Quiet Laughter

San Francisco Part II: SF vs. Curaçao

2012-02-16T19:06:00.000-05:00

In my second day in San Francisco (after 10 years), I begin to draw parallels and comparisons between my home in the Caribbean and this wonderful, wonderful city. How dare I, right? :D

Why is SF better than Curaçao?

- Variety vs. scarcity
- Service-oriented vs. so-service-disoriented-they-can't-find-North-with-a-compass
- the food, dear Jesus--the FOOD!
- no mosquitoes
- this is the land of public transportation
- BUT you can walk everywhere, and it's fantastic to do so
- it's also possible to walk--you're not drenched in sweat after the first five steps
- nature and gardens: unbelievable blooms everywhere. Yesterday I saw crocuses--yes, CROCUSES--blooming on a sidewalk. Just--you know, happily blooming. As if it wasn't a miracle of life and beauty.
- cultural stuff: ballet, concerts, museums, art galleries... you know. In Curaçao there's ONE museum worth going to. ONE. "Ballet" is what people dance during Carnival (which is, by the way, this weekend. So glad I'm not there). Concerts? Oh, you mean when one of those salsa pseudo-kings that no one in the civilized world has heard of shows up and blasts song after song of sticky rhythms at the highest possible volume? Ah yes. Those we do have in Curaçao.

Why is Curaçao better than SF?

- beaches. Hands down, that's the most important thing.
- laid-back attitude--everything's easy, nothing's formal, just... Relax and enjoy.
- no one lifts an eyebrow if you drink and drive (which we ALL do)
- did I mention the beaches? Oh yeah. But there's a lot of them, so it deserves two mentions.
- the diving. Spectacular shore dive spots all over the island, incredible reefs, fantastic visibility.
- barefoot is an always acceptable dress code, no matter what the occasion.
- no one cares if you've had a manicure or not, if you haven't had your eyebrows waxed in three weeks (or months).
- the beaches. Oh--already said that, didn't I?

How are they comparable?

- cultural diversity

San Francisco Part I

2012-02-15T10:37:00.000-05:00

After three months of planning and expectations, I'm finally in San Francisco. Yep--for the San Francisco Writers' Conference, starting tomorrow Thursday Feb 15. Okay... officially on the 17th, but tomorrow there's some nice stuff to do, too.

First, a FREE (and open to the public--if you're in the Bay Area, take note) Reading by Lisa See from her new book, DREAMS OF JOY, at 5:00 pm. Lisa is the author of the NY bestsellers Snow Flower and The Secret Fan, Peony in Love, and Shanghai Girls. This new book continues the story of Shangai Girls Pearl and Joy. In the reading, which will be held at the Mark Hopkins hotel on Nob Hill (in the California Room), Lisa will talk about the new book and sign copies. Check out the conference website if you'd like more details.

There's also some pre-conference classes, as well as a welcome coffee klatsch after 8. I'm seriously considering taking Katharine Sands' PITCHPERFECT class tomorrow from 6 o 8. My pitch on Sunday, being the first one ever, needs some urgent help :D.

And today? Well, today I'm--sorta--free. I'm going to walk around and get my bearings, make sure I can find the Mark Hopkins hotel from the friend's apartment where I'm staying (it's just a couple of blocks away--but in which direction? Ha!) and explore the immediate area for bare necessities: good coffee, smoking areas, etc. When those "chores" are done, I'll take a walk down Filmore to the Marina, maybe see if I can find City Lights for a source of Zen... Well, we'll see :)

Six Sentence Sunday (Feb 12)

2012-02-12T04:29:00.006-05:00

This might be my last SSS... sniff... for the month. Yeah, just the month. But it feels like withdrawal, man! I'm flying to SFO for a writer's conference this Tuesday, and my dushi boyfriend is meeting up with me after to stay for another week of sightseeing--he's never been, so we'll probably be doing all the touristy stuff--and shopping for BOOKS! Yes, we're both avid readers.

So--without further ado, another snippet from Restoring Experience, the novel I'll be pitching at the conference (for practice only--one can dream, of course, but every time I read through I find more stuff to add/take out, improve, tighten... You get the drift). You can read last week's post here, and previous SSSsnippets here.

“No, you’re holding it upside-down,” Dan said, laughing, and turned the picture back around.

“What is this?” I pointed at the burner-vent thing.

“That, Lexie, is a stove.”

“What’s a stove doing in the bathroom?”

“The bathroom is off the kitchen--see the doorway here,” he pointed, “and the bathroom is through there.”

Ah--poor Alexia. All those dreams of living the artist life in a loft with wooden floors and rafters, a view of "history crumbling at the street corners"--dashed against the reality of European bathrooms :D

Thanks for stopping by, everyone, and I promise to do better rounds this week--last week, what with shaping up the last five chapters of this novel and refining (yet again) the first five, I went dark. But I do appreciate your visit, especially your comments--every time one of them pops up in my inbox, I feel like we connected, somehow. And that feels great.

Remember to visit the other Six Sundayers, and happy Sunday, everyone!
G

Catching up with Guilie

2012-02-10T20:33:00.000-05:00

Yeah... I've been a little dark lately, haven't I? I apologize. I've been working on the novel, Restoring Experience, polishing it for its first public appearance at the San Francisco Writers' Conference next week--and my first writers' conference (eeek!). So I've been delinquent on the blog, on my Write 1 Sub 1 commitment, and on life in general. I do apologize, and I promise that, after the conference, I'll have all sorts of writing-related tidbits to share with you, as well as some awesome posts on San Francisco itself, my absolute favorite city of the whole U.S.

Six Sentence Sunday (Feb 5)

2012-02-05T03:17:00.001-05:00

February, people. The year is flyin', I tell you. This week flew by so fast I forgot to sign up for SSS until Thursday--oops :) If you scrolled down the list far enough to find me and make it here, thank you :)

We pick up where we left off last week--Alexia's looking at the pictures Dan, her boyfriend, is showing her of the apartment he found for them in Milan. It's been a long-standing dream of theirs to live there for a year or so while Dan works on a master's degree in graphic design. The excerpt is from my WIP, currently undergoing serious re-re-revision, RESTORING EXPERIENCE.

This was not the loft with high ceilings I’d pictured. It was bland, as impersonal as a hotel room and only slightly larger. The wallpaper looked crackly, old. Two tall and narrow windows let in subdued light.

The third picture showed what looked like a bathroom, but I was probably holding it upside down. I turned it, but the objects refused to fall into a recognizable layout--something in a corner looked suspiciously like a stove burner, but it had to be a ceiling vent of some kind.

I promise next week we'll skip ahead to some action again :) Thanks again for the visit, and remember to visit the other Six Sundayers--excellent writing all over.

Happy Sunday!

Sweet Saturday Sample (Feb 4)

2012-02-04T04:07:00.001-05:00

Welcome back to Sweet Saturday Sample, and thank you for stopping by Quiet Laughter. I hope you enjoy this little bit from my first novel, Restoring Experience. This excerpt is from Ch. 23. Although it's definitely rated no higher than PG-13, it may not necessarily be "sweet"--there's despair in yonder lines below. You've been warned :)

Oh, and the images in the text are from Cuernavaca's zocalo (main square), where the scene takes place.

Title: RESTORING EXPERIENCE
Blurb: It's the summer of 1995 in Mexico, and 22-year-old Alexia is discovering possibility--at a steep price. She takes a step away from the conservative values and expectations that define her life, reveling in the exhilaration of freedom—of choices she never imagined she had. But choice implies decisions, and decisions entail regret: every untrodden path, even as she takes that first step away from it, is already an embryo of regret.

Sometimes, we're just not ready to learn the lessons life throws our way. And sometimes there are no second chances.

~ * ~

Michael’s enthusiasm fizzled in indirect proportion to the frown wrinkling his forehead as he realized I was serious.

"What do you mean, you’ve heard the name?" he asked.

"We must have studied him in school, but honestly, I can’t remember it having an impact."

"How can T.S. Eliot not have an impact?"

I shrugged. "Maybe I had a bad literature teacher that year."

We sat at one of the cafes on the zocalo, Cuernavaca’s main square, on a terrace separated from the midday throngs walking past by a flimsy plastic chain strung between posts. Here, under the shade of the zocalo’s hundred-year-old trees, we’d decided to break our sightseeing rampage for lunch.

Michael leaned back in his chair, ran a hand through his loose hair. "Lex, if I believed in sin, this would be a deadly one. It’s T.S. Eliot.”

“I’m sorry to be such a disappointment," I said, a little miffed.

“He’s the emblem of modern poetry, of—of twentieth-century literature. He won a freaking Nobel Prize. For literature.”

“Like I said," I hunched over my glass of lemonade, sipped at the straw, "I remember the name, but—”

"No, you’re right." Michael leaned forward, too. "You must have had a shitty teacher. He—or she—cheated you out of a life-altering experience. And," he shot me that famous grin of his, "I am going to change that. I just know it, Lex—you’ll love him. He’s exactly your kind of poet."

I channelled my giggle into the straw. This was probably a bad time to mention I didn’t like poetry.

“Let’s go to a bookstore. I’ll buy you a book of his.”

“Nonono.” I shook my head. “You’re not buying anything.”

"Why not?"

Gifts create obligations, and this relationship was complicated enough without them.

"I’m not very good with gifts," I said.

He raised an eyebrow, but he must have decided the article was more important than the acquisition process, because he said, “Whatever you want. But you need an Eliot book—a good one.”

Cuernavaca’s biggest bookstore was across the square. The attendant, an older man only remarkable for his surliness, disappeared without comment after I asked if they had any Eliot collections, and came back cradling six serious-looking volumes in his arms.

“These are all in Spanish.” Michael leafed through them. “Ingles?” he asked the attendant.

The man shook his gray head with a barely polite smile. He might just as well have said, we don’t sell books in dead languages.

“Muchas gracias.” Michael nodded him, and headed back out to the sunlit sidewalk. I had no choice but to follow.

"Can’t I just get one of those?" I dreaded the prospect of being dragged all over the city looking for an Eliot book in English. We wouldn’t find it, anyway.

“A translation?" Michael snorted. "You’d lose so much, Lex. Any other bookstores nearby?”

“None that sell English books.”

Michael stamped his foot, a little boy throwing a tantrum. I disguised my laughter with a cough.

“Okay,” he sighed, “I give up."

Thank God.

But then he brightened. "Here’s what we’ll do. As soon as I’m back home I’ll find a copy and send it to you. How’s that?”

All this fuss for some author— poet, no less—that I was sure I’d hate.

"Michael, why is this so important?"

His chuckle rose like foam from his throat. "You mean, besides the fact that you, a fan of literature, have completely skipped a big—and relevant—chunk of literary achievement?"

I looked away, rolled my eyes.

"Lex, it’s important because—damn, T.S. Eliot is going to change your life."

I studied him; he wasn’t joking. “I find that hard to believe."

He reached out and took my hand. “His work is so rich, Lex. When you read him—really read him—you’ll feel like you’ve found a part of yourself in the lines. Like—this guy knows what’s inside you, and puts it into words like you never could."

"You mean like—lovey-dovey stuff?" I thought of the intensity in Lord Byron, one of the few poets I could quote. "It’s really not my thing."

He threw back his head and his laughter was so deep I felt it resonate in my chest.

"Eliot is about as far from lovey-dovey as it gets, Lex. His stuff is—magic, but not like that. Listen to this."

He stopped in the middle of the sidewalk. Pedestrians stumbled at the unexpected obstruction, swerved to avoid us.

“Michael, maybe it’s better if we move —“

“Yeah, okay. Let’s find somewhere quiet.”

We walked past the main square and into a little pedestrians-only alley. The bougainvillea overflowing from walls on both sides provided convenient shade. The busiest streets of Cuernavaca were a block away, but even the cars honking sounded distant here; only birds and an occasional voice interrupted the sunlit peace.

