of a farmyard?" is not a story. Is also a premise.

"Two cocks fight in a farmyard; one chases the other off; the winning bird jumps onto a wall; an eagle swoops down and grabs him; the losing bird takes over the farmyard" is also not a story. It's a plot.

"Two kings fight over a volcano; one king withdraws; the winning king opens a volcanic vent while digging the foundation for a throne; the volcano briefly erupts, killing the king; the dead king's army flees; the other king moves in and takes over" is also not a story. It's a plot.

So the plot is not the story. The premise is not the story. The moral, if you go in for those sorts of things, is not the story. The prose style is not the story. What then, is the story?

On Wednesday, Big D talked about the necessity of writers having a good idea in order for a story to be good. What is the main idea driving the above stories? Yesterday, in the comments to Michelle's post, I harangued Andrew about what parts of a narrative (though I had at that point not cleverly differentiated between "narrative" and "story"*) could be changed while retaining the same story.

Possibly, and I throw this out because it's the first thing that occurs to me, the image of the moment where the prideful character falls is the big idea in the above stories. The Red King with the great iron hammer splitting the stone of the mountain and the lava spewing out; the cock on the wall crowing and suddenly snatched up in the talons of a diving eagle. Is that the big idea? Because I was already writing my version before I had that "iron pin and hammer" image to write about. But then again, I already knew it ended with the Red King dead and the White King taking over, because I'd read the Aesop.

What do we mean by the central idea of a story, anyway? Do we mean theme? Do we mean the idea that sparks us and urges us on to write it, or do we mean the idea that the reader will take away from the reading experience? Are these the same ideas, even? I don't know, but I might doubt it. Antonia Byatt, in the second novel of the "Babel Tower" quartet, says that she wrote that book because she had an image in her imagination of a woman in a flower garden standing up and stretching her back. Everything flowed from that. Is that the central idea of the book, then? One doubts.

Anyone want to take a stab at any of these questions? There are no wrong answers, just individual experiences of writing, I think. Anyone?

I think that while the central idea is different in each story, the type of idea, the class of idea if you will, is the same. The function of the idea that makes it a story is the same across stories, because stories are, I think, types of things that are similar to one another in some ways. I am looking for the Platonic Story, the archetype of stories, the ur-story.

Why does this matter? I'm not sure. For several years after finishing my first (awful) novel, I thrashed around writing short stories, convinced that I didn't even know what a story was. It was a frightening place to be, actually, filled with cognitive dissonance and headaches. Now I don't think so much about what a story is; I just manage to write them and I think about the idea of storytelling rather than story. But still I wonder.

And, you know, likely all of this was covered in yesterday's comments, and nobody wants to rehash all of it. It's just that I have this intuition that, back of premise, setting, character and plot, there is an invisible thing that is the story itself, and I want to get at that thing. I become increasingly convinced that the way we discuss story is both complicatedly misguided (or misguidedly complicated) and an oversimplification. My headache, she returns.

*"Story" is the idea to be conveyed, which includes character, motivation, and the causality of the universe. Maybe. We still don't have a definition of "story." And "narrative" is the artwork which conveys the story. For example, "Lord of the Rings" is a narrative that tells the story of Frodo Baggins and the One Ring. "Camelot" is a narrative that tells the story of Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table. "The Once and Future King" is another narrative telling the same story, but without the songs.

A Damn Good Story

*shakes off dust from sleeves*

*clears throat*

I'm back, yes, I'm back. With a real-live post, thoughts, and everything. Please excuse any incoherency and/or boring thoughts. I'll be back to my usual fun self in a post or two. You know, practice and all that.

I've taken a peek at Scott's post for tomorrow, and it goes hand-in-hand with what I planned to post about today. His thoughts are in answer to Davin's post yesterday about making sure we have a Good Idea presented in our story - and not just covering up a mediocre/bad/non-existent idea with good/fancy/grand-sprig-of-parsley writing.

I believe Davin and I have had a similar experience with our current works-in-progress (which we just swapped to read yesterday - for the second time). We both started with good, but vague ideas not cemented in anything - and after months and months and even years, finally worked a central Good Idea into our story.

