WAG #23 Consequences

Cally had forgotten soda has caffeine. He’d forgotten how sensitive he could be to caffeine, but when there was nothing else to wash down dinner, he drank it.

He was puzzled why he was managing to catch the eleven o’clock news. The program was already showing the weather forecast when he realized he really needed to go to bed.

The pillow… hurt. It didn’t seem as comfortable tonight. Of course, his head was filled with those horrible news events. What a terrible world.

Might as well stay up and read. Hmmm… fantasy book, Terry Pratchett, Discworld.

He woke when the book fell off the bed. He couldn’t figure out why the light was on. Oh, yeah, the bad news on TV kept him up.

Now he couldn’t get back to sleep.

Might as well stay up and watch TV.

There was nothing on but info-mercials. Who buys this crap?

Wow, that VacSharkSucker does a really good job. Where did he put his wallet? He’d figure out a way to replace the rent money later.

He woke to the morning news on TV. Why was the TV on? Why wasn’t he in bed?

Oh yeah, got worried about the security of his debit card number after giving it to the people on TV. He’d watched a little longer; they seemed trustworthy.

He hadn’t been awoken by his alarm however; he had to be at work in an hour.

Raced through heating water in the microwave while getting dressed. Poured the instant powder into the cup.

He ran straight into the hall closet door that he left open. Banged his nose. Coffee on his shirt. Coffee on the carpet. And dammit, he now had no coffee.

Time to pull a college trick; instant coffee mixed into a can of soda.

He’d have to down the soda, because he rode a motorcycle for his commute. The jolt would be a bit of a shock, but he was certain that the shakiness would stop by noon.

Too bad about the car getting repossessed. He would have sold it but he owed more than it was worth.

He zipped in and out of traffic on his Honda, trying to make up for lost time spent changing into clean clothes.

The VacSharkSucker was half his rent money. How was he going to pay it back?

He shouldn’t have bought it. He couldn’t afford it.

Hey, Mother’s Day was coming up. Had his sister gotten anything for Mom? Would she go half-zees on the thing? It was so cool. Maybe he could get his sister to help pay for it.

Thinking of how to scheme against his sister, he didn’t notice that the traffic light before him had turned red. There was a bus about to intersect his path.



The bus driver had forgotten how greasy pizza was. He’d forgotten how sensitive his stomach could be to grease, but when there was nothing else for dinner, he ate it.

He was surprised at how much pain he felt; enough to keep him from getting to sleep, so he stayed up way past his bedtime to watch the news and wait for the antacids to kick in.

When they did, he went to bed.

The pillow…hurt.



WAG Topic #23: “Ripple”. When our characters walk their worlds, the world reacts. So for this week, look only at reactions. Observe a person and describe the reaction of the world to them. What can you tell about them based solely on the reaction of others? What kind of impression are they making on the world, the environment, the people around them, even on you? What is changing (even subtley) because of their existence? Are they aware of it? No Rules! Now Write! (Now, instead of a deadline we have an ending date. You may add links to this list between now and 25 MAY 2010.)

WAG #22 Hero

He was bald.

It was a funny-odd thing to look in the mirror while getting ready to go out in the morning. He still wasn’t accustomed to the round dome, looking like a moon rising from the horizon. The skin was pale and evenly colored except for the white scar just over his ear.

His brother’s fault; a careless fling of the swing on the playset. He remembered falling into the grass and crying as the red blood contrasted on the green blades. And when his mother came running with the towel, he cried even harder. Mom never panicked about anything; this was something different. Maybe he’d get some ice cream from the deal.

It seemed so long ago now. Things had not been normal for a long time.

The collar of his tee shirt was sitting funny. He tugged at the bottom front, stretching the bright white cotton until he felt the band digging into the puffy skin on the nape of his neck. That wouldn’t work. He reached behind and tugged the tail until the front felt choking again. He stuck out his tongue in an exaggerated choking manner and pulled the front again.

No choking. He had enough of that every time he took his pills, the pills he hated because it made his skin puffy and his shirt fit funny and his hair fall out.

It wouldn’t be long now. Everyone said so. Just believe it would be alright and it would be.

Except when he woke up with a headache or had to sit down to rest after only ten minutes or when his favorite foods looked like piles of last week’s leftovers. It was hard to keep the faith when he couldn’t even enjoy macaroni and cheese.

He stuck out his tongue again and stared at it a moment. It felt like it should be covered with fur, but nope, just the blotchy discoloration of a sickly human. He pulled it back into his mouth and grabbed his school bag.

His mother stepped to the door. She was dressed in her Winnie the Pooh tee shirt, a sight he’d grown to hate. It meant needles and tests and antiseptic smells.

