Tag: fiction

The Writing Moment

One important matter that many new writers overlook is, what does their muse want?

The muse can fill a critical function in the fiction writin’ process, so identifying them and learning what they like — and DISLIKE — can be a significant component of your personal process. Sometimes, as it is for me, it’s more than one muse, so the aspiring writer must pay attention to who the muses are and what they do. Fer ‘nstance, my muses love coffee. Don’t try to pawn tea or chai off on ‘em; they’ll inform you with seething disgust that they’re not the same. However, some of the muses are more impatient and arrogant than the others. Some of them read someone else’s fiction and immediately scream into my ear, “Write something like that!” I’m always coping with them doing that. The way I do so, with more patience and caution that touching a sleeping cat’s belly, is to gently promise I will write something like that after I finish this (whatever this is) and hope they accept and quiet down.

BTW, don’t try to overlook the grammar and punctuation muses. They can be wrong but they will push and push for a decision about a comma, period, tense, noun, verb, and so on, until they’re satisfied (at least for the moment).

My muses are not fond of writing at home, cuz cats, spouse, phone – well, environmental distractions. (Yeah, we still have a home phone, althought it’s VOIP.) My muses like it in a noisy coffee shop where nobody pays attention to them and they can write in peace surrounded by people bustling around on their business. As I have multiple muses (sometimes called musi in the more traditional plural spelling) (yeah, just kiddin’ ‘bout that), I need to ensure the right one shows up on time. Little is worse for me than entering a revision session only to have a ‘new project’ muse enter to help, suggesting the concept for a new novel, novella, short story, movie, song, play, or essay.

Last, my musi demand time and focus on them everyday. If they don’t get it, they spoon crankiness, exasperation, and irritation into my mood. So, every day, no matter what’s happenin’, they want me to sit and write or edit. They don’t care if zombies are overrunning the neighborhood, a blizzard is underway, or nukes are falling. Nor is being hungry, sick, or social engagements a concern for ’em. They want their writing or editing time. And don’t think that research is good enough for the muse. I’ve tried mollifying them with research; my muses don’t buy it and will sometimes go off and sulk, leaving me without a muse to write. I can do it, but it’s a bit like having problems with a bowel movement.

Now, back to writing. So sayeth the muse what’s in charge.

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Sixteen Days

Note: Blame Afterwards for this. He posted Afterwards Writing Prompt #1 – Monday 8th of January – “Darla” – Sci Fi – Something a little sci fi to start the year off.

As I’m occupied with revising and editing a novel, my muses got excited and pushed out a small piece just to alleviate some creative juices. Cheers

Sixteen Days

Her first words were, “My name is Darla,” spoken a few seconds after she opened her luminous gray eyes, about a minute after they’d cut her umbilical cord.

As expected, a speaking infant galvanized reactions in the delivery room. They were just recovering from her eyes opening and the way she’d looked around. “I have never seen anything like that,” the nurse, Dee, avowed, her own eyes big and glowing with shock, “and I’ve been doing deliveries for twenty-six years and gave birth to five children of my own.”

The mother, Amy asked, “What’s going on?” A clamoring of explanations followed until her husband, Andi, said loudly, “Our daughter just told us her name is Darla.”

Amy said, “That’s not what I want to name her.”

“I know, I know,” Andi said. “The, the, the baby said it. The baby is the one who said her name is Darla.”

With Amy repeating with arching eyebrows, “The baby said that,” Darla said as the nurse handed her to Amy, “I’m sorry, Mom. I know you wanted to name me after Heather Cox Richardson because you admire her, but I was named before I was born. I’m Darla. It can’t be changed now. The history is already written.”

While others verbally speculated over what Darla said and hunted for clarification, Amy didn’t. Exhausted from giving birth, worn out from being pregnant, pleased to have this phase of her life completed and the fear of it gone, Amy just said, “Oh, okay.” Looking down into Darla’s intelligent eyes looking up into her own, she was thinking that she’d make sense of it later, after she’d slept about a year, after her body healed. She was just too exhausted to make sense of it now.

