snippet

Well, here it is Friday already, and time for the poem of the week. Instead, however, I offer a snippet of narrative from one of my stories in progress. The (yet untitled) story is total crap right now, of course, but I think it's got good bones. Perhaps, someday, I'll like it well enough to let you read the whole thing. Today you just get one of the opening scenes. I'm not blog-savvy enough to create paragraph indents, so bear with the flush left text, if you would. And have a long, happy Labor Day weekend! ****

Danny consulted the hand-scrawled directions one more time. Yep, this was the right building. He walked up the well-worn sandstone steps to the double doors and let himself in. Now, he just had to go up to the third floor. It must have been time for class to let out, for suddenly doors along the corridor opened, and he found himself in a sea of students. Finding the stairs, he pushed along with the herd to the second floor. More students. But on his trip up to the third story, he found the stairs nearly deserted. It figured. It was unlikely that any professor would consent to having an office in a classroom wing.

At the top of the stairs, he found another pair of double doors, the glass panels bearing the name of the university publisher. Danny hoped he was in the right place, and stepped through into a small reception area; there were three hallways, none were labeled. There was, however, a girl at a small desk typing busily at a computer.

"Hello," he said.

She did not look up. "Hi. Just a sec."

At that moment, another woman was crossing from one hallway to another, her shoes click-clacking the tile floor. She paused, one arm full of papers.

"Good morning, Alice." She said.

She looked to be in her thirties, with small, half-rimmed glasses perched on her nose, dark hair caught firmly back in a pencil-threaded bun, and an aura of efficiency running from her navy blazer to her demure brown heels. The girl straightened up like a shot.

"Good morning, Miss Bard."

The woman smiled gently, nodded, and continued on her way.

"How may I help you this morning, sir?" The girl asked Danny, her hands politely folded in front of her as she met his eye.

He fought down the urge to comment on the change of manner. "Dr.VanFeilde’s office, please."

Her eyes widened slightly at his accent. "Is he expecting you?" She asked.

"Yes. Dan Welkin."

She consulted her computer—confirming his appointment, probably—then pointed to the hall on her left hand, the one the older woman had emerged from. "That way. The door at the end of the hall on the right. You can’t miss it."

He followed her directions, passing a small, jam-packed library with a large printer and several office doors, mostly closed. He heard the low murmur of one or two conversations, the clack of a keyboard, the perk of a coffee maker coming from a small kitchenette. The last door on the right, also closed, had "James D. VanFeilde, PhD" blazoned across the semi-transparent glass panel.

Its end of the hall contained a small window with a deep sill, a black radiator squatting along the floor beneath it; the morning sun shone in, fortifying the lively, red-bloomed flower growing in a broad terra cotta container upon the ledge. Danny gave himself a moment to look at the plant, readying himself for the next moment, when he would see his father for the first time in twenty years. He took a deep breath, and another, steadying himself as he would before a difficult climb. Then he reached out, and knocked on the door.

summer slacking

So, barely two weeks into this blogging adventure of mine, and already I've slacked off considerably. I've not posted at all this week. Remember what I said in my first posting about using this as a means of becoming a more disciplined writer? Ha. Guess I'm still working on that one.

Well, I sit at a desk all day. Most of the time, when I get home in the evening, the last thing I want to do is sit back down at another desk in front of another computer. There are so many other things to do, inside and out. Especially out, this time of year, when summer makes it plain she's not sticking around for much longer.

I tranquilized the type-A in my personality this Tuesday to take advantage of what may have been the last 85 degree day, leaving work at 1:00 to go jump in the lake and soak up some sun--and sand. I came home with a lot of sand. It was a nice, hot, windy day on the beach. I laid back in the water, enjoying the contrast between what I was doing and what I should have been doing. And then I had ice cream. Not because I wanted to, you understand, but because that's how you cap off a beach day. Of course. One does not mess with these traditions lightly, or without good reason.

Making up the time I missed at work is a bit of a hassle, but worth it. I am very thankful to work at a place that allows the occasional afternoon of playing hooky. And the occasional afternoon of playing pirates. But that's another story...

Innocence

Ok, this week's poem is a bit of a cop-out; I didn't write this one. But hey--at least I didn't pretend that I had written it. It's quite lovely. Enjoy!

