Short Story

Short Story: 

The question should be what am I not?

Well, they say I am not a psycho.  I don't dry my underwear in the hand dryers of the downtown public restroom.  I don't shout "what uuuup" like a barely teen would in a grocery store.  A broken up women looking up me from the ground while I stock shelves and she asks, "Is that how you address your customers?"

I am not a therapist.   I do not listen to the hurt purge their problems on my ears as if my ears were their garbage cans.  I am not one of those psycho ex-husbands who takes a divorce the wrong way and decides to issue a restraining order against his ex-wife and calls the police if she even shows up at a restaurant to ask for her alimony checks, while her kids squalor in the background.

The Rubber Ducky wasn't so Lucky

Short Story

"The Black of Night isn't that scary-you know?!"

"And what is scary?" 

"Scary is web surfing in the wee-hours of night and getting real bored. Exhausting every search ideal until you you start googling people."

"Oh yeah! Who'd you google?  Asks Franny.

I started with my ex boyfriends and was met with one of the scariest mugshots I ever seen.  Once I clicked on the mugshot-I was met with a world of pain.  Sentenced with fifth degree misdemeanor: assault by strangulation.

"Lucky for you, right?"

"Yeah, but the Rubber Ducky wasn't so lucky."

Writer's tips

1.A reader should know which point of view you're in.  Paint a clear picture so we know

what's going on.

2.Present tense in novel writing is a bit unpopular.  Present tense is one more obstacle

to getting published.  Having the narrator in present tense can be hard in telling a story.

3.A character figuring out how to use things too early or quickly in a novel can be a pitfall. Make sure that you explain how a character figures out how they use specific gadgetry.

4. Giving a character a funny name can set the tone for your novel. Like a name like Bolleylocks can tell readers that the writing is going to be a bit funny and unrealistic and this particular character is going to be a jester in the novel.

5.Ring lardner wrote "Shut up," he complained. Even though shut up is not a complaint.

6. A good way to start and end a short story is have the same character open and close in the same train of thought

and setting.

7.Sometimes it frustrates readers (who are not writers) to have  a main character be a writer and the hero and to characterize writing as the greatest possible career.

8. There is a lot of tension from a writer as they ask themselves how do I get to the end of a story?  and them asking themselves how much time do I dwell on a particular scene?

9.If your writing a historical novel, it's easy to get off course with adding action and not historical information, to balance the action without history,

use a bit more psychological thinking of the character to allow readers to understand why you are inserting an extra action scene.

10.Don't make your dialogue merely information sharing, it needs to be interesting and add characterization.

 

Short snippet on a story I'm working on.

By the time Miranda dropped off Dougie and reached home, she seen a blinking red glow on her message system indicating a message.  She pushed play and the tape deck turned on, the tape from the cassette begun spinning.  The messenger sounded like a pilot giving flight news.  

"Ahh... this message is for Miranda.  Ahhhh.. this is Steve Corwell.  We received a note ahhh...  saying that you'd like to set up a time to meet with ahhh....,    Call me at your earliest convenience ahhh, 555,5555.  Thank you"
"There is a light at the end of the tunnel!" Miranda exclaimed.  A friend told her once that if she kept busy, work would come to her.

If you were

If you were...


If you were a cat I'd bring a bat
If you were a cow I'd say good-bye now
If your were a lazy-day on a Monday
I'd curl by your side and have a latte
If you were a chocolate I'd eat you all up
If you were a sign, 
I'd have to say shut up.

But you are not a cat
Nor a bat
Nor a cow
You are not a lazy- day,
 It is not a Monday
I can't sit by your side, I can't have a latte
I can't tell you-to shut up 
Because you are gone
and that is enough.

Tennant home

   

A Three Minute Free Write

"What a pigsty!"I say.  "Not nearly what I expected."  

This is a woman who clamored down on her tenant for wiping a single hand print on her pure white washed walls.  A woman who wrote passive aggressive post-it notes  on the bathroom mirror.  A woman whom if you passed gas without spraying you were in very deep s#i%.  Or if you left your leftovers in the refrigerator she'd start fumigating the kitchen.  Her tenant's home was immaculate:   rodent free floors with rodent free walls, rodent free pipes and rodent free walls. 

And the landlord's own home was filled with dirty laundry, basket upon basket.  A hoarder's dream.  The kitchen was filled with pop cans, bag upon bag, waiting for the collector's to give her a dollar.  Was it worth it? I asked.  She'd collect the pop cans at work, a book club, at her nearest grocery store.  Are you done with that?  She'd scoop up the can from the patron's hand, throw it in her recycled bag for safe keeping while her home was collecting.

      












Writing Prompt:
Capture Life's Memories

Do I capture them with a camera
OR with my facebook App?
I'm not sure which memomies will do.
I'm not sure which Mark Zuckerberg will approve of.


South Minneapolis

Wing Rider

Short Story

As I arrived

I wasn't exactly early

not exactly late

they were still passing drinks

Green Goblets of laden filled alcohol

I passed

I had the tolerance of a chubby toddler.

I smiled at the host.

Steery Sparn, Farnard

Who gleamed at me from underneath his bifocals

Solid eyes that told stories of 

late nights and heavy book reading

He came to congratulate me on my recent success. 

Story #3 Derrick and his Tundra Theater in November

Man, it must be hard to work in a coffee shop.  All of that running around to please customers.  No sense of artistic development.  That’s why I got to dance, he thought.  It’s for me and it’s for all my dancers.  Without dancing, I’d be like a pretzel    siting and wandering when it’s my time to shine. time for coffee.  Derrick got up to look around at the shop.  He picked up a bag of espresso beans and tossed in his other hand.  Then one of his songs played on the mic. 

He nodded at the manger showing his appreciation of hip hop music in the shop instead of the typical elevator music that permeated.  He did a few two steps to the card tree, picking up some of the cards.  .
The afternoon began settling in.  Everyone has their agenda and from Derrick’s vantage point he can gaze in on all of their rehearsals. steal.  The tundra-like theater allows each of the dance rooms to be sections off like cubicles allowing the casual observer from above to be able to observe like a vulture peering out at it prey.  This is the greatest vantage point, derrick thinks, he feels as if he’s a conductor and his dancers are his marionettes. 

Story # 4 Derrick Starts a Duel

Derrick in preparing for the acting duel takes a fake sword and begins to show the dancers the duel, the whole time, derrick has a look of scorn and utter hatred for his opponent, some dancers play out the fake sword hits with a taping of a cymbal? Like salsa dancing, Matching each sound.

Two dancers walk out as if they are going to start a conflict, they have determination casted looks on their face, their hair is short and their check bones sharp.Steal.  The dance goes on as derrick goes up the stairs matching his opponents every strike with a strke in returns, he lands on the ground and flips over in pinwheeling on the floor in amazement that he took a wound to his chest. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6idyuKJRK8c