I don't know about you, but I don't come up with some grand Good Idea before I start my novels. Even if I think I have something brilliant brewing in the back of my brain, it all gets changed and boiled down to nothing but a dry bone by the time I'm really into the meat of the story. Somewhere in the writing process my novels change and adapt to a mold different from what I planned. I'm okay with that. I plan as much as I can. I like to pretend I have control over the story and where it's going, but in reality, there are so many elements taking over that I often don't have enough arms and fingers to catch them all and pin them down. But I like that. I like the organic feel of my story pushing me in different directions as a writer because it means I've created something that feels alive and original.

So if I don't have complete control over the central Good Idea of my story, where on earth does it come from? My subconscious? And, as Scott will argue, what exactly IS it? Is it theme? Something that connects the layers of a story, all the characters? What they learn? What their experiences teach the reader? Is it a specific scene? The central action/conflict, a moral?

And, does it even matter?

All I know is that I've read some damn good novels lately. One of them was Young Adult, one was Science-Fiction, one was a literary classic. Genre didn't matter, plot didn't matter, even style and execution didn't matter, in how the books made me feel when I finished reading them.

Davin has a good point that many books are judged by their adornments. Many readers may not see the "core" of the story, the "heart," the central "Good Idea." If there even is one. If someone were to ask me what the Good Ideas are for the novels I just read, I couldn't say. I know my current novel has some sort of central Good Idea running through it, but I'm not sure I can pinpoint what it is even though I wrote it! The closest I can come is to say: "Trust is a two-way street" - but that sounds corny and boring and limp, and too much like a forced theme. Nothing like what all my adornments and style and plot and characters turn it into.

And I'm willing to bet that Davin, when he's finished reading it, will say the Good Idea is something completely different.

In the end - and I know I'll be shot down for this, so get your guns ready - a good story often depends on the reader, not the writer. If I set out to look for the central Good Idea in a story, I'm probably going to find one (even if I can't completely define it) if the story is decently written at all. And if I happen to like that Good Idea and I can apply it to myself, the story is going to resonate with me and I'm more than likely going to think it's a fine piece of work. Of course, all those adornments mean something, too. I can't like a story much if poor writing gets in the way of everything else. See what a snob I am? I won't even get into what constitutes poor writing for me. Let's save that can of worms for another day.

A Good Idea Is A Good Idea

In a way, convincing someone that you are a good writer requires backward logic. Readers must begin to read by paying attention to the details, word by word, sentence by sentence, and not until they are done reading your entire story can they judge it as a whole. While one person's story might be more solid as a unit, another person's writing might be judged as "better" when readers are initially trying to decide between the two based on opening paragraphs, or sample sentences, or anything other than the piece in its entirety.

BUT, we as writers must trust that the reader is able to judge the story as a whole, eventually, because the alternative, leading someone through 300 pages of smooth-flowing prose only to reveal a story void of quality ideas is...sucky.

The idea. Coming up with a good idea is something writers often forget to do. I say this because I've read at least 300 short stories in 2009, and many times a piece will impress me until I stop to actually think about it. And, sadly, I often don't bother to come up with good ideas myself. My desire to write is so strong that I just want to get words down on a page, and then my drive to make those words engaging pushes me to revision, and before I know it, I have spent two years (or seven) polishing a book that doesn't have that critical good idea at its center.

What do I mean by a good idea? That depends on what you are writing about. A love story, for example, won't be an interesting story if the love isn't interesting. Even if it's written in beautiful prose, mundane love will feel mundane. Or, if one is writing a story about a criminal mastermind who tries to steal the nose off of the Statue of Liberty, a pathetic plan to get that nose (a really big saw!) won't feel satisfying. (Okay, okay, unless you're going for some sort of irony.)

If my own writing practice is any indication of other people's writing practices, we are not spending nearly enough time on developing that initial good idea--or the other good ideas required throughout a story. And, a dumb idea garnished with a grand sprig of parsley will only impress for so long. Eventually, the leaf gets lifted.

So, I'm sorry. I'm sorry because the FIRST thing we need to work on, the thing that takes the most brilliance, is the LAST thing a reader will see, if they ever see it at all. And, I'm sorry that pushing yourself so that the heart of your story is solid doesn't necessarily result in a reader's recognition that your writing is good when they are browsing through your book before committing to read the whole thing. A solid foundation is necessary to write a good book, but that good book will often be judged by its adornments. Still we press on, hoping that someone will see our vision and heart. And, our ultimate goal is to make everything exquisite, so that the lovely prose does not cover for a bad idea, and the good idea is not hidden by bad prose.