Michael pulled me to a stop under a canopy of purple bougainvillea. "Ready? Your life is about to change."

I rolled my eyes and he laughed.

"I mean it," he said. “Listen.” He closed his eyes, tilted his head back.

I looked around, embarrassed. There was no one around to witness the unhinged gringo’s performance. I hoped it’d be brief.

“Are you listening?” He peeked out through lowered lids.

“Yes.” Will he get on with it?

“This is from The Hollow Men, one of my favorites. I don’t know all of it. This is just the end.”

I suppressed a sigh, prepared to dismiss this Eliot and his poetry, humor my gringo, and move on. Please.

But Michael’s voice was compelling. The cadence of the words drew me in, almost against my will.

“Between the idea / And the Reality / Between the motion / And the act / Falls the Shadow / For Thine is the Kingdom."

Even though his eyes were closed, I fidgeted self-consciously. Listen, Alexia.

"Between the conception / And the creation / Between the emotion / And the response / Falls the Shadow / Life is very long."

It almost sounded like a different person when he said the last line. Michael’s eyes were still shut, but his fingers grasped mine tighter, a pulse to match the rhythm.

"Between the desire / And the spasm / Between the potency / And the existence / Between the essence / And the descent / Falls the Shadow."

My pragmatic brain dredged up an old Mexican saying: del plato a la boca se cae la sopa. From bowl to mouth soup can spill. Intentions are no guarantee. Was this Shadow that space between soup bowl and hungry mouth, the moment where so many things can happen, go wrong?

"For Thine is the Kingdom / For Thine is / Life is / For Thine is the."

Something welled in me—not fear, not quite. Something akin to desperation—hopelessness, perhaps—as Michael’s voice murmured these stunted phrases in a monotone.

And then his eyes opened, found mine and held them. "This is the way the world ends / This is the way the world ends / This is the way the world ends / Not with a bang but a whimper.”

The last line hit me hard, and I didn’t know why. My head swam, brimming with emotions I had no name for, and for a moment I was afraid I’d cry. Again.

But Michael’s eyes darted between my own two, and whatever he saw there made him smile, pleased. “You need to hear it again.”

This time his eyes were open. Their depths shimmered, and his hand moved in vague gestures, as if he could pinpoint that place—where the Shadow falls.

I wasn’t sure I understood—the words enfolded meaning like a sheet draped over furniture. I saw the shape but its essence eluded me, taunting, making me hunger—no, not hunger. Yearn.

Michael’s hand sketched in empty space, his eyes locked on mine as if to draw out my soul. My breathing deepened, perhaps in an effort to absorb the thrust of these words—if my brain couldn’t, maybe my alveoli would have better luck.

When he reached the three repetitions—this is the way the world ends—he said each one slightly different. The cadence changed, and it contained the total bleakness of a world ending.

“Not with a bang, but—a whimper.”

I was mute. What I wanted had nothing to do with words—even with sound. I wished, for a moment, that he’d never recited this to me, that I’d never heard those horrible words—not with a bang, but a whimper.

We stood there, looking at each other, the magic—he’d been right; it was magic, but not the happy party-magician kind—weaving around us, holding us still.

~ * ~

Thanks again for reading and for your feedback--it's much appreciated. Look forward to reading the other wonderful snippets on the Sweet Saturday Sample list--make sure you take a stroll that way, too.

Happy Saturday!

A to Z April Challenge

2012-02-01T08:28:00.000-05:00

Oh, man. I must be seriously deranged. I signed up for the A to Z Challenge yesterday (thanks, Damyanti, for tweeting the link!). What is it? Short version: 26 new blog posts in April, one every day except Sundays, each starting with a different letter of the alphabet (thereby A to Z, duh). Long version: click here. Apparently it's a ton of fun, gets creative juices flowing, one meets amazing bloggers, gets lots of exposure, makes new friends... Cool, huh?

Except for the fact that my blog stats tell me I put up a new post on average twice a week.

No, it's not that I don't like blogging--love it, in fact. Since we're on the subject, let me please ask for a round of applause for all Quiet Laughter's readers--the blog got over 1200 hits in January. Almost double what it got in December, which was around 10% more than November, which was, in turn, around 10% more than October, so on and so forth. Quiet Laughter was born in June last year, and traffic has steadily increased every month (mainly thanks to Clarity of Night's fiction contest in July, the Six Sentence Sunday weekly blog hop, and the Bluebell Books Short Story Slam), but the spike from December to January took me completely by surprise. So--thank you, all, for your visits and your comments--they make my day, every time.

Back to the A to Z challenge--ahem. So in April, together with my blogging buddy Cindy Dwyer (Cindy, you're not leaving me alone with this, are you?), I'll be writing a new blog post every day except Sundays. What about? Yeah, that's the question, isn't it? I doubt I'll be able to stick to one subject for the whole 26 posts--you know me, eclectic blogger (if you're in a kind mood). But I'd really like to make this a cross-culture A to Z. Short essays on those scenes from daily life us expats (or frequent travelers) experience, whether frustrating, funny, or illuminating, that give this homeless life we've chosen its spark. I'm not promising anything, but that seems like a good idea right now.

Or I might just go off on a tangent, get all dark and maudlin. Spice it up every now and then with something about writing :)

Six Sentence Sunday (Jan 29)

2012-01-29T03:00:00.022-05:00

Welcome, Sixers! Thanks for stopping by--it's so good to see you all :)

We pick up where we left off: Alexia's boyfriend, Dan, is showing her some pictures of the apartment he found in Italy for them. It's not a permanent move--he's a graphic designer, and wants to get a Master's in Milan. Dan and Alexia have been dreaming of this a long time.

But these snapshots I held in my hand didn’t belong in the dream. The first picture was taken outdoors, a 70’s cookie-cutter-style block of apartment buildings painted a faded brown. Could be yellow—it was hard to tell under the city grime. The area looked like a modern suburb; no haughty architecture, no history crumbling in the corners. No, only chain-link fences, meager vegetation and overcast skies.

With a straight face I flipped to the next one, the interior of the apartment.

I do apologize--six sentences wasn't enough to show the inside. Next week!

Happy Sunday, everyone, and remember to visit the other Six Sundayers. Some awesome blogs to keep coming back to: Zee Monodee, Natalie R. Owens, Jen Burke, Monica Enderle Pierce, Cindy Dwyer, Siobhan Muir, Dan H. Kind, Sue at SassySpeaks, and many others!

Sweet Saturday Sample (Jan 28)

2012-01-28T05:11:00.002-05:00

Another Sweet Saturday Sample!

The novel I'm sharing from, RESTORING EXPERIENCE, is Women's / Literary Fiction, and it's rating as a whole would never make it to PG-13 :D But this excerpt is mild, mild, mild. I hope you like it, and I look forward to your comments.

Title: RESTORING EXPERIENCE
Blurb: It's the summer of 1995 in Mexico, and 22-year-old Alexia is discovering possibility--at a steep price. She takes a step away from the conservative values and expectations that define her life, reveling in the exhilaration of freedom—of choices she never imagined she had. But choice implies decisions, and decisions entail regret: every untrodden path, even as she takes that first step away from it, is already an embryo of regret.

Sometimes, we're just not ready to learn the lessons life throws our way. And sometimes there are no second chances.

~ ~ ~

A few years ago, on the last leg of a fourteen-hour flight, I finished the book I was reading an hour and a half before landing. After staring at the unwavering blue outside for a while, I paged through the meager material in the airline magazines until an article caught my eye. Apparently, sleep deprivation has been documented to increase activity in the brain's parietal lobe. Greater activity in that region is associated with better memory. The rest of the article promoted new first-class amenities for transatlantic flights and I paged on, but that bit stayed with me.

Is that why I can’t forget you, Miguel? Because during the weeks we spent together, I didn’t get enough sleep?

Some details of that time with Michael have a clarity in my memory that borders on the organic—a heartbeat, almost. The weekend that Dan stayed in Mexico City, for example. There was certainly enough sleep deprivation to support the magazine article’s research. But I think it’s more than that.

That weekend my heart finally admitted, quietly and to itself, that there was no turning back.

~ ~ ~

Markets in Mexico are dirty, crowded, and… well, they smell.

"Why a market?" I asked for the tenth time on Saturday morning. "And why the big one? I can take you to the smaller one in Tepoztlan tomorrow. It’s outdoors and they also sell handcrafts—"

"And it’s for tourists. We were there last week, remember?"

"But why this one?"

"To annoy you, Lex." Michael closed his eyes and sighed. He’d given up trying to convince me. "I think it’s fun to do stuff to annoy you."

"I’ve noticed that."

"Alexia, I want to see Mexico, unedited for tourists. And I want to take pictures." He’d brought his Nikon, which weighed more than my knapsack—that was saying a lot.

"Why there? We could go to the rose plantations down south, walk around in the countryside for a while. It’s beautiful."

"Sounds great. Tomorrow?"

"What’s this obsession with the market?" My patience eroded down to specks of powder.

He cocked his head to the side. "You don’t have to come, Lex."

"You’d go alone? Without your translator?"

"Probably not." He grinned, took my hand. "And it’s not about a translator."

Market. Fine.

Beggar children surrounded us as soon as we stepped into the rank darkness under the market’s huge vaulted ceiling. They were everywhere, these dirty, sub-human creatures. Little sticky hands tugged at our clothes, and I cringed away. But Michael smiled—and broke the first rule of dealing with any beggar: never meet their eyes.

“Look at the one in pink,” he said to me. The miniature dress, grimy and faded, was only pink in places. “She’s so cute. Look at those eyes.”

“Michael, ignore them. They’ll follow us around forever.”

“I don’t mind,” he said, crouching down to—almost—their height.

But I do. I concentrated on dodging sticky fingers.

“Yo me llama Miguel,” he pointed at his chest. “Como se llama tu?” He pointed at the pink dress.

The children giggled. They looked about eight, some no more than five or six. It was hard to tell from their frail bodies. Maybe there was an element of cuteness, but they definitely needed a bath.

None of them dared answer the tall gringo that talked funny.

“Hey.” Michael’s smile turned down, hurt, and he tried again. “Como se llama tu?” This time he pointed at a little boy with hair so coarse it stood up like quills around his face. His left eye looked like it was healing from a bruise.

Michael reached a hand to him, and, lighting-quick, the boy hid behind my leg. I flinched at the touch of his dirty hands, but my hand landed protectively on his bony shoulder instead of pushing him away. He looked like he might be the youngest.

“Esta bien, corazón,” I reassured him, bending down to his eye level. “El señor solo quiere saber cómo te llamas,” I explained. He just wants to know your name.

“Miguel,” he told me, barely audible. He sounded maybe four.

“Dile a él.” I pointed at Michael. With a little smile, the boy said it again for him.

Michael was delighted. “We’re namesakes!" He looked up at me. "How do you say namesake?” .

“Tocayo.”

“Miguel, yo soy tocayo. Yo llama Miguel.”

In spite of the funky sentence construction, little Miguel’s smile widened.

“Yo me llamo Silvia,” the little girl in the pink dress piped up. She’d apparently decided the gringo was harmless.

“Yo me llamo Cristo.”

“Yo soy Ana.”

“Rubén.”

“Toño.”

Michael sat on his heels, tousled their hair and touched their cheeks as he repeated the names back to them. They were curious about the camera slung around his neck, and he let them touch it before snapping their pictures. The pockets of his cargo pants were within easy reach of those little hands, but he didn’t seem concerned his wallet might go missing.

“No nos coopera para un taco, Don Miguel?” Silvia, the cutie in the pink dress, felt comfortable enough to get back to the original point.

“No comprende. Comprendo,” Michael corrected himself.

“She wants money for food,” I explained, smiling at the little girl with honey eyes. I’d been ready to walk away from her without a second glance.

Michael patted his pockets for some loose change.

“Don’t, Michael. It’ll go to their parents, who’ll just drink it up and come back to beat them until they bring more.”