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Three days old, Darla clambered out of her white bassinet – which was already too small – and walked over to the kitchen table where her mother was surfing the net on her phone. “Mom,” the little one said. “I’m sorry to disturb you but I want to talk to you while we have a chance.” Darla glanced back in a listening pose. “Before Grandma comes back.”

Amy, to be honest, wasn’t recovering well. Not post-partum depression, no, it was just shock over what her daughter was already doing. That dynamic made Amy avoid her daughter. “Seriously,” she told her mother, Gina, “I don’t like how my daughter looks at me. Is that crazy, Mom? Is that normal?”

“I don’t know.” Gina didn’t want to tell her daughter, hell yes, that’s crazy. Your daughter’s eyes aren’t supposed to be open yet. She’s not supposed to be talking and walking around and opening the refrigerator. Having given birth twice, she knew these things and had talked to her own mother about it. A walking, talking baby like Darla was creepy.

“How did you learn to talk like that?” Amy asked Darla.

“I learned while I was in your womb.” Darla had to constrain her impatience. She fully expected questions like this. “Remember, Mom, you carried me for nine months. You and Daddy read to me and played me classical music, along with some pop. FYI, I am so sick of Taylor Swift now, you played so much of her. Anyway, that’s how I learned to talk.”

“But that’s not natural. Are you really my daughter?” Amy refrained from letting the weird idea that her daughter was a demon, alien, or robot, be expressed because she didn’t want to embrace that in any way, but what else could she be?

Darla put her tiny hands on her little hips and stared up at her mother. “You ask me that after carrying me for nine months and six days, and then going through sixteen hours of labor? What do you think that all was, virtual reality? You – our whole family – talks a lot and you almost always had a television or radio on. I heard a lot, and I had a lot of time on my hands, so I was able to practice. I’m surprised you didn’t hear me.”

Judging her mother’s reaction, she said more gently, “Seriously, I know what you mean, Mom. I understand what you’re thinking, but believe me, I am your daughter. I’m not an alien or something like that, but I’m part of a project, which is called Project New Born. I know that it’s kind of cheesy, but I didn’t choose it.”

Darla stopped to listen for Grandma coming back. She’d heard steps and creaking and believed Grandma Gina – she had two grandmothers, but Grandma Belle had refused to visit her walking, talking grandchild, considering her, Darla heard her tell Andi, possessed by the Devil – was around the corner, listening. Spying, really. So what. Grandma Gina needed to learn this stuff sooner or later and she’d be pretty cool about it.

“Project New Born?” Amy listlessly repeated.

“I’ll tell you more about that later. I need to go somewhere tomorrow, so I’ll be gone. Don’t freak out, though, because I am coming back. I’ll be back in sixteen days, so don’t go crazy while I’m gone, Mom. I need you, I need your help, and I need you to be sane and sober, okay? Daddy is going to lose it, but he doesn’t matter nearly as much. I can overcome that. You matter more, Mom, you matter more, okay?”

Eyes half-closing, Amy said, “Wait, what? I didn’t understand any of that. Can you say it again?”

Indulging her mother, Darla began a repetition like she was reciting a poem. Amy broke in to ask, “You’ll be back in sixteen days?”

Her question pleased Darla because it showed everything was on track. “Yes, sixteen days. I know I’ll be back then because that’s how far I can see into the future.”

Fulfilling expectations, Amy repeated, “You can see into the future?”

“Yes, just sixteen days now, but that’ll change. Like, it wasn’t only one day when I was born, but it increases as I get more in tune with it, providing I stay on track, and will be able to see further and further into it. Part of that is because I’m from the far, far future, I’m talking centuries, and I’m genetically engineered to see the future. Yes, I’ve been sent back to save humanity. I’m just the first, though. There will be more of me, and then it’ll all start making more sense, okay? And yes, I am your child, you and Daddy, because your eggs and his sperm were acquired and sent ahead, okay? Listen, we’ll talk more later. First, I am starving, so let me go get Grandma Gina so she can make something to eat. Also, though, I also mention this today because I’ll be much more grown when I come back, so if you want pictures of me when I’m little, you need to get them today.”