“Sorry, sweetie. No school today.”

“Aw, Mom…”

WAG #22: “A Real Hero”. In fiction, often every hero looks like the other, with broad shoulders and a chiselled features, and the heroine always has an oval face and rosebud lips. (Okay, so these are the worst examples!) So for WAG #22, observe a stranger you think would make a good main character, and describe their physical features as accurately as you can (and without cliche) so we can see them as real individuals and not cardboard cut-outs. Feel free to transport those people into your fictional world, or just describe them as you see them in their real environment. No Rules! Now Write!

WAG #21 - Message in a Bottle

“WAG #21: Message in a Bottle” It’s part of human nature that we sometimes wish we could communicate with our younger selves, our unreasonable selves, our subconscious selves, our self-destructive selves, our more innocent selves, or any number of other us-es that we all seem to have within. In this week’s WAG, consider the way we talk to ourselves, the tapes we play inside our heads, and write a piece: fiction or non-fiction, about yourself, a character, or someone else. As usual no limits and no rules. One-two-three Write! (This week’s theme suggested by Kate McIntire. If you have a theme suggestion, please write to me.)

When I read what the suggested topic was for Writing Adventure Group, I misunderstood that we were supposed to write about sending ourselves messages back through time to our younger selves. My first thought was "I'd tell myself to finish college." The second thought involved some rather personal stuff about my family relations and my childhood. The third was...

Well, you get the picture. It seems everyone wishes they had the same warnings 'way back when'. "If only I knew this, that and the other thing, my life would have been so much better," we tell ourselves, and it may or may not be true. It's nice to have insider information, but if you're not wise enough at that time to have the foresight on your own, what good will being given the advice do?

I am (if I understand the term correctly) an existentialist. I tried wishing that some of the things in my life haven't happened. Complaining about them certainly hasn't done much good - the opposite, perhaps. Things are what they are as they exist right now. I've gotten into the habit of dismissively shaking my head at some of my memories and mentally patting myself on the back for not allowing these things to completely ruin my future.

It is trite. It is cliché. It is ubiquitous.

It is what it is.

WAG #20 "Like a Virgin"

It's good to talk 'big'. It builds up your spirit, increases your drive, strengthens your heart.

The unfortunate consequence is if you talk 'big' to yourself too convincingly, the tumble back to reality just hurts that much more.

When it comes to talking big, no one is supposed to be better at it than a new writer sending out her first query, an experience I just 'enjoyed' starting on Wednesday when I shot off a couple of emails for my contemporary romance The High Bridge.

It was an interesting experience, writing that letter. I've been playing with my hook and my mini synopsis for several weeks and thought I had it down to a pretty eye-catching couple of sentences. But then came the dreaded "Why Are You The Best, Most Qualified Person To Write This Book?" paragraph at the end.

Sigh...Well...

Sigh...

I put it down as best I could, although I suspect it came across sounding a little "You're not good enough to write this book, so I have to do it myself" kind of attitude. If you want a romance story that involves back-country travel of abandoned railway right-of-ways through bear/mountain lion country, I'm your girl! Do you think Jackie Collins is going to know that the old Willys jeep is really pronounced "WILL ISS"? No! Will Nora Roberts know much about falling off a dirt bike when lightning strikes a nearby tree? N--- well, maybe, with some research.

The point is I know a lot about what I write for a novel. I don't know a lot about making ME sound like the only person qualified to do so.

You only have to make love once to no longer be a virgin. I've already received word (the dreaded "Dear Author" letter) that I'm no longer a virgin to the agency rejection system. I just don't want to be a rejection slut.

Time to rewrite the query letter, methinks. Need to learn a new way to talk 'big'.




WAG #20: The First Time” Everything we’ve ever done had a ‘first time’. Think of an activity (either of your own or something you observe of someone else) and write about the first time of that experience, and perhaps even compare it to subsequent experiences. Maybe even pick a moment that might have looked mundane from the outside, but made a significant change to the person experiencing it. Not a lot of rules, as usual… just let your imagination flow! www.indiadrummond.com

WAG #19 Pick a Pocket

WAG #19: Pick a Pocket” Let’s do some people-watching for this one! Pick someone out of a crowd and describe what (you imagine) is in their pockets (Unless you want to be brave and ask them!) Give us both meaning and physical details, and don’t forget to let yourself be surprised. (This week’s topic inspired by WAG founder India Drummond's son Bear.)

I hate waiting for freight trains.

There are a lot of grade crossings where I live in Colorado. The beef can't walk to market, after all, and the various ores from the mountains aren't transported by 20-mule teams. Trains are ubiquitous. And necessary.