That was reality for children like these. We all knew it, we all tsk-tsked and shook our heads about it, and got on with our lives.

Michael took Silvia’s tiny hand in his big one, gave her a playful squeeze and a wink, but when he turned to me, his eyes were tight. “What can we do?”

Walk away. But that option had expired.

“Feed them, maybe,” I said. "At least they keep that."

Michael turned back to Silvia and her crowd. “Quiere comer?” He motioned with his hand to his mouth, holding an imaginary taco. The children laughed and nodded.

“Vamos a tacos,” Michael said, getting up and extending his hand to Silvia and the little boy whose name I thought might be Rubén.

These kids had grown up in the street, learned to fear adults—starting with their parents—in sordid stories of pain and abuse. Yet, they put their little hands into Michael’s with a faith that cracked at my heart. Swallowing hard, I extended my own hands, and felt two sets of little fingers grab hold. I forgot to cringe.

Outside the market, several food vendors set up shop on the sidewalk. Michael walked to the nearest one, raised an eyebrow for my approval, and ordered six tacos de canasta. The vendor handed back a heaped plate, and Michael sat on the sidewalk under a bit of shade.

“Okay,” he said, extending the plate to the children. “Aqui.”

“Tomen un taquito, chicos,” I encouraged them. Two of the boys lunged for the food.

“Hey.” I stopped them with a hand on their shoulders. “Las damas primero.” Ladies first.

The boys stepped back, and one of them pushed Silvia and the other girl forward with rough protectiveness. The girls smiled shyly at Michael and, with unexpected daintiness, took a taco each. The boys turned to me and, when I nodded, they took theirs. The taco was gone in two bites; they weren’t big, and their mouths were small, but hunger is rude.

“Seis más, por favor,” I told the vendor. Six more, then another six, and six again. At a peso fifty each, the investment was negligible.

The children ate the meager fare, laughed and teased Michael, were teased in return, and a faint halo of happiness was almost tangible.

A new batch of tourists emerged from a taxi a few meters away, and the children ran off with a breezy 'gracias, Don Miguel’. Only Silvia lingered, and tugged on Michael’s finger with a private smile.

I watched them approach the foreigners, wiping taco grease from their hands, while we paid the taco vendor. I watched them be shooed away, watched their faces harden a little, and walk on to beg a coin from someone else.

They’d forget us. No matter. But I wouldn’t forget them. My hands still tingled from the touch of their tiny ones, and my heart had acquired an extra thump with each beat.

~ ~ ~

Thank you for your visit today, and please remember to click over to the other Sweet Saturday Samples for more excerpts from great authors and great works. Happy Saturday!

Awesome Awardee--Me!

2012-01-27T09:47:00.001-05:00

Jennifer Burke, over at Jen's Bookshelf, gave me an award--the Kreativ Blogger! See how cool it is?

Innit totally awesome? I get to share 10 things about myself, and pass the award on to another 6 bloggers. The ten things aren't that hard, but the bloggers--man, everyone's so creative! Can't I just award it to everyone?

No.

FINE. I'll pick. Lemme see... Okay, how's this? I'll pick six new blogs I've found recently. Will that work?

Whatever. Just get on with it.

All right, here we go:

Cindy Dwyer
Dan H. Kind
Monica Enderle Pierce
Rick Bylina
Loren Eaton at I Saw Lightning Fall
Nick Rose

My six awardees, for their outstanding creativity. They're all different: hilarious or serious, all are outstanding writers, and you're missing out if you haven't been by their blogs yet.

Now: ten things about me. Things no one knows. Well, maybe my boyfriend. But he'd never tell.

1 Sydney Sheldon is a guilty pleasure.
2 I'm a procrastinator of the absolute worst kind. My old car has been sitting in the garage for thirteen months. Unused. I haven't even advertised it for sale. I know. Yes, I know.
3 I have twenty-eight handbags. I use maybe two in any given month. Usually the same two. But I'm always on the lookout for new, cool, ones.
4 I'm not a fan of jewelry, unless it's radical: handcrafted, original and unique, or otherwise super special.
5 I bought my first laptop in 2007--a white MacBook. It's the one I'm writing this on. Heavy as a load of bricks, but I can't bear to part with it.
6 Emmanuelle is the sexiest book I've read. The movie, as old as it is, wasn't too bad (but the book is better).
7 I watched The Exorcist when I was about seven. Didn't faze me. But a year later I watched Prom Night (anyone remember that movie?). For years afterwards I was terrified of the dark--kept thinking a psycho killer waited in every shadow. When I was thirteen or so, I got fed up and decided to kick fear's ass. Every night for months, I'd walk the whole house--a big house, six bedrooms, sprawling 1000 square kms--alone, without any lights. It worked.
8 I know very little about my father. No, he wasn't an absent dad--I lived with him until he died, when I was 19. But he didn't talk much about himself, and I didn't ask much, either. His family and I weren't close, grew even further apart after he passed. I wish I'd asked more.
9 For me, life's not about being happy. It's about exhilaration, the intensity of the experience. I should live in the Middle East, at least Mexico City, and not in a secluded Caribbean island.
10 My favorite time of day is when I go to bed. I read for a while, then turn out the light and curl up against my boyfriend. To feel his arm around me and hear his sleepy voice whisper, "welterusten", is the perfect close to any day.

So. I've shared. Bared my soul to you--yes, you, out there in cyberspace. Now it's your turn. Share a deep dark secret of your own in the comments below, if you dare :)

Thanks for the visit, and remember to visit my awesome awardees!
G

Write 1, Sub 1--Jan Week 3

2012-01-25T08:26:00.000-05:00

Ouch. Only three weeks into the challenge and I already failed. For the past three weeks I've been rushing to revise the MS I'll be pitching at the writers' conference in San Francisco next month, and this week I decided I'd sacrifice short stories for editing. I did cut away around 8K words, which is really good--still another 2K to go, and some chapters at the end to rewrite, but I think I'll end up with around 102K. Long, I know, especially for a first novel, but it's doable. Better than the original 113K, at least :D

One publishing success: a story I submitted to Pure Slush was accepted and published yesterday. Technically I guess that success should go in this week's W1S1 accounting, but in case I forget, here's the link:

http://pureslush.webs.com/pianosonataincmajor.htm

I got some great feedback from people that read it--it's short, around 600 words, so if you want to take a hop over and leave a comment, here or there, to tell me what you think, it'd be most appreciated :)

Six Sentence Sunday (Jan 22)

2012-01-22T03:31:00.005-05:00

Thanks for stopping by today--hope you're having a great Six Sentence Sunday!

Here's this week's snippet for you, a bit further down the same scene from last week, where Alexia and Dan, her 7-year-boyfriend, are talking about the apartment he found for them in Italy--the fulfillment of a long-standing dream is about to come true, and Alexia is surprised she doesn't feel more excited.

“I got some pictures of the apartment.” Dan fished in his shirt pocket and produced some snapshots. “Now, don’t be disappointed,” he said, holding them back as I reached to take them. “It’s small, not even close to luxurious.”

I laughed, trying to pry his fingers from the photos. “Poverty is the mother of all art, right?"

Next week you'll get to "see" the photos through Alexia's eyes :)

Take a stroll over to the Six Sentence site for more authors and more snippets of great works. You'll find me for sure at Zee Monodee, Natalie R. Owens, Monica Enderle Pierce, Cindy Dwyer, Melissa Mackinnon, Siobhan Muir, Krystal Wade, and many others. Enjoy!

Happy Sunday!

Sweet Saturday Sample (Jan 21)

2012-01-21T10:51:00.001-05:00

This is my first time at Sweet Saturday Sample, and I'm excited! I hope you enjoy the sample I've chosen to share today from my soon-to-be-completed WIP (SOON, as in, this weekend). This is the MS I'm planning to pitch at the San Francisco writers' conference over Presidents' Weekend this February. Wish me luck, but most of all, if you have any feedback--any at all--I'd sure appreciate it if you shared it. No holds barred--this is about the story, not about me or my ego. Whatever helps the story get better, become stronger, is good with me :)

Thanks for stopping by, and remember to visit the other blogs participating in the Sweet Saturday Sample hop--some great writing there, well worth checking out. Who knows, your next favorite author might be lurking there, waiting for you to find them.

Enjoy!

Title: RESTORING EXPERIENCE
Blurb: It's the summer of 1995 in Mexico, and 22-year-old Alexia is discovering possibility--at a steep price. She's at a crossroads, and she must decide whether the life her world--her family, her friends, her society--wants for her is what she wants for herself. Either way, she faces regret: every untrodden path, even as she takes that first step away from it, is already an embryo of regret.

Sometimes, we're just not ready to learn the lessons life throws our way. And sometimes there are no second chances.

~ ~ ~

I patted my jeans pockets for my cigarettes. What had I done with them?

“Looking for this?”

Michael, holding my pack of Marlboros and a grin that lit up the night.

“You dropped them on the dance floor," he said. "You were amazing out there, Alexia.”

“Sergio, not me.” I pulled out a cigarette, the conflict between my shortness of breath and tobacco flying right over my head. “I’ve never danced with anyone like that.”

Michael sat and lit my cigarette from his cupped hand. "It looked really cool, all those steps," he said.

“From where I was, it was all a blur.”

"You’ll have to teach me someday."

"Michael, I’m really not the right person. Sergio’s girlfriend, probably."

He chuckled. “You look happy.” He brushed a strand of hair back from my face.

“Do I?” My French braid had loosened, and I probably looked demented, not happy. But—so what? “I guess I am.” I laughed, reached back to undo the barrette and shake out my hair to rebraid it. “It felt good, you know? Not just the dancing. I never liked cumbia. It always seemed kind of—" I lowered my voice, "—vulgar.”

I didn’t want to offend anyone here, but beyond that, I was ashamed to admit this now. Telling Michael felt okay, though. Why don’t I feel judged by him?

"It didn’t look vulgar to me," he said, then grinned. "It looked hot."

"Michael."

"What?" He laughed. "It did. Sexy, and—"

"Stop it," I said, trying to untangle my hair with my fingers, not doing a very good job, not caring very much either.

When I began to redo the braid, Michael reached out and stopped me. “Wait.”

Had he seen something—a leaf, maybe—in my hair? But he ran his fingers through it, gingerly at first, letting it spread down my back, then more deliberately, hefting its weight. It felt good.

"Why don’t you leave it loose," he murmured, "like this?”

“Too messy.”

“Just for a little while?”

Well, why not? I let my head lean the tiniest bit into the movement of his hand. He was doing the sexy humming thing again, and his fingers felt wonderful. My skin tingled.

“I didn’t expect it,” I mumbled.

“What?”

“To be welcomed like this. Here.”

“Why?” His fingers were burrowing deeper. I should stop him.

Instead I shifted, to let his hand reach the other side of my head. His fingers were pure magic, and found the exact spots that needed rubbing.

“If Sergio—anyone here—came to a party with my friends, they’d be treated like outsiders.”

Michael let out a breath. “The more I hear about your friends the less I want to meet them.”

“They’re nice people. It’s just—they don’t mix.”

“You mean with other classes—a lower class?”

The pressure of his fingers softened, intensified, softened again. My eyes wanted to close.

"They’re just—so afraid, of anything different." I mumbled. Where did that come from?

People still danced, groups of conversation around them. Laughter rang even above the music.

“Many of these people only met tonight," I said. "And everyone’s having a great time together. They’re so—open.”

“You’re like that too, Lex.” Michael moved closer and his breath skimmed the exposed skin between my jaw and my shoulder.

I shivered. "I’m not. I’m scared of strangers."

“I was a stranger."

And you’re terrifying. "That’s different."

"Why?"

"You’re not from here. And just for the record, I am scared of you."

His fingers were doing wonderful things in my hair, and his voice was very close to my ear when he said, "I’m scared of you, too."