She looked at her mother’s chest. “By the way, you’re leaking, Mom. I think you need to pump your breasts again.”

Turning, little Darla strode away on her tiptoes. Darla heard her muttering, “Stupid diapers. I can’t wait to grow more so that I reach things and use the toilet, and get my own food. I’m friggin’ starving.”

Amy watched her tiny dark-haired daughter go around the corner. Then she heard her speaking. She wanted a grilled cheese sandwich. Picking up the breast pump, Amy smiled for the first time since giving birth. It could be worse. At least Darla had ten fingers and toes and two eyes and was otherwise a perfect little girl with pretty eyes and a sweet face.

Pumping her breast, Amy thought, it’s going to be an interesting sixteen days.

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Tuesday’s Wandering Thoughts

Tuesday was an average day until the man beside me made a move. White as snow, a frazzled gray-beard with hippy-long hair in a pony tail like he’s Willy Nelson, shorter than me by a foot, he broke the day’s calm normalcy by finishing his coffee with a loud slurp, setting the cup down and then walking out through the coffee shop wall. I saw this out of my side vision and swung around, staring as my mind argued about what my eyes were telling me.

Hoping for verification, I shot a look back into the room. Three women at a nearby table were staring at the space beside me. The eldest, pointing and talking, was saying, “That man went through the wall,” as the second, younger, middle-aged, with long blonde hair dry and damaged from aging, was saying, “What?” in that rising confused way which expressed profound doubt about what she was hearing. Her position would have her facing away so she probably didn’t see. But the third, who could have been the blonde’s sister but skinnier, older, and dark-haired, was empatically stating, “Yes, yes, that’s what I saw.”

“You saw that,” I demanded of the two, and they were nodding and asking, “Did you see it, too?” and an elderly man approached, stating in a loud, quavering voice, “I saw that, too, that guy went right out through the wall, I saw it, I saw it.”

Guffawing, my brain said, “Happy New Year,” as the walls began melting and screams rose. 2024 was going to be interesting, if I survive. Either that or this coffee was something really special.

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The Writing Moment

I love reading and writing. I think I’m learning to love editing and revising, but they’re more challenging.

Writing is a matter of switching on my imagination and playing various games. These games are typically, ‘what if’ and ‘who did’ variations, putting the characters into interesting and challenging situations, and then finding the resolution of those created problems. I write these in bursts and then spend time refining and expanding on them.

I’m a pantser, as it’s called. Pantsers are also sometimes called organic writers; we don’t outline, or outline very little.

A problem with my method of writing from the hip is what happens next is often a surprise. Characters often go into unexpected directions. As I write then, I need to address how they veered from my original intentions. Then I edit to some degree, to confirm it all somewhat fits together.

Editing and revising requires me to delve more deeply into these matters, also addressing pacing, and clarifying as I do. These activities are seriously embraced once a draft has become solid enough to start resembling a novel.

Editing and revising requires more discipline, and I’m not the most disciplined individual. Burdened with its own challenges, editing and revising also brings greater reward. As many writers will say, the first few drafts are learning the story, finding the plot, and understanding the characters. For me, the editing and revising parts are about developing authenticity and depth.

Then comes reading. I mean writing others’ works, whether it’s fiction or non-fiction, and any of the sub-genres.

I often limit my fiction reading while I’m writing. I know from my experiences that fiction reading causes me to challenge what’s up with my own fiction in progress. So I avoid it.

But all reading also inspires me to write. Non-fiction pulls me into a different direction, of course, which ends up costing me time as I pursue knowledge and expansion of things I seek to understand more deeply or clearly.

Once I’m finished with drafts and enter the editing and revision stage, I happily jump back into fiction reading. Where fiction reading now becomes a problem in that stage is that I need to divide my time between the book I’m enjoying reading, and the book I’m enjoying creating.

You know, though, I have it pretty good if that’s the summation of my life’s problems.

Just for the record, I’m now reading the second book in Naomi Novik’s Temeraire series. A creation of alternative history, it’s written like historic fiction with a fantasy kicker. That kicker is the existence of dragons. These dragons are intelligent and well-spoken. Yes, they speak, and they develop solid, beautiful relationships with their people.