The drivers in Colorado seem more patient than those I saw (and was) when I lived in Illinois. Maybe because the scenery is better or the sky bluer; I don't know why. In Colorado, people wait quietly for trains or traffic lights or other delays.

In Illinois it was an insult to a driver to be stopped for any reason besides a twenty car pile up, and I can recall once getting stopped by the Indiana Harbor Belt and sitting in the same spot for what seemed an eternity. I glared around at my fellow travelers, accusing them of plotting to be in my way and preventing me from making a U-turn.

As I glanced around, my eyes fell on a little old man, standing in front of the pharmacy I was halted by. He had a knowing little smile on his face as he rocked back and forth, from heels to toes - forward and back, forward and back. This caused his hips to swing to and fro, forward and back. His twinkling eyes found mine and his little smile broadened.

I'm certain I turned fifteen shades darker of crimson because of what I noticed. Very near the fly of his light-colored trousers was a hard bulge that tightened whenever his hips swung forward. He slipped his hand deep into his pocket and his smile grew even wider.

"Grampa!" came a childish yell, accompanied by little shoes tapping on the sidewalk.

The old man gave a glad cry and pulled a round lollipop from his pocket for a little girl.

WAG #17 Someone I Once Knew

My mother mailed a few pictures to me the other day. It showed a collection of faces as varied as the activities depicted.

The first was a blonde child doing a backflip. It was an intense photo; the face firm with concentration, the grass bright green, the feet were a blur, moving faster than the camera could capture.

Another photo showed a group of young teenagers dressed in theatrical costumes, obviously The Famous Four singing joyously as they “tramped” down the Yellow Brick Road, which consisted of yellow construction paper spray-glued onto muslin.

The last four images were from a graduation; a young woman receiving her diploma; my mom posing proudly as the graduate mugged behind the precious document thrust forward at arm’s length; the last two involved a mortarboard in the air, although the second of that series also involved, nay featured, a tree and a long stick.

With a smile, I flipped through the photos over and over, absorbing the events enjoyed by people I have been out of touch with a long time – well before we moved so far away. I set the small stack on the coffee table as my husband and I were watching TV, and I tried to get back into the program. My thoughts kept returning to the significance of the pictures.

I remembered having that kind of energy, that same drive, enthusiasm and hope. Where had it gone? When had I changed? With a heavy sigh, I sat back, pushing my shoulders into the sofa cushion, seeking comfort from its support.

My husband glanced between me and the table pensively and finally took up the stack of 4x6 prints. He flipped through them with less familiarity than I had.

“Wizard of Oz, huh?” he said with mild surprise. “I didn’t know you played the Cowardly Lion.”

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“WAG #17: The One That Got Away” From your own point of view (or the point of view of a stranger you observe) write a short scene about someone from the past who comes into the picture back suddenly. It can be an old boyfriend/girlfriend, a childhood friend, or anyone you imagine! haven’t seen for many years. It can be a sweet reunion, or a total disaster! It’s up to you.

Dressed For Success, WAG #13

“WAG #13:Dress for Success” Thanks to Peter Spalton for the topic idea! For this week, find yourself a stranger (Yes, we’re all turning into a bunch of WAG stalkers!) Notice what the person is wearing, and then imagine the process they went through getting dressed. Peter suggests: Add lots of detail so we understand what sort of person they are and where they’re going after they’re ready.

When a guy lives in such a small town, he knows everyone. Everyone knows him. Everybody knows him, his brothers, his mother, father, grandparents on both sides... hell, they even knew who his dad was screwing before Dad married Mom.

They also know Melinda. Sweet, luscious Melinda with the to-die-for figure and the big brown eyes. When they see him walking hand-in-hand down the street with her, they'd know she is his girl.

He glanced around for his alarm clock and growled at the realization it was buried under his dirty tee shirts and four Good Times soda pop cups. Angrily brushing aside black bangs still wet from his shower, he shoved the crap off his nightstand and read the time. With a yelp, he dashed to his chest of drawers where his mom stacked his cleaned laundry. Up there it was less likely to get dirtied by his other 'stuff', she said. A quick rifle through the pile of black tee shirts located the one with missing sleeves which he tossed onto the bed while shoving dirty laundry around the floor with his bare foot to locate his jeans. They were his favorite black denims, with the rhinestones outlining an arrow over the zipper fly and with chrome buckles up the outside leg seams. The pants were starting to look a bit battered from repeated wearings; he was pleased. If he was lucky, Melinda would be wearing her super-tight striped knit top and her satin slacks that showed every curve, and maybe people would notice his arms toned from hours of drumming practice. Yeah, he and Melinda would look good together.