~ ~ ~

If you're curious and want to know more about the story, get a little more background, perhaps, you can find a bit here.

Thanks again for the visit, and look forward to your comments. Have a lovely Saturday in the meantime!

Letter to Apollo

2012-01-19T08:51:00.000-05:00

Apollo, you're a genius. I don't mean just because of your typing skills--impressive, dawg!--or even because of your amazing mastery of English--and you're not even a full-grown "dawg", but a puppy. Cute as all-out, too. These things contribute, sure, but--Apollo, the real pearl of wisdom was that tidbit you overheard from Scott Eagan, about clutter in stories yesterday. When you got to the part about--okay, let me copy-paste here so there's no misunderstanding:

'[...] the story simply becomes too cluttered and messy (kind of like our family room after I've been playing). And [...] After all of that playing and that mess, someone has to put it all away again (and it ain't me). With stories, those final chapters are now an issue of "putting it all away"[.]'

When I read this, I had to wonder if Scott's hacked into my computer and been supervising my "revising" (i.e., clutter clean-up) for the last two weeks.

You chose to share this at the exact right time for me, Apollo. Don't you just loooove synergy? You're probably too young to know what that is. Well, this is it. You randomly overheard something, randomly chose to share it (among all the other things you might have overheard), and I (ok, not so randomly) read the post exactly--exactly--when I needed to hear this most.

Yep, synergy.

And now, Apollo honeybunch, I'm off to clear away some more clutter. I've decided to become ruthless in my clutter-clearing. Because you know something? Scott's right. He always is.

The Holstee Manifesto (aka Inspiration Blues Fixer)

2012-01-17T05:33:00.001-05:00

Write 1, Sub 1--Jan Week 2

2012-01-16T15:20:00.005-05:00

The second week of the year and I managed to a) write another short piece (1,033 words) and b) submit that same piece to Muscle & Blood. Yay!

The piece started as an exercise in the Practice list of the IWW, and got expanded into its present state. Let's hope M&B like it--that would be my first publication with them.

The title is AROUND THE BEND, and its main theme is madness--and an all-too-real turn of events.

Last week I also received a response on the submission I made to Dark River. I feel disproportionately flattered to have received a rewrite request from the editor: he remarked the female character lacked definition, and if I could change that they'd be willing to consider the piece.

The Life of Books (When You're Not Looking)

2012-01-16T09:30:00.001-05:00

Fantastic video I found on the She Reads blog yesterday!

Six Sentence Sunday (Jan 15)

2012-01-15T03:11:00.007-05:00

Middle of January already, people--where is the year going???? I do hope it's a great one for you so far.

Another Six Sentence snippet for you from Restoring Experience, the novel I'm planning to pitch at the San Francisco Writers' Conference next month. You can read last week's snippet here, and previous SSS posts here. Remember to visit the Six Sunday site for links to other participants--great writers there, and some have new releases, books you can actually read, all at once :)

With no further ado:

“Are you happy?” He put an arm around my shoulders.
“I am.”
“About the apartment in Italy?” The excitement that spilled into his voice was tinged with triumph. He was proud of himself for finding this apartment.

Look forward to your comments and your own snippets :D Happy Sunday, everyone!

A Simple Man & A Complex Woman (The Dushi Ode)

2012-01-12T08:43:00.003-05:00

Dushi, happy birthday. This is probably not the kind of birthday "card" you expected, is it? You're not a public kind of man, I know, and I'm sorry that I chose this very public forum to say Happy Birthday. I didn't do it to embarrass you.

You see, words are the only gift I have to give. And, as it is, they're not much.

We've been together for a long time now, and I like to think you know me pretty well. You know how intense I am, how conflicted, how voluble and disperse. I'm sorry for bringing my conflicts into your life, but I'm forever grateful that you understand--how do you do it? How do you put your own self aside and step into my shoes, so gracefully and quiet, like a shadow? And--why?

You changed my life, dushi. In so many ways--some, probably, that I haven't even realized. You ground me. You give my life substance. You make me matter. And, in your company, the turmoil that lives in my heart and in my head finds quiet, settles and soothes itself into rest.

I must have done something good, in this life or in past ones, to be allowed this time with you. I don't know how long it will last--we hope forever, but one never knows. You are so different from every other man I've ever known, so alien in so many ways, that it took me a while to believe. And yet--there you are. Every morning, every bedtime. Puttering in the kitchen on Saturday evenings--how I love your cooking, and the meticulous way you slice and dice, the way leeks are a staple of every food you make (okay, almost every food). Sitting across from me with a magazine, or a book, or absorbed in your laptop, chuckling quietly at whatever funny thing you've come across.

Have I told you how much I like your laughter? You don't laugh--really laugh--often, but when you do, a warmth spreads inside my belly, and my heart finds wings.

Yes, here you are, with me. Still. And I still don't understand why you'd want this for yourself. You are a simple man, of simple pleasures, and I--well, I'm a complex woman, of moods and dark sides. I complicate your life, I know it--and yet, here you are. You're a man of routines, and I'm a rule-breaker. You're a careful shopper, and I'm a terror with money. You don't understand poetry, that lifeline of mine. I don't understand soccer, no matter how many times you've tried to explain.

And yet, here we are. A happy couple. In spite of the differences, or, perhaps, because of them. Maybe it's because there's something deeper, something visceral and strong as iron, underlying the apparent contrasts, and it pulls us together, like a gravitational force? Maybe it's because you're tolerant, and understanding.

I don't know, dushi. But I don't question it much, not anymore. I know that, whatever the reason, it's a binding one. I cannot imagine my life without you in it--I can hardly imagine how I survived, whole and without a psychotic break, for so many years before I met you.

Happy, happy birthday, dushi.

Write 1, Sub 1--Jan Week 1

2012-01-10T05:44:00.001-05:00

I signed up for the Write1Sub1 challenge in 2012--weekly. That means that, in Bradbury tradition, I must write one new short story every week and submit it--somewhere. Magazine, online or print. The rules aren't so strict--the basic idea is that every week you write a story, and every week you submit a story--can be the same one, can be another one.

And Mondays (Tuesday this week, due to the fact that on Monday I guest blogged at Daily (W)rite--about murdering your way to a Pulitzer, hehehehe! Go take a look--it's a fun post) will be my accountability days.

Last week I wrote a flash piece for the writers' group I belong to, titled Death Row--just under 400 words. And yesterday, Sunday, I submitted The Purity of Blackness, another older piece, to Dark River Press, a print and online publication that specializes in horror--done intelligently. Let's see if they think Purity is intelligent enough :)

How Far Would YOU Go To Be A Best-Selling Author?

2012-01-09T10:10:00.001-05:00

Someone comes up to you and asks:

"So. You want to be a bestselling author, eh? Oh--sorry, a Pulitzer winner?"

*Insert yourself here, nodding madly, salivating like a Rottweiler at an open cage of bunnies.

"Well," this mystery person says, "I can make that happen. I just have a question for you. How far are you willing to go to achieve that?"

Would you sacrifice your job? Would you give up chocolate--or smoking? Your family? Ok, some families are worth giving up, I realize that. But--would you? How much--really--do you want this thing?

Would you kill for it?

If you answered an outraged NO! at the very first question, you can stop reading right here and go on your meek and merry way to whatever bland activities you have planned for yourself today. Thank you, and good luck with that bestseller one day.

If you answered NO, but couldn't really muster up the outrage, and you're now not really reading anymore but considering exactly how sick your ambition really is, please take a hop over to Daily (W)rites, Damyanti's blog, to read my guest post there today.

Because that's exactly what I'm suggesting: murder your way to writing success.

Six Sentence Sunday (Jan 7)

2012-01-08T03:45:00.001-05:00

And... My first Six Sunday post of the year! My apologies to everyone that dropped in last week and didn't find an SSS excerpt--somehow I programmed the post for February 1 instead of January 1. I lay my head down at your feet, and beg forgiveness. Please.

With that out of the way, I invite you to jump right into Alexia's story of loss and regret. You can read previous excerpts here, and please remember to visit the other Six Sundayers.

We walked into the park, and when Dan’s hand took mine I flinched with guilt. I should tell him. And what exactly will you say, Alexia? Dan I have a confession to make—I’ve been holding hands with someone else? I’d done nothing wrong, really. Still, the guilt didn’t subside, and I tightened my fingers around his.

Thank you for the visit, and do I hope you'll leave a comment--feedback is always appreciated, good or bad (yeah, I'm a masochist).

Have a fantastic Sunday!

2011--The Year Everything Changed

2012-01-03T14:51:00.001-05:00

For me, at least. 2011 was a year of flux, of upheaval, more internal than external. It was a breaking point of sorts--I realized life is too short to live it any other way than how we want to.

Sounds irresponsible, doesn't it? You imagine me (or you) vegging out on the couch, stuffing ourselves with greasy chips and creamy dips (I crave salty, not sweet, but feel free to substitute the chips for--oh, I don't know, chocolate truffles?), binging on reality TV and bad Lifetime movies (that's probably an oxymoron, isn't it?). And that's not what I mean at all.
Maybe that's what you dream of doing with your spare time--God knows I did, during the years when I worked in the financial industry, and those twelve-hour days left me exhausted, no energy at all for the weekends, except to stuff myself with chips and dip.

But that's no life, and that's one of the things I sought to get away from. Since I stopped writing "publicly" in my 20's, I promised myself that one day, when I retired, when I was wealthy, when everything else had been accomplished, I'd write again. Write that novel that had been bouncing around in my head for years. Write short stories, or longer ones. Write for passion, for glory, for myself, for whoever wanted to read.

And sometime between 2009 and last April, the realization finally sank in, What if I didn't make it to that hazy future of ink-stained fingers? What if, worse than some illness (probably lung cancer, since I smoke a pack a day) that cut my life short, between here and then the inspiration evaporated? What if, when I got there, there were no more words to say?

That was all I ever wanted, all I ever asked of Life. I wanted to write. Everything else was--well, for someone else. I thought if I met everyone else's expectations, at some point I'd be left alone to do whatever I wanted. But it doesn't work that way, does it? One can only do so much for others. I'm glad my breaking point came this year, that I didn't wait until there was no one around to demand--not verbally, mind you; everyone is really polite, most of the time, that I said fuck you, world, and decided to live the life I want.

I quit a job I loved. Yeah, I did love that job. And the paycheck that came with it. But I turned my back on financial security--it wasn't worth it. Yep, this Christmas was lean. But it was happy. And, for perhaps the first time in twenty years, maybe more, it was real.

Was I wrong, to make that decision? I don't think so, although it's still early days. Next month I'm off to my first writers' conference, to try and sell my first novel. Expectations are high, very high--and I'm also realistic in that I understand this thing isn't a rags-to-riches kind of journey. This takes time--effort, hard work, struggle, harsh reality checks.

But I have had a measure of success already. Three stories of mine were published in 2011, and I finished one novel, started another one. One day I hope to come back to this post and reminisce; here, Guilie, was where it began.

In July, a flash of mine, Mercury Charms, was awarded an honorable mention on Jason's Clarity of Night blog.

In August, Fiction365 published Come Back To Me, Elsie. It was an amazing experience to see my name under the title of a story published for the world to see--the last time that happened was in 1994.

On Aug. 15th I finished the novel I'd started in May (5th, to be precise). That one also started as a short story that grew, and grew, and grew some more. Still working on polishing it.

In December, Fiction365 selected Mischievous Moonlight as their feature for the 16th, a longer piece this time, and one set here in Curacao, the island where I live. This was a special story for many reasons, but mostly because it was a collaboration between Cor, my adorable and 100% angelic (yeah, I don't deserve the man, really) boyfriend, and myself. I'm not sure anymore why; I needed inspiration for an IWW exercise, probably. The point is, I asked Cor for help. "Dushi (that's 'sweetie' in Papiamentu, the local language), I'm out of juice. I need to write something for [insert random publication here], and I'm dry." "Okay," he said, "what about something about Curacao?" "Deadline's tomorrow. No time for research." "Well, what about that legend? The one about the ghost, up in Banda Abou?" I grinned. "Brilliant." I hammered the story out in a couple of hours and polished it. The original publication didn't accept it, but Fiction365 did.