They’re also used as instruments of war. A great deal of the first book dealt with dragon strategy in conjunction with naval warfare, and the tending and treatment of dragons.

It’s all set in the era of the Napoleonic Wars, but fascinating politic variations emerge, as well as challenges built into that era regarding class and sex roles. Lot of fun to read. I can imagine writing it was terrific fun.

As far as non-fiction reading, I’m now into The Wager: A Tale of Shipwreck, Mutiny and Murder by David Grann. I’d previously read his books, The Lost City of Z and Killers of the Flower Moon. I enjoy his writing style and the information they convey about things that I didn’t know. I know so little about this world, and it’s fun and exciting to learn more.

I don’t hesitate to recommend any of the mentioned books. My hope is that someday at least one of my efforts will be regarded and enjoyed in the same way that I enjoyed these.

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Changing Times

Everything is changing. I’m not stupid. I know that it’s not unusual for things to change. Weather changes, clothes, all that. I’m not stupid.

This is different, you know? This is real change.

I was born in 2032. May, a taurus. I can’t remember much of my early life. I guess it was okay. Then the crumble began. You know, bridges collapsing, blackouts, gas and electricity shortages, water shortages.

I remember that from when I was around ten and our school was shut down. Dad said that taxes had been cut, so you know, the government didn’t have the money for schools, and we couldn’t afford a pay school. Dad was working a full-time job and two part-time jobs. Mom was working three part-time gigs. Working their asses off, both of them. My auntie, who was disabled from diabetes, schooled me and my sisters and cousins in our family room. That’s where she lived.

I did what I could myself. Made some change from helping with cleanups. People would abandon their cars and places, and I’d pirate things and sell them door to door. Tapes and books, old computers, that kind of thing.

We were always hungry, picking berries, apples, plums, whatever we could find. Best time was when I was a teen. Used to be able to pay two dollars to bus tables for fifteen minutes in a restaurant. They let me eat anything that was left. I’d try to stuff things in my pockets for my family, if I could, but I was so damn hungry all the time.

That lasted ‘bout five years. Now I’m 31, and it’s all gone. I’m trying to find a new gig but all I got is my ‘lectric bike and clothes. Most days, it’s too hot to be outside, you know? Gets over 110 by noon, and then climbs twenty degrees more.

Like Mom used to say all the time, the times, they are a-changin’.

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Details

I remember a time –

It might have been in the sixties. Or maybe the seventies.

I think I was living in Pennsylvania then. Or Ohio.

And I was probably in –

Let me think.

I was born in 1956 so if it was in the sixties, I would have probably been thirteen or so.

So, no.

No, I think I was older than that.

So it must have been in the 1970s when this happened.

Yes, that’s right. I was in high school.

It was a sunny day.

Dad and I – he had his red Thunderbird then –

Oh, no, wait, he had the Monte Carlo, the burgundy Monte Carlo.

You know the model, the one with the swoopy lines, and the captain’s chairs?

He bought that new in 1974.

Had to be 1974 because I graduated that year, and I remember driving that car.

Then I left home.

Oh, and we were living in Virginia. That’s right.

I remember now. It’s all coming back.

It was ’74.

Anyway, Dad and I were in the car together, going somewhere.

I think it was a Sunday.

Yes, it must have been a Sunday, because he was off.

We were going to a restaurant for dinner.

Which surprised me. He suggested it. We never went out for dinner, he and I.

It was just us living together then.

Yes, I remember, we went to an Italian restaurant. He had the veal parm.

I don’t know what I had.

Anyway, let me finish.

We were in the Monte Carlo.

And he said, “What do you plan to do with your life?”

The question surprised me.

He never asked me these things.

Shrugging after a few seconds, I answered, “I don’t know.

“What did you plan to do with your life?”

We came to a red traffic light. He stopped the car behind the other cars.

We were the fourth car.

The car in front of us was a pickup truck.

Dad looked out the windshield straight ahead until the light turned green.

Then, as we started forward, he said, “Touché.”

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