His phone rang in his school bag. With another growl of frustration, he whipped his head around the room to find where he'd dropped his books, but the phone stopped ringing before he got to it. The screen said "Mellie", and he looked towards the roof in frustration. Damn, that girl's impatient!

He whipped his hair violently to shake off the extra water before pulling the tee shirt over his head. Two strides brought him to the mirror to make certain all the lettering was still there. Backwards he read "UNITED ROCKERS". The skull was just as dark front or back. Quickly he put on some wool socks and his dad's old Desert Storm Army boots, tying the laces tightly before covering it all with the over-long pant cuffs. Rummaging through the top dresser drawer, he found his three-inch wide leather wrist band, the one earring with a cross and a skull, and a simple silver nose ring. He donned these and checked the mirror one last time. He stared for nearly a minute and suddenly tore the collar of his tee shirt, rending it straight down three inches.

Good.

Okay.

Now to call the Sweet Mellie back. Gaughth was ready to go out.

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This was an exercise of the Writing Adventure Group. The criteria for the exercise is listed above. The info about the group and how to participate is below.

Writing Adventure Group

This is an open, online writers’ group. Anyone may participate. It’s helpful if you have a blog, but if you don’t have one, you can always get a free blog from wordpress.com.

Our purpose is to build a community of writers who help and support each other, and to hone our observational and writing skills by interacting with each other and the world around us.

Here’s how it works:

1. Adventures should take you 5-10 minutes to complete! We’re going for short and easy. This should not be like having a part time job. You may post your results as a few lines, or a few paragraphs. This does not have to be polished, but is an exercise only! See previous WAG posts here.
2. You will typically have one week to do the assignment and post the results on your blog. Deadline given at the bottom of the instruction post.
3. After you post your results, email THE LINK TO YOUR POST (not just your blog) to NixyValentine AT gmail DOT com. This way I can link back to you in the next post! Please include the word WAG in your subject heading. Please include the title of the post (if any) and your name as you want it to appear on the listing. If you do not do this, I will use the name as it appears on your email.
4. To get more people involved, please use Twitter, FB status, myspace, your blog, etc to tell your writer friends about the group and talk about your own writing adventure!

Rules

Well, there really aren’t any. This is an experience, not a classroom. There is no wrong way to do this!

To get the most out of this, I would suggest visiting the other participants’ blogs and linking to them from yours to build the writing community.

If you have an idea for an adventure or have questions or comments about the group, write to nixyvalentine AT gmail DOT com.

www.nixyvalentine.com

The Professional

“WAG #10: The Professional” As we go through our days, we’re surrounded by people doing everyday jobs: the guy that reads the gas meter, cashiers, bank tellers, security guards, doctors, circus clowns… This week, your assignment is to observe someone doing a job (their profession should be one you don’t know that much about). Describe him/her and also what they’re doing, why they’re doing it (as best you can tell), and how. Feel free to use your imagination, but don’t forget the concrete observation! Special thanks to Lulu for this week’s topic idea!

The Professional

Another box of mail. It was heavy, of course. Paper is an amazingly dense material, and when concentrated into 18 gallon plastic tubs with torn handles, it gets a bit difficult to heft those tubs into the small delivery truck, but she did it without complaint. After all, the mail must get through!

Gently, she rubbed her hands together to ease the stinging scratches on her palms. Of course, the handles were torn; it was quasi-Government equipment! She’d been around long enough to remember the old canvas bags, to recall how damaged the mail could get when those bags weren’t handled right, and they usually weren't! She was also senior enough to remember having to walk the route pushing that silly cart around. No, she didn’t want the old days back. She preferred things exactly as they had become.

Especially that day! Okay, so the next day was Mother’s Day and maybe her son or her daughters would break away from celebrating the holiday with their own children, but even if they didn’t, she would be perfectly satisfied with herself for being a mom.

With a small shove of the overfilled baskets already there, she made a little extra room for a few empty baskets. Last year, her route had done her proud, and although she’d put their generous contributions in her buckets emptied of their delivered mail, she still had loose boxes and cans in her truck. This year she wanted to be prepared.

A satisfied sigh escaped her as she pulled the cord that lowered her rear door. Carrying mail was a job, and she was still glad she had one. Participating in the National Association of Letter Carriers’ Stamp Out Hunger National Food Drive made that job just a little bit more special. Okay, so maybe it took her nearly twice as long to service her route, but she couldn’t think of a better way to spend that afternoon than to help relieve the angst of a mother who had perhaps lost her job and could no longer feed her children. It just made Mother’s Day that much more wonderful.