Innocence

Innocence sees that this it is, and finds it world enough. Annie Dillard

At some point you make peace with it
Your life as it is, with all it offers you

Like an early evening walk, half moon
Hung on the tiger lily sky

Black cows heading to the barn
Bemoaning the end of day

Hundreds of blackbirds screeching
Live as the wire they perch upon

My long-time friend zipping by in her van
Waving. It’s after all the whining

And stomping of feet, of course. After dreams
Blur with life. After the pin-pricked

Pop of the inflated ego. A joy
Mysterious. A humble innocence.

~Julie L. Moore

Country Living

I have the good fortune to live a little farther out in the country—or rather, it’s a 70-acre oasis of woods and hay field, somewhat close to a bustling little town, that has escaped being part and parceled into yet another sub division—but that’s another story. The point today is that my home feels nice, quiet, and pleasantly secluded. It also helps that the pavement on my road ends about a quarter mile before my ridiculously long driveway. Not much through traffic; I hear more airplanes than cars. And I cannot see any other houses from mine—just one yard light twinkling through the trees to the west, reminding me cheerily that someone would probably hear me if I screamed loud enough.

This seclusion means that I can do many things I could not do in my previous home in the city: leave windows open when I’m not home, mow the large lawn with the large tractor, go for a jog without locking up and carrying my keys tucked in my waistband, and (one of my favorites) walk around in various stages of nakedness without having to shut the blinds, especially in daylight. I like not shutting the bathroom door when I shower. It keeps the mirrors from getting all steamy. When I get ridiculously dirty from working outside, I can drop my clothes at the door instead of trailing mess through my tidy home.

I’ve never had a moment of worry that someone might be spying on me; shoot, in the month and a half that I’ve lived there, I’ve only had one stranger knock on my door, and he was an animal control officer. My long gravel driveway provides ample, audible warning of anyone driving up, so I have no fear of being caught by surprise. And with as hot and sticky as it’s been this week, I’ve been shucking clothes as soon as I walk in the door after work, with no worries that I'd be providing anyone with a free show. Last night, however, was different.

I stepped out of my pants and tossed them on the bed, and was removing my shirt when I looked out my bedroom window and saw…a Peeping Tom! Looking right at me, bold as brass! His head shot up when he saw that I noticed him, but his eyes remained fixed on me.

What did I do? Did I scream? Did I chase after him with my stick of justice? Did I call 911?

Nope. See, it really was a tom—a tom turkey. Ha. Gotcha. Every day or so, I see three or four wild turkeys make their bobbing way across bits of my yard. They don’t seem to notice that I’m walking around in a sports bra. Neither does the herd of seven deer that regularly visits my backyard at dawn and dusk.

Ah, country!

Late Summer

When the sun reaches that certain point in the sky,
and tints the blue toward twilight a little--just a little,
just enough that I look over my eastern shoulder
for the arrival of the moon--
then I settle in, and wait for the magic.
But sobriety will not come;
my soul tastes adventure in the cooling air
and my heart is beating louder
and harder
and stronger
until I fear it will shake itself loose and
send me dancing across the sharp stubble of hayfield
and out into the wide, wide world
with no protection
no shield of space or time or
trees that rustle and sway in the sundown breeze—
leaves shivering like they, too, have
other places to be.
As if they are aware that soon autumn will come
and they will dance upon the bough no longer
but will skitter in their muted tones of bonfire
across the open ground and
pile, brown and quiet,
to sleep out the winter in the shelter of hollows.

The Queen of Rejection

As the editorial assistant at a book publishing company—or, as I’d been dubbed by a friend, the office monkey—a key part of my job consisted of rejecting. Reject, reject, reject. By phone and by mail. By email and by fax. Everyone (and their mother) has written a book, it seems, and our company would be missing out on a great opportunity if we didn’t snap up their manuscript.

Armed with a firm "no unsolicited proposals or manuscripts" policy, I shot down countless hopefuls like skeet. Pull. BAM. Pull. BAM. As a novice writer myself, I felt sympathetic…for about the first two months. Then I moved on to slightly sadistic pleasure, and the Queen of Rejection was born. She was helped along by the sad fact that any manuscripts she bothered to peruse were, well, simply awful. She especially loved proposals written on notebook paper, or that began with something like "I ain’t no good writer, but…"

Fortunately for our company image and reputation, the Queen of Rejection has a pleasant, polite phone voice and an unyielding well of resolve.