The big bang came just a few days before the year ended. A new literary magazine, Lady Ink, published a chapter from my novel, Restoring Experience. This is a print-on-demand publication, so after seventeen years, I once again got to see my words in actual print.

~ -- ~

2011 was a hard year, of hard decisions. But it was a good year. I have everything I need, and my life is blessed. 2012, here I come.

Mantra for 2012--By Chuck Wendig

2011-12-29T11:24:00.000-05:00

The Second Writer's Prayer, from Revenge Of The Pen Monkey, by awesome Chuck Wending. Found it on TerribleMinds, Chuck's blog, and couldn't resist sharing it... One, because Chuck's is a blog I think everyone should be following, and two, because the prayer is the most fuckin' uplifting thing I've ever read. Made me want to climb to a rooftop and shout it out in a powerful Mercutio voice... And, now I think of it, maybe I'll do just that. Every day of 2012.

I am a writer, and I am done fucking around.

That which has prevented me lingers no longer. I am wind and storm and lightning and I shall huff and I shall puff and I shall blow all the barriers down. Then I will drink whisky made from the fear-urine of my loudest detractors and find power in their disbelief.

I don’t have time. I make time. I reach into the universe’s clockwork brain and I take whatever time I jolly well need. I cobble time out of sticks and mud and the finger-bones of naysayers. I am a motherfucking time wizard and with a wave of my pen shall create universes to conquer. Pockets of possibility. Born of my desire to have them made.

Fuck doubt. Doubt is a goblin on my back. I will reach for him with my ink-stained hands and grab his greasy head and fling him into the infinite nothing. His screams will thrill me. The resultant word-boner shall be mighty, and with this tremendous oaken stalk I shall swipe it left and swing it right and sweep all the road-blocks and brick-walls out of my way.

My distractions whimper and plead, their backs pressed against the wall, but I am no creature of mercy. Triple-Tap. Mozambique Drill. Two in the chest and one in the head. I laugh as they fall because their death clears the way and gives me purpose.

I will put myself on the page. I’m all in, with every card face up on the table. I am my stories and my stories are me. I do not merely write what I know: I write who I am. I’ll reach into my own chest and pluck out my still-beating heart and milk its juices like an overripe grapefruit. Squish.

That’s my blood on the page. The helix-spirals of my DNA wound around every word, every character, every plot point and page number. If CSI came here right now with one of those UV lights, you’d see the spatters and stains of my many penmonkey fluids because I can and will no longer contain my seed. You’ll take my inky seed and you’ll like my inky seed. It is a delightful moisturizer.

I do what needs doing. I ride the Loch Ness Monster through the gates of Carthage. I learn forbidden power words from the Undead Shamans of the Tulsa Underground. I kung-fu-kick a hole in the fabric of space and time and stick my head through to see what exists on the other side. I eat planets. I drink oceans. I piss rivers and I shit mountain lions. No task exists that I cannot accomplish on the page.

I write from a place of honesty. My stories are lies that speak truth.

Nobody tells me who I am or what I can’t do. I tell stories. I write characters. I make true shit up out of thin air. And nothing is more perfect than that.

My doubt is dead.

The dream is no longer a dream.

My desires are made manifest.

This is my reality now.

It’s time to load the guns, brew the ink, and go to work.

Because I am a writer, and I am done fucking around.

Amen.

The Lost Pleasure of Reading (For a Writer)

2011-12-21T21:05:00.001-05:00

In an interview with Joselyn Vaughn on Amy Corwin's blog (do check out the interview--great stuff, great author), something came up that made me stop and go "huh." It was Joselyn's answer to the question: "What makes a great book?"

This is her answer:

"When you start writing, you notice the writing in other books. You don’t get to read for pleasure very much anymore. You notice that they repeated a word or phrase within two sentences or you pick up the sly hints/foreshadowing much too easily. For me a great book has become one where the story is so engaging that I don’t notice any of this stuff—that is allows me to read purely for pleasure.[...]"

Huh, I went. Because this is so totally f*cking true.

I've noticed, since I started writing seriously (as in, since I quit my job and devoted days and nights on end to learning this craft), that I don't read the same way. Since I learned to read, at around age four, books have been a treasure trove for me. An alternate universe to lose myself in, a source of experience for things I may never have the fortune (or misfortune, depending on genre) to live through myself, a journey into the deeper side of humanity.

And all that is shot to hell now.

Because now, when I pick up a book--and I don't mean just trashy stuff, although I am reading the new Jean M. Auel and... Ok, I'll save that for another post. No, I mean any book. Garcia Marquez. DH Lawrence. Mr. Patterson. Mr. Koontz and Mr. King, my two steady literary love affairs from the beginning of time. Jane Eyre. The Master And Margarita. Good stuff. Stuff that once made the "real" world blur and disappear by the end of page one. Stuff that got me so absorbed, even after several rereadings (I know, I'm weird like that), that my family got used to me being present only in body if I was holding a book.

But now... Oh God. Now I analyze. If it's good--and most of the time it is, especially with these previously named stars of my bookcases--then I notice why it's good. I make notes about how a certain thing was handled, or not handled, or skipped, or not skipped. And if it's bad... Jeez, I'd be the worst possible editor. And my critique group has absolutely had it with me.

I rewrite sentences in my head. I go back and reread--would it sound better like this? Or like that? What would I have done for this scene, for this bit of dialogue?

The pleasure of disappearing that was once reading for me is gone.

Vaclav Havel: The Notion of Identity

2011-12-20T03:01:00.018-05:00

Bon voyage, Vaclav Havel--and thank you.

That Shakespearean Rag has a great post on Vaclav Havel's passing here--go ahead and read it, it's a powerful obituary.

One of the texts from Havel quoted in that post is this:

The essential aims of life are present naturally in every person. In everyone there is some longing for humanity’s rightful dignity, for moral integrity, for free expression of being and a sense of transcendence over the world of existence. Yet, at the same time, each person is capable, to a greater or lesser degree, of coming to terms with living within the lie. Each person somehow succumbs to a profane trivialization of his inherent humanity, and to utilitarianism. In everyone there is some willingness to merge with the anonymous crowd and to flow comfortably along with it down the river of pseudo-life. This is much more than a simple conflict between two identities. It is something far worse: it is a challenge to the very notion of identity itself.

It touched me. It drew me in--you know when you read something and a little piece of your brain goes, "Yes! That's exactly what I've been trying to say!"?

I'm sharing it here because, well, it deserves to be read. But also because I want to keep it close, to mull over it. I feel there's a great truth hidden there--well, not hidden, but my brain just sparked at it and then went into shock over it, so I need more time to process. I'll come back and revisit it, let it sink in, because this is so incredibly important.

Defining Right And Wrong

2011-12-19T03:01:00.016-05:00

While discussing my WIP, Restoring Experience, with some really excellent beta readers, a question came up that I thought would be interesting to share with you. See, Alexia is going to have to make a decision, sooner or later, about the way she's going to live her life--whether she's going to do what she's supposed to, or what she wants to.

This led me to thinking about how our concept of "right" and "wrong" is so often defined by what others expect of us and not by what we really believe ourselves. And actually, even that belief, the inner thoughts and commentary we provide ourselves with, is also based on others' expectations, in some degree, isn't it?

How do we deal with that? How much does your world--your society, your family, your environment and culture--matter in the decisions you make, the way you choose to live your life? Is it a positive influence? Negative? Both, maybe?

If you had been born in a different country, even a different city, a different decade or century, or even just to a different family, your life would probably be very different too. But--not just your life. YOU, and the way you see the world, would be completely different as well.

This extends to every single aspect of your life, every single decision you've ever made, even the simpler ones, like what clothes you wear, or the kind of earrings you like, or what you eat. But let's take a drastic example: the taking of a life.

Killing is wrong, right? Anywhere, anyhow. Right? Yes, I see you nodding vigorously. But what about if someone's trying to kill you? What if, in the course of defending yourself, say from a rapist, or a Jason-like psychotic murderer, you kill him/her? That's different, you say. Anyone can see that, right?

But here's a radical tidbit of information: according to my Dutch clog-wearing and tulip-bearing boyfriend, in Holland "self-defense" is not a valid defense. That's to say, if you kill the hockey-mask-wearing and bloodied-ax-wielding guy who was trying to kill you, you're still going to jail.

Note that I've done absolutely no research on this, other than a three-minute conversation with said tulip-bearing boyfriend (I know--he's a sweetheart), so I may be wrong--and if you know for a fact I am, then please, by all means, correct me. It will make me sleep better, I swear.

I may be stating the obvious here, but I find this thought fascinating--the way we define right and wrong, the way we define ourselves, even, is a product of our cultural background, our time, our parents, our siblings. It's a very--really, very--individual thing. And yet, with globalization and the inevitable cultural exchange it's producing, I wonder: will this change? Will right and wrong be globalized too, acquire universal definitions?

I hope not. I hope individuality survives. Because that individuality, those differences in how we--each of us--defines right and wrong, how opposing they are, how contradictory, is what makes every human on the planet unique.

And the quest for that definition--well, that's the journey of a lifetime, isn't it?

Six Sentence Sunday (December 18)

2011-12-18T03:15:00.019-05:00

Welcome to Six Sentence Sunday! Hard to believe that next week it'll be Christmas already, but there you have it--2012 is done, ladies and gents.

This excerpt is from Chapter 8 of Restoring Experience, one of my current WIPs. I promised you'd meet Dan, Alexia's boyfriend of seven years (yikes!) and... here he is.

“Come walk with me,” he said, shut the door behind him.

I tried not to fidget as I watched him come around to my side. It was so stupid, having to wait inside the car for him to get the door for me, but all the men I knew insisted, and the hurt on their faces whenever I did it myself generated enough guilt to make me desist.

I didn’t mind when he held a door open for me, or when he pulled out a chair for me at a restaurant--I liked it--but when it came to the car it made me fidget. I felt helpless, locked in. None of the other girls seemed to mind, and it never looked awkward with them--just with me.

Thank you so much for your visit, and triple thanks for your comments and feedback--they make my day, every time. Plus, I really want to know what impression you got of Dan so far.

Have a fantastic Sunday, y'all, and remember to visit the other Six Sundayers--one day you'll see a new bestseller at your local bookstore and say, "Hey! I read a piece of that online, when it was just a work-in-progress, at Six Sentence Sunday!"

P.S.--I'm celebrating this weekend because a short story of mine was published Friday at Fiction365. If you're in the mood for a creepy story about legends that won't stay *just* legends, take a hop over and read it here. I'd love to hear what you think about that one too!

Mischievous Moonlight Published Today!

2011-12-16T12:20:00.000-05:00

The wonderful folks at Fiction365 graciously published my story, Mischievous Moonlight, as their feature today. Hop on over and take a look--it's "more than a little spooky", according to a reader. I hope you like it, and if you're so inclined, you can leave some feedback at Fiction365's Facebook page (or follow the link on their site). As all writers, I think, I love to hear what you think--good or bad, feedback's always always welcome.

Bad day? Blow something up.

2011-12-15T08:38:00.000-05:00

No, not really. But Janet Reid posted this on her blog and I just HAD to share it.

Please don't blow anything up. And yes, it's office-safe.

http://www.devastatingexplosions.com/

Six Sentence Sunday (December 11)

2011-12-11T03:45:00.004-05:00

And... another Six Sentence Sunday! This is the last excerpt I share from Chapter 7 of the WIP (Restoring Experience)--next week you'll meet Alexia's boyfriend. I know you're all rooting for Michael here, but poor Dan also deserves a chance :)

Michael just tried to kiss Alexia before leaving for Acapulco, and she's outraged. Now, she's a good Mexican girl who's been in a steady relationship for seven years, but... I can't help thinking she's overreacting a bit. What do you think?