This Saturday May 9th is the annual food drive sponsored by the US Postal Service, the National Association of Letter Carriers, and Campbell Soup. If you remember, please search your pantry for a few canned items that you can contribute to this very worthy cause.

People Watching, WAG #7

My apologies. This post is part of a larger project and as this was my first participation with this project, I set it up incorrectly. Apparently, I was supposed to include this: WAG #7 Instructions: “Imaginings” This one is people-watching with a twist. Observe a stranger and sketch a brief background for them, including a secret. Then describe why they are in that particular place at that particular time (where you ran into them) and how it will affect their future. Feel free to be creative, but don’t forget to describe the concrete reality that made you pick them in the first place!

PEOPLE WATCHING WAG #7

“I hate these damned busses,” I said to my husband David as we sat in the pair of seats seven rows behind the driver.

At that exact moment, the wheels on our side hit a massive pothole and we were bounced violently against one another. I groaned with irritation as well as pain.

“The bus is fine,” my husband replied. “It’s this lousy street I object to.”

Actually, he was right. The bus was truly a God-send. Without that free shuttle, we’d have to pay massive parking fees for the convenience of being near the Stephens Convention Center where the annual motorcycle show was held. After having spent five hours walking up and down the aisles, I should have been more grateful to sit and get driven to our truck six blocks away.

I looked around at my fellow passengers to see if I was just being whiny about the rough ride. It was a strange mix of people, just as it was every year. Motorcycle shows attract all sorts. There are people like me and my husband who use bikes to commute (an act of bravery in Chicagoland rushhour) but mostly we take long tours so we’re always looking for the newest, spoil-ourselves-rotten touring accessory that we can’t live without. There are those who don’t have a bike and attend the shows to throw a leg over the myriad of models, just to get a feel for the various machines. Lots of people are looking to upgrade to the latest-greatest gotta-have-it machine. And as always, there are the “kids” who were now inspired to save up their fast-food job wages for that gleaming-chrome Harleys or the sleek ‘crotch rockets’ to show off to their friends or to attract the opposite sex.

Then there was the guy in one of the sideways benches on the opposite side of the bus. It was a typically cold January, so the fact that he wore only a light tan wind breaker and a fedora style hat caught my eye. I had seen him board the bus when we did, and by the Yamaha and Honda bags hanging from his hand against his knee, it seemed evident that he had attended the show. It seemed funny to me how light and flimsy they were, as though empty. Like any good trade show, the exhibitors do their best to put every bit of literature and brochure in your hand that they can manage, yet looking more closely, I could see this fellow’s bags were definitely empty.

The bus came to a hard stop as traffic in front of us suddenly ground to a halt, and I braced against the seat in front of me. The strange gentleman with the fedora tilted abruptly to his right and his jacket lifted up his left hip a little as he leaned over involuntarily. A little glint of silver caught my eye, but when I looked more closely, the jacket had moved back to cover whatever it was.

“Damn!” my husband mumbled, putting the side of his head to the glass, trying to peer forward. “Where did all these cars come from?”

“David! David!” I whispered at him urgently. “I think that guy over there has a gun!”

My husband looked at me with alarm and then glanced around, trying to see who I was talking about.

“What? How’ja know?”

“Don’t be obvious,” I hissed. “And I saw it on his hip.”

“Maybe it’s a cop,” he answered, suddenly becoming laissez-faire and ducking his head a little.

“Oh, sure,” I snarked. “Undercover as Elliot Ness.”

“What, the guy in the hat?” he asked, ignoring the sarcasm part of my comment. Typical.

“Yes! I saw it when he leaned over with the bus.”

“Well… so? Mind your own business.”

The bus took off with a jerk, pushing us back into our seats, and I took a chance to look at Elliot Ness again. He was shifting his empty bags from one hand to the other, baring his left leg, where his pants had ridden up. In his tight black sock was stuffed a small rectangular object.

“My God, David,” I hissed again. “He’s got a knife in his sock!”

“Oh, geez, Sue!” David groaned. “Your wild imagination is getting the best of you.” Then he added, “Again.”

“No, seriously!”

“It doesn’t matter,” he countered.

I grunted, imagining the little black cloud floating out the top of my head like in the funny papers. As with an accident, I couldn’t help to turn my eyes back at Mr. Fedora. He was looking back at me. Nervously, I shifted my eyes to floor and then randomly around the bus.

In a sudden right turn, the bus swerved into the driveway of the parking lot and squealed to a halt. With a rush, the man in the hat jumped up to the door, and when it opened, he bolted across the road to the underpass for the highway and was gone.

“Track star, too” David smirked, handing me one of our green Kawasaki bags full of brochures.

“Oh, hush!” I growled.