Now, as I wave goodbye to my time as office monkey, I leave the pile of rejects with very little feeling. They have, in turn, offended, amused, and irritated me until all sensitivity was gone. I can tear through a pile of proposals in about five minutes, mostly because it takes me that long to tear open the envelopes, chuck the material in the recycling bin, and keep one piece of paper with the author’s address on it. I let the envelopes and letters pile for a couple weeks, and have a grand day of form-letter rejections.

If I’m lucky, the hopeful author sent me a SASE. If I’m unlucky, they send in their project, call two or three times, lose the rejection letter I’ve sent them, call again six months later, and then demand I return their manuscript because it was their only copy. Some even darkly hint that I’ve kept their material for my own use. That is when the Queen really struggles not to roar.

So, kids, what’s the moral of the story? Well, there really isn’t one, I suppose. Mostly because the worst cases dealt with by the Queen seemed to involve people who had never used a computer and had no idea what a blog is. They won't be reading this--and therefore won't learn from my experience. It’s awful hard to edjumacate them there folks what don’t use the web-net thingy.

I guess there are one or two or three things you can learn from the Queen: 1) PLEASE PLEASE research the publishing company’s policy before sending in your wondrous creations, 2) it’s perfectly acceptable to make stabbing motions with your pen while you’re on the phone, as long as you don’t make any noise, and 3) callously sharing snippets of someone’s creative endeavor with your friends to make them laugh is probably the most use anyone will every get out of that sad material, so make sure you’ve taken the author’s name off, and go for it.

Welcome, innocent bystanders!

Sweet mercy help us, I’ve started a blog! Great word, "blog." The word associations are endless. Glob. Blob. Slog. A bog full of logs. I know what you’re thinking—thank the stars she doesn’t try to write children’s books. There would be preschoolers jumping into the muck all across America. And we just can’t have that, can we? Well…maybe just this once…

Remember, kids—always bog jump with a partner big enough to pull you out when (not if) you get stuck. And wear shoes that lace really tight. Because I’m not going in to find your shoe, understand? Missy, you’ll walk home barefoot! Take your consequences! Ah, consequences. There’s another fantastic word. But you’ve got brains; associate for yourself and leave me alone!

No, wait. I didn’t entirely mean that. Come back. We still haven’t talked about why Miss Semi-allergic-to-pop-culture started this silly ol’ blog. And you want to know, ey? Of course you do. So do I, point of fact. The reasons, like reasons often are, are varied and differ in degrees of legitimacy and quality.

Firstly (which is a word you hardly ever get to use, so answer that door when opportunity knocks!), I thought it’d be a great way to force myself to write on a regular basis. I’m not very disciplined, see, and need the occasional kick in the pants to get going. Which is silly; I like to write, after all. Whether I’m good at it or not is open for discussion. By the way, your opinion only counts if I like it. Or if you slip in several fantastic words like "dialectical" and mean it.

Secondly, I thought this would be a fun way for my many no-longer-local friends and family to keep an eye on what’s rattling around in my brain. I have also had a request or two to restart the old Lichty Hall Poem of the Week. We’ll see what I can do, 206. This links back to the kick-in-the-pants motivator of reason one. Though this reason is suspect overall, as I have no intention of making this a personal journal. If I start to write about myself too much, feel free to slap me silly. Figuratively, of course. [And—while I’m thinking of it—no stalking allowed! There. I’m glad I got that out in the open. Hopefully, I’m fishing with the wrong kind of bait for that kind of catch, anyway, but a girl can’t be too careful.] I’m not a facebook type, and I’m lousy at letter writing so…blog!

Thirdly…well, I haven’t thought of a thirdly yet. Other than the fact that I’m not entirely immune to narcissism…Hey! I resemble that remark! Yep. Nothing like a good malapropism to kill a conversation. And I was just on a roll, too. Well, I’d better quit anyway, whether I’m ahead or behind or stuck in the middle with you. So, welcome to the adventures of the Wonderspools. I’m somewhat addicted to ellipses and em-dashes, but I’ll try to behave, and to keep things interesting. And I’ll try not to self-edit too much, if you promise never to write without capitalization or punctuation. Gar! Urg! It pains me, Daisy, it really does.

Toodle-doo!