“A kiss is not just a kiss.”

What did he mean, ‘just a kiss’? A kiss is—surrender. Silver-screen romance ends in a kiss, princesses are woken from cursed slumber by a kiss, marriages and other worthy commitments are sealed with a kiss. A kiss is acceptance of everything else to come. It’s the beginning of… well, everything.

Michael is a broad-minded guy and I'm sure he'd have been open to all sorts of reactions... But I don't think he was expecting this one.

If you're getting tired of this story please do let me know--we'll switch to the new WIP, the NaNo novel, see how you like that one.

Thanks for stopping by, everyone, and remember to visit the other SSS participants this week. Great talent there, and some awesome blogs to discover.

Happy Sunday, everyone!

Six Sentence Sunday (December 4)

2011-12-04T03:00:00.012-05:00

It's December already, people. Where'd the year go? Can't say it hasn't been productive--I quit my office job, writing full-time now, mortgage be damned--but it just went by so fast.

One of the nicest things, though, in this new writer life of mine, is the Six Sunday community. There's a bit of everything, something for every taste. And the people are fantastic. Remember to stop by and visit some other SSS bloggers--make your Sunday special :)

And--back to Alexia and Michael, about to kiss in the language school lobby. Enjoy!

A muscle in my neck, more sensible than I, contracted--my head twitched and his lips met only the tiniest portion of the corner of my mouth. Disgusted at the unreasonable twinge of disappointment, I pushed hard at his chest and went for outrage.

“What the hell was that?”

Instead of exhibiting remorse, like any good Mexican boy would, his mouth opened into a big O.

“Why’d you move away?”

“Michael, you were going to kiss me! What were you thinking?”

*Sigh*. I was kind of hoping she'd let him kiss her. But--there's a boyfriend involved. A serious boyfriend, with whom she's about to move to Italy with on a graduate program. And Michael... Well, he's only here in Mexico for a few weeks. The attraction's strong, but--is it worth it? There's just too much to lose, isn't there?

What would you do? Take the fling? Stay faithful to the boyfriend? What does your decision hinge on? What's more important, in the end? The moment? Or loyalty?

White Christmas in Curacao

2011-12-02T13:15:00.000-05:00

Yes! This year Curacao hosts a white Christmas, thanks to Simon Kewing of Spellmaking. Ok, maybe not all Curacao, but in THIS blog it's a freakin' snow storm :)

Scott Schiller originally wrote the code--a BIG thank-you, Scott. For all of you winter-spirited bloggers, if you want a snowstorm on your blog, just cut and paste the code below into an HTML gadget and--presto! All that's missing is the sleigh-bells :)

<script src="http://files.main.bloggerstop.net/uploads/3/0/2/5/3025338/snowstorm.js" type="text/javascript">
snowStorm.snowColor = '#99ccff';
snowStorm.flakesMaxActive = 128;
snowStorm.useTwinkleEffect = true;
</script>

NaNoWriMo 2011 Winner--Yes, That's Me!

2011-11-29T11:26:00.000-05:00

I cannot believe I did it. I logged in 50,582 words at the NaNoWriMo word count verifier a few minutes ago. Over 50K words in less than 30 days--yes! Got my certificate, got the little badge you see here... And no, didn't get my t-shirt because the site doesn't list Netherlands Antilles as a possibility for billing addresses. Dang it.

It was a challenge, I admit, but it wasn't nearly as overwhelming as I thought it would be. Writing 50K words in one month *is* possible. Sure, I'm lucky because I get to write full-time--no kids, no job, a partner that loves the fact that I write. I had everything going for me this month. It really would have been an embarrassment not to finish. As it is, it's probably an embarrassment that I didn't win earlier, that the word count is *only* 50,582 today. But I'll take my pride where I can :)

The NaNo novel, as yet untitled, is only half-way. So--yes, I wrote 50K in one month, but I didn't finish a novel. Does that take away from the sense of achievement? Yeah, sure it does. The goal was 50K--that's what you need to win NaNo. But that's the letter of the law. The *spirit* is to finish the damn thing. Of course, a first draft of a novel, in Guiliespeak, is +100K, so perhaps it is unreasonable to demand of myself that I finish one in 30 days. I do plan to raise my target next year to at least 75K--that should bring me closer to the end.

What do I have now? I have about half of a novel's first draft. Sure--there's going to be a lot of editing in my future, eventually, but first... First, I need to finish the first draft. That wonderful feeling of writing "the end" at the last page--how I love that.

So... Even though I have my NaNo winner certificate and my little badge, and even though I earned a t-shirt that I cannot buy, I'm going to keep writing, keep logging in word count at the NaNo site, until tomorrow night. See how far I get. I doubt I can finish the first draft by then, but it'll get me farther. And even after tomorrow I won't stop. I'll keep on writing. And I won't go back to the way I wrote before NaNo--writing, revising, editing, writing some more. No, no.

The most valuable lessons I garnered from this month, these "thirty days and nights of literary abandon", were these:

Write. Just--write. Don't worry about revising, not before you put the story down first. Later there's always time to revise and edit and rewrite. But the main thing: get the story down first.

You are your limitations. And those limitations are all in your head. Think you can't, and--voila--you can't. But raise the bar, aim for the impossible, and--taah-daah! There it is. Raise the bar for yourself constantly. Celebrate the achievement, sure, but--don't let it go to your head. If you did *this*, whatever it was, it means you can do more. Quality-wise, quantity-wise. Whatever. You can do more. Always. Never let yourself forget it.

So... There you go. That's the end of my NaNo experience, technically. In reality, it's the beginning--truly--of my life as a writer.

Six Sentence Sunday (November 27)

2011-11-27T03:01:00.008-05:00

Hope you all had a great Thanksgiving. I thought of you all last Thursday, you lucky people with big turkey dinners on your tables, surrounded by family and friends, eating pumpkin pie and mashed potatoes and gravy and stuffing and cranberry sauce... Oh, yum. See, down here we don't celebrate Thanksgiving. And, man, I miss it. So I hope you enjoyed it double--for me.

We're back to Alexia's and Michael's goodbye scene from Chapter 7 of Restoring Experience for another six of Six Sentence Sunday. I skipped a couple paragraphs between last week's six and this, but I doubt you'll notice.

“Okay, Friend,” Michael said, “can I get a kiss goodbye?”

“Of course.” I took a step forward, stood on tiptoe to reach his cheek.

He pressed his hand to the side of my face, tilting it up towards him, and suddenly his mouth was very close.

Alexia, slap him, scream!

But this was happening to someone else, this body wasn’t mine, because I couldn’t move it.

Alexia's in trouble, I think. Her boyfriend is NOT going to be happy about this. Hope to see you back next week to find out if Alex will give in or slap him in the best Mexican tradition :)

Remember to visit the other Six Sundayers--there are some fantastic writers in there, and it's well worth the blog hop. Have a fantastic Sunday, everyone!

Bluebell Books Short Story Slam -- Week 15

2011-11-26T11:30:00.002-05:00

And because there is no time--that's why I'm here, he said.

I don't understand, I said.

You don't have to. It's just about the here and now.

What here? What now?

He laughed, and my eyes pricked at the sound. Twenty years since I'd last heard it. More than half my life. And it had taken me at least half of that to stop yearning for it.

I hadn't stopped yearning for it. I just thought I had.

There is no time, he said. I can't explain, couldn't even if there was. You just have to trust me, he said.

I do trust you, I said. I always trusted you.

Then come with me.

Where?

To do what you came here to do. This life, he said, this life isn't what you're here for.

But--I'm happy.

No, you're not, he said, and the sound of his laughter surrounded me again. You know it, I know it, he knows it.

The sleeping man next to me hadn't budged, hadn't even turned. And we were not speaking in low voices. The laughter--that laugh I loved so--was nothing if not loud.

Why doesn't he wake up, I asked.

There is no time, baby. No. Time.

And I understood. We weren't out of time--there was no time. We floated out of time, in that moment of priceless reunion, of impossible encounters. Through time, out of it, in it. That man in my bed, he was as far away from me right now as if he--or I--had never existed.

What do I do, I asked.

You write.

He sat with me there, while I turned on the computer, but as I typed the first line I noticed him flicker. The room behind him was visible through him.

What's happening?

He smiled. What is supposed to happen, he said.

I don't want you to go. If I type more--you'll go, won't you?

He nodded, still smiling.

I won't do it.

Yes, you will. Because if you don't, you'll be stuck here, out of time, forever.

With you.

His hand reached to my cheek, and it felt as solid as it ever had. That's not what's supposed to happen, baby. You're not ready, he said, and he turned towards the bedroom where someone else slept on. He needs you here, he said.

Write, he said.

And so I typed, not looking at the keyboard, instead looking at him, watching him fade into nothingness, into the ticking of a million clocks that suddenly compelled me forward, away and into the present.

Thus it was that my father gave life to me for the second time.

~ * ~

Thank you for reading, and remember to visit the other Bluebell Books posts--some truly excellent and creative responses to the week's prompt.

On Gratitude

2011-11-24T18:32:00.000-05:00

Ah... All you turkey-lovers, I salute you. I imagine you sitting around a huge, totally loaded table, surrounded by family and friends, mouth-watering aromas wafting around you and awakening your appetite. Yeah, diets be damned tonight: tonight is about bounty, about excess, about reveling in life and enjoying it, free of guilt. At least I hope you're free of guilt.

As a Mexican, I grew up without a Thanksgiving tradition. My first Thanksgiving was when I lived in New York, must've been around eleven or twelve years old. I was never much for food, so I can't honestly say I gorged myself (I actually remember being grossed out by sweet potatoes, haha), but I did enjoy it. And even though I was too young to fully grasp its power, it touched me nonetheless.

Because gratitude is immensely powerful. Beyond powerful, really. Gratitude, in my limited experience, equals happiness. To be grateful, truly--honestly--sincerely grateful, is to know joy of the most spiritual kind. And this is from someone who doesn't really believe in religion of any kind here. All right, then--maybe gratitude is my religion.

So this day of giving thanks, this day that celebrates gratitude, is an epiphany. To give thanks for every little blessing, every little thing--because everything is something, and something always deserves gratitude--that's what lifts us to a higher purpose, a higher state of being.

Remember today. Remember the feeling of oneness that saying thank you brings to the you inside. And repeat it every day. Every single day. Because every day there is something unutterably beautiful and unique to be grateful for.

Happy Thanksgiving. Today, and every day.

Six Sentence Sunday (November 20)

2011-11-20T03:11:00.001-05:00

One more six-sentence snippet from Chapter 7 of the WIP (Restoring Experience), a novel about loss and the search for meaning to give that loss a sense of purpose.

Last week I posted but I forgot to link to Six Sentence Sunday--yeah, where's my head these days? If you're interested, here's that snippet, and here's the one from the week before.

Just a quick refresher: Alexia and Michael, the two MCs, are in the language school lobby waiting for the bus that will take Michael and the rest of the American students to Acapulco. Alexia, an English teacher and not involved with this group (they're studying Spanish), isn't going, but Michael has been trying to convince her otherwise. He's even offered--oh-so-generously--to share his hotel room with her.

Enjoy!

“Please--stop.”

He took a step back, but didn’t let go of my hand. “It’s so strong,” he murmured.

“What is?”

“This. I’m seriously considering not going to Acapulco.”

His tone was light, but it sounded like it was only half a joke.

Look forward to your feedback (I looooove comments), and to reading the rest of the Six Sundayers. Thanks for the visit, and happy Sunday!

The Vagaries of (Verb) Tense Consistency

2011-11-16T09:53:00.000-05:00

Another fantastic list from The Writer's Resource, this time on verb tense consistency. Their post today on Maintaining Verb Consistency In Your Story in your story is a list of six links (including 3 by university publications) on that most complex of the writer's nemesis--the verb tense. The links take you to both recent and not-so-recent posts, and they range from the basic (what's present tense?) to the more nuanced (when to change tenses, for example).

In the online writers' group I joined earlier this year there's been ongoing discussion on the proper usage of verb tenses, especially the subjunctive (which apparently some people tend to ignore or maul unforgivably) and the past perfect (I'd been in the house for five hours before he arrived). Sometimes a refresher or a quick reference guide on these comes in handy.

Just for fun, which of these sentences sound "righter" to your ear?

- She asked that she not be disturbed until after the performance.
- She asked not to be disturbed until the performance was finished.

- He'd been in my life for such a long time that I no longer remembered how we'd met.
- He was in my life for such a long time that I no longer remembered how we met.

Hope this resource comes in handy!

The NaNo Blog Hop

2011-11-15T08:48:00.000-05:00

Somewhere in the backlog of Google Reader posts I'm trying so hard to keep up with, I found a reference to a NaNo blog hop... And I thought, hey--that's cool. I'm late arriving, so I couldn't find the source of the blog hop (that's to say, the blogger whose idea it was to start this up), so I'm linking here to the blog where I saw it and where I copied the linky list below from: Natz at Deeply Shallow. All you unlinked Wrimos out there, here's the chance to sign up and meet new bloggers you hadn't discovered yet, and stay up to date on everyone's NaNo progress during the month.

Happy NaNoing!

NaNoWriMo Update

2011-11-15T08:09:00.000-05:00

Whoa... Broke 30K last night. Thirty thousand eighty words, according to the NaNo word count verifier. Of course, according to ol' Scrivener, it's more like 30.5K. But who's counting anyway? ;)

Over the weekend I had a rough day, writing-wise. I think it was Saturday. My writing brain went on strike. "NO," he said. "I refuse. I need a break. I need to gather my thoughts and regroup. Whaddya think I am, some kind of faucet?" So I took a break. I caught up with the 500+ unread items I have on Google Reader (is anyone else getting annoying notifications on Chrome that 'the page contains insecure items'? Why are they insecure? Are they just socially challenged, or is it something deeper, nastier?). And--to my utter amazed befuddlement--the words just got flowing (yes, very much like a faucet) on Sunday. In two days I got in over 6K words. Yeah, I'm damn proud.

Sure it's crap, mostly. Lots and lots of "ly"words (and I hate them, but the faucet produces them). Lots and lots of repetitions (there's this one sentence that uses "hand" every third or fourth word, and throws me into hysterical convulsions every time I think of it). And those are just the things I see as I rush to channel the faucet. I'm sure that when I go back to edit, sometime in December, I'll find all sorts of funky dangling clauses and, yes, probably waaaaay too many passive stuff that will get its snarky little butt kicked right off my MS much like you'd get rid of a cockroach in your bathtub (horrified squealing applies here, too).

But you know what? I managed to quiet the EIE (evil internal editor--do take a jump over to Rick Bylina's blog and learn about his anti-nano guerilla), and for me, that's a huge triumph. I'm learning to just go with it, let the story out and not worry about the form too much. In legalese-speak there's a term, "substance over form"--well, that's exactly what NaNo has been about for me so far. The substance is what these thirty days of oblivious spewing forth of the faucet will be about. The form will come later, to shape it into acceptability... But the substance? Yeah.

I discovered authonomy

2011-11-14T10:09:00.000-05:00

No, it's not a typo. Authonomy, although HarperCollins spells it without the initial cap. What is it? It's a website where authors--published or un-pubbed--can showcase their work, and based on ratings by readers and other site members, can be selected for review by HarperCollins editors.

Sounds good. Right? Yippee. And please forgive my intrinsic suspicious nature, my half-empty attitude, my snickering skepticism... But doesn't it sound a bit too good? As in too good to be true?

Well. Maybe. But it's been up since Sept 2009 and it seems to be going strong. Besides, I'm a sucker for design, and the webpage is pretty cool. Kinda cluttered for some, maybe, but as you can see (look around *this* page), I like clutter. I took a quick traipse through the literary fiction titles, and some sound really enticing. The Poet, by Andrew Stevens. Dämon Ronion, by Brian Hatfield (I knew a Brian Hatfield, back in Cancun... But he sold timeshare. I don't think this is him). There are lots of titles that really caught my attention and which I'd like to read.

So content is not the problem with authonomy. What is, then? Well... I don't know. I find it strange that in this day and age of immediate gratification, of information readily available e v e r y w h e r e, this is the first time I hear of this site. But that may be my own shortcoming, my own fault for not following the blogs I should be, for not researching as thoroughly as I thought I had.

And my question to you today is: have YOU heard of authonomy? What's your gut feeling about a site like this? How come we're not ALL on there? Or are we (*ahem* as soon as I register)? Seriously thinking about posting the almost-ready version of Restoring Experience over there. Or should I do the normal query runabout dance first, take authonomy as a next-best option?

If you, my dear reader, are not a writer, do take a click-stroll over to the authonomy site and grace these authors with your fine reading skills. Lots of great books right there--no downloads, so you have to read online, but hey. It's free. Authors everywhere will kiss your foot for it. And you have the incredible opportunity to become a Top Talent Spotter if you spot talent before it's discovered by other people. Pretty cool, in my opinion.

Six Sentence Sunday (November 13)

2011-11-13T03:59:00.007-05:00

Welcome, Six-Sundayers! Thanks for visiting Quiet Laughter today. Today's six are the continuation of the conversation between Michael and Alexia from last week. If you'd like a bit more backstory on this, you can find it here.

“Of course,” I said without thinking. “I mean,” I backtracked, “it would change the circumstances, but….” I trailed off with a shrug that was nothing if not lame.

“It would, huh?” Michael pushed a flighty strand of hair behind my ear.

“Stop.” I couldn’t step away, with my back already against the heavy wooden doorway.

Would love to hear what you think of this story so far. I know most Six-Sundayers are romantic buffs, and this is not strictly a romance. Still, your feedback is much appreciated :)

Remember to visit the other Six-Sundayers here--last I checked there were no less than 156 entries for this week! Lots of new talent, probably, as well as the usual favorites.

Have a wonderful Sunday!

P.S.--Just realized I forgot to link this post to the Six Sunday site... LOL!

More on Revision

2011-11-10T08:43:00.000-05:00

I really shouldn't be posting about this now. I should be focused on NaNo, writing like crazy... But this post I just found, from Janice Hardy over at The Other Side of the Story, is so great and struck so many chords for me, that I had to share. And also, this way I'll have it linked here and easily findable when I finally get around to finishing that hardest of the hard revisions for Restoring Experience--the last one.

If you're revising and you haven't seen Janice's post yet (it's from yesterday), please take a jump over now and bookmark it, or print it, or do whatever you do with valuable information on the internet. I thought it was brilliant--hopefully you will too.

In the immortal words of Rick Bylina (another fantastic blog on writing by a self-published author of uncommon wit and brilliant insight), Write on!

More Awards!

2011-11-08T15:45:00.001-05:00

Brilliant blogger and darkish author E.R. King of Get Busy Writing passed me the Liebster Blog award, the Versatile Blogger Award and the Irresistibly Sweet Blog Award (a month ago... I'm nothing if not a procrastinator, dammit).

This entails, of course, profusely thanking Emily:

Then I need to share seven things about myself--I'll share seven more, since I'd already shared some when Stuart Nager of Tale Spinning passed the Versatile Blogger Award to me in September:

1) I smoke in copious quantities.

2) I hate making beds.

3) Whiners and over-sensitive people REALLY get on my nerves. When a friend is in trouble, feeling down and depressed or in a slump, I'm a great cheerleader. That's not what I mean. I mean whiners--the real ones, the ones that will find something to complain about in every situation, the ones that constantly fall so you have to pick them up. Get over it, already.

4) I'm an overachiever, and I tend to be really hard on myself (probably related to the whiner-hate mentioned above).

5) I haven't read The Hunger Games. I don't intend to.

6) I did read Twilight. Yeah, the whole thing. Several times. And screamed at the movies when Jacob took off his shirt in the motorcycle scene.

7) I'm not planning on having children. Yeah, that makes me a bit of an oddity back home in Mexico.

And, last but most certainly not least, I'm charged with passing the awards on to five new blogs I've discovered.

And the winners are:

Angela Guillaume, who says "No Rules, No Formulas. Just Love." If that isn't versatile, then I don't know what is.

A woman of unbridled talent at Do Little Say Much, for her machinima talent and in celebration of the animation she recently went live with--you MUST see this video! Ms. Do Little Say Much does exactly the opposite--she's done so much!

Author Luke Romyn at Meandering Musings of a Mutated Mind--his posts are as versatile as I've seen, and his humor is outstanding.

The Lit Connection, described in its About section as a chronicle of culture. Right up my alley :)

Author Thea Atkinson, who writes character-driven fiction

Awardees, your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to 1) share seven random (preferably little-known, to keep us interested) facts about you, and 2) pass the award (whichever one you prefer, or all three) on to five other bloggers of special relevance to you.

Please don't feel any obligation to do any of this if you don't want to--it's a busy month, and not only for us Wrimos out here. This is simply my way of showing appreciation to you and to your blog for its content.

Congratulations!

Revision, revision, revision

2011-11-08T10:52:00.001-05:00

I found this excellent post on The Writer's Resource (if you write and you're not following that blog boo for you) with links to some outstanding resources for revising. It's got Nathan Bransford's checklist, a great post on editing by Janice Hardy... And eight other jewels you MUST have if you're revising. Which is, if you're like me with several WIPs in several stages of completion, all the time.

Enjoy!

Six Sentence Sunday (November 6)

2011-11-06T05:13:00.010-05:00

First Six Sentence Sunday of November! In spite of NaNo (I'm at around 10K there--yay!) I managed to remember to enter the link on time, unlike last week.

Thank you for visiting Quiet Laughter, and I hope you enjoy this very brief excerpt from Chapter 7 of my WIP, Restoring Experience.

This excerpt is a continuation of the scene I posted last week (click here if you missed it).

“I know, it’s dumb,” he laughed, “but I know I will. Alexia, can I ask you something?”
“I don’t know, Michael. Is it going to make me uncomfortable?”
“Probably. If you didn’t have a boyfriend, would that change anything?”

Thanks again for your visit! If you enjoyed this or if you have any ideas on how this could be improved, please leave a comment. All feedback is most welcome, and I love hearing from you.

Remember to visit the other Six Sunday-ers--some awesome talent there, and a great way to discover follow-worthy bloggers.

Happy Sunday reading!

Six Sentence Sunday (Oct. 23)

2011-10-30T07:00:00.001-05:00

And... One more week of Six Sentence Sunday. I'm getting into the habit, although it's still a challenge to PICK the six sentences I share. I'm trying to keep linearity (is that even a word?) and continuity so that you "get" into the story, but at the same time I want to share the most interesting bits or the ones that I'm tweaking in order to get your feedback. *Sigh*. Choices, choices.

This week I found a snippet of the same scene from last Sunday that I'd like your impressions on. Michael tried to convince Alexia to come to Acapulco with him and the other language students for a weekend. Alexia, a Mexican twenty-something, is an English teacher at the school and not part of Michael's Spanish group. She also has a boyfriend, and Michael is making it hard to be 'just' friends. If you'd like a little more background info you can find it at the Work-In-Progress tab above.

I also cheated a bit. I merged two sentences into one in order to make it six.

“I really, really wish you’d come--I’m going to miss you all weekend.” He reached for my hand, and I let him. We were alone in the lobby, after all. The shock of his touch hadn’t diminished, but the shape of his hand was becoming familiar. My fingers fit between his very comfortably.

“Michael, you only met me two days ago. How can you miss me already?”

Please remember to visit the other Six-Sundayers -- there are some great stories in there!

The Handwritten Challenge #2

2011-10-29T17:19:00.001-05:00

The second prompt of the Handwritten-Letter Adventure challenge I received from Michelle at Writer In Transit was thus:

"Write a piece of prose based on the prompt: 'Life is like an hourglass. Eventually, everything hits the bottom. And all you have to do is wait it out until someone comes along and turns it around."

This story was not what I originally had in mind. It simply refused to bend to my will, and here's the result:

~*~*~

How had it happened, this falling apart? Life had been good. Why was she curled on the sofa staring out at the patio, gnawing her lip?

When Liam rescued her a year ago—oh, he’d been trying for longer, but Sara hadn’t been ready—it seemed that Life had finally tired of knocking her around and had moved on to torture someone else. She’d spent four months in rehab, doctors and therapists all over her, and then the spas and cosmetic treatments that faded the track marks, that revived her waxy skin, that gave light to her dulled eyes. When Liam came to pick her up the day of her release, Sara had seen the surge of admiration—and satisfaction—in his eyes and vowed right then to make this man happy, whatever it took.

That had been eight months ago. The gnawing at her lip grew frenzied and she pressed her mouth closed until it hurt. Eight months of perfection—that was one of Liam’s favorite words. "Perfection," he’d whisper as his hungry hands ran over her body at night. "Perfection," as he took shot after shot of her in the newest bikini around the pool. "Perfection," as she allowed herself to be persuaded to take the top off, pose for the camera. "Perfection," he’d agree when his friends commented on her beauty, undressing her with their eyes.

It had started with the food, Sara decided. One morning the cook didn’t ask what she wanted for breakfast, instead brought a selection of fruit and yogurt. "Mr. Hanlon’s instructions, Ma’am." No more waffles or eggs Benedict. Lunch became vegetables and grilled chicken. The few evenings when Liam had dinner at home his meal was different from hers. "We want that lovely body to last many more years, don’t we?" He’d said when he caught her looking at his creme brulee.

And then there was the staff. Sara felt watched. She didn’t mind; she wasn’t doing anything wrong. But she wondered.

Liam brought his friends here; they rarely went out anymore. She didn’t miss it much; the women of Liam’s circle always snubbed Sara. But men always liked her, and at first she was glad for the respite from feminine venom. And Liam’s friends were so admiring, so kind. Except—well. That night a few weeks back, when Andre had stayed after everyone had left and Liam and him had surprised her as she came out of the shower.

"I can’t," she’d whispered.

"You will," he’d replied. "For me. You want to make me happy, don’t you?"

She did. Andre was the first. With the others Liam sometimes also participated, sometimes only watched. Sometimes he asked her to—do other things. And she did, even when the "games", as Liam called it, became cruel.

The afternoon light shimmered on the pool. She tasted blood at her lip. If she kept biting would she bleed to death? Maybe she should do it properly, in the marble jacuzzi of the master bedroom.

She couldn’t get a knife from the kitchen without the cook asking questions. But the cook was out on an errand for dinner tonight—ten people and a new menu. Sara dreaded dinner parties now—she knew what came after, what Liam would expect of her.

She could pretend she was getting a glass of juice and slip the knife into a pocket, dash upstairs. The maid wouldn’t—

The doorbell rang.

"Ma’am?" The maid stood at the living room entrance. "Miss Stone is here to see you."

Liam’s lawyer? She’d met Melanie Stone at some function months ago, hadn’t seen her since. And now she was here to see her?

The tragedy had occurred that morning as Liam was driving to work. There had been a car crash, a pile-up of seventeen cars and a derailed trailer on the freeway. Liam had been severely injured, had been rushed to the hospital. No, it had been Melanie’s call not to call her until they had news on Liam’s surgery. But he’d died on the operating table about—Melanie glanced at her watch—an hour ago.

"Liam’s dead?" Sara’s voice sounded flat even to herself.

Melanie would take care of all the arrangements. No, Sara didn’t have to get involved. Unless she wanted to.

Sara shook her head.

"Good, then." Was that approval she heard in Melanie’s voice? The lawyer flipped through some documents, didn’t look at Sara when she spoke. "He left you well provided for, Sara. The house is in your name, and there’s also a bank account—"

"The house? But—There must be some mistake."

"I had the deed of transfer executed myself. No mistake. As I was saying, there’s also a bank account, an investment portfolio. The balance should be—" Melanie pulled out some papers, put them back, "—I don’t have the exact figure, but I’m guessing around four-fifty, maybe closer to five."

"Five? Five what?"

"Five hundred thousand. Dollars."

Sara heard the rest of what Melanie had to say in a fog. Melanie must have noticed because when she walked her to the door, the lawyer gave Sara a brief hug.

"My sincere condolences, Sara," she said, but her expression was not one of commiseration. "I’ll be in touch in a few days to help you make plans."

"Plans?"

Melanie rolled her eyes, but it wasn’t unkind. "I imagine you won’t want to stay here, right?"

Sara looked around the foyer, shook her head, embarrassed.

"We’ll put the house on the market next week. In the meantime," Melanie pulled out a plastic card and a paper one, "here’s a credit card linked to your personal account, and my numbers if you need anything."

Sara looked at the lawyer, her mind reeling.

"Anything," Melanie repeated. With a smile that was as quick to go as it had been to come, she started down the steps.

"Wait." Sara stopped her. "Melanie, I—Liam never would have—I don’t mean to speak ill of him, but, well, you knew him. He wouldn’t have left this—" she brandished the plastic rectangle. "Would he?"

Melanie looked off towards the sprawling lawn. "Men like Liam cannot take care of everything, Sara. That’s why they have trustworthy people around to arrange things for them. As Liam’s attorney, it is—was—my responsibility to make sure the things he’d have wanted to do got done."

"But he wouldn’t have wanted—"

"Sara, no one—not you, not I—could know exactly what he would have wanted." Melanie looked at Sara, and Sara had the distinct impression that Melanie was—happy. Very happy, right at this moment.

"Thank you."

"Not me, Sara. It was all Liam. Legally," Melanie looked up at Sara, with another brief smile, "it was all him."

The Handwritten Challenge #1

2011-10-29T17:11:00.001-05:00

The letter I received from my friend Writer In Transit contained two challenges. I'm pretty sure she meant to offer me a choice, but since I'm an overachiever (and I'm procrastinating on the editing I have to do for the WIP) I decided to do both.

The first one:

"Write a short dialogue based on these words: 'When you want something you've never had, you have to do something you've never done.' It should be dramatic, filled with mystery and suspense."

I'm pretty sure this was not the result Writer In Transit was looking for, and I apologize--my romantic and darkish side got away with me.

~ * ~ * ~

"Why?"

Dave looks so confused. My heart twitches, but I raise my chin.

"I don’t want to hurt you," I say. It sounds ridiculous, here among my packed suitcases. "I need to be on my own. For a while."

"Where will you go? What will you do?"

It’s not concern that makes him ask. He’s questioning my ability to grasp life without him, and he’s right. I can’t. But I have to try.

"Not sure. Travel, for a while. I’ll stay in touch."

"It’s madness, Barbara. Why? Just tell me why."

I sit on one of the suitcases, light a cigarette. I’m not sure I can explain it, but Dave deserves at least that I try. "All my life I’ve lived by the philosophy and beliefs of others. Usually those 'others' have been the men in my life. My parents, too. And now you."

Dave scoffs, turns away.

"It’s not your fault," I say, and I mean it. "Dave, this isn’t something you did. It’s—me. I don’t know if I believe in something—anything—genuinely. It’s all tainted by what other people think, by the person I want to be, for the people I love. For you, Dave. And—I don’t think it’s healthy."

He’s looking at me as if he’s never seen me before, and I cringe. I do love him, after all.

"I get it, Barb. I do. You made changes, you quit your job, you want new challenges. I get it. But—us? We’re above that, right? I mean…" He trails off, hands flailing.

"We are," I agree, flick ash to the flower beds off the porch. "But, Dave, I want to know who I am and what I—I, myself—believe in. I can’t go through life as a mental and spiritual clone of the people around me. I don’t want to."

He doesn’t understand. I can see it in his face. He’s never learned to listen without the intent to reply, and now he’s lost because he can’t think of a single thing to say to me.

"Please. Let me go."

He stares at me for a long minute, then shrugs and walks back into the house. I watch his back disappear into the darkened hallway with remorse that punctures my lungs. I finish my cigarette in silence and, resisting the urge to look back, I load the suitcases into the car.

Look forward to your feedback if you're so inclined!

The Beauty of Handwritten Letters

2011-10-29T17:00:00.001-05:00

How long has it been since you wrote or received a handwritten letter?

When I was in my early twenties I had one of those annihilating love affairs one summer--the kind that change your life forever because they change YOU, much like (to borrow and paraphrase from "Like Water For Chocolate" by Laura Esquivel) dough is irreversibly and intrinsically changed through contact with heat. And much of that affair happened via handwritten letters--he happened to live across the continent from me. This was the early nineties, so no email yet. The phone bills were humongous, too.

For around four months we wrote letters to each other every day, this super-sexy and romantic lover (he quoted poetry to me--POETRY) and I. Sometimes more than one a day. The letters were delivered in stacks of three, four, sometimes more. And each was read and re-read again and again throughout the years until I finally lost them.

Yes, I think of handwritten letters most fondly. So when an amazing blogger friend at Writer In Transit started a handwritten-letter adventure, you can imagine I jumped at the chance. How does it work? We exchange letters and include a writing challenge or two (or three) that the recipient must complete. A few days ago I received her first letter with two awesome writing challenges: challenge #1 and challenge #2.

There's nothing quite so exciting, for people of my generation at least, as to receive a handwritten letter. I look forward to many many more!

Killer Character Blogfest -- Challenge #3: Antagonist

2011-10-28T03:26:00.008-05:00

El Amor En Los Tiempos Del Colera (Love In Times of Cholera, or Love In The Time of Cholera)

Florentino Ariza met Fermina Daza one slow afternoon when she raised her head from a book and met his eyes, "and that look was the origin of a cataclysm of love that half a century later hadn’t yet finished." [My translation]

For fifty-one years, nine months and four days, Florentino and Fermina would not speak privately. Love arose through letters and chaperoned walks in a park, a love of expected vibrancy given their youth. But Fermina would soon realize that she’d fallen in love with Love itself, that Florentino was not anything she’d thought he was, and she’d dismiss him from her life to marry a man more in line with her station.

But Florentino did not give up. He waited patiently, with a debauchery that never threatened the purity of his love for Fermina, for half a century. The opportunity finally comes, but… They’re too old, Fermina says. Florentino’s patience isn’t exhausted and soon, in spite of her disparaging protests, she begins to admit there might still be time for love. Love, after all, is love regardless of the time or the age. But it becomes denser the closer one is to death.

Time is the antagonist. Time is what threatens: Florentino must outlive Fermina’s husband. Age—evidence of Time’s passage—threatens to make everything pointless. In the end Florentino thinks he wins: Time, so long against him, is now his ally--not just because proximity to death has intensified everything, but also because the half-century interlude flew them over the trials of love turned routine. And now… Now they need only each other. But Time won't stop, not even on that drifting riverboat with a cholera flag raised. We're left with the sensation that, however well-lived, their days together will not be many.

Killer Character Blogfest -- Challenge #2: The All-Important Protag

2011-10-26T04:50:00.010-05:00

Being a protagonist is hard. Everything hinges on you: story, action, conflict—to top it off, there’s no privacy. All your foibles, your deepest fears, desires, stuff you’ve barely found out for yourself—right there on the page for any reader to see.

The Odd Thomas Series, by Dean Koontz
http://www.deankoontz.com/odd-thomas-series/

As enthralled as I am by stories, I always feel a pang of voyeurism-sparked shame at invading foreign lives like that. Nowhere was that most evident than when I met Odd Thomas.

He’s such a delightful and sensitive kid, that Odd. So polite, so—normal, in every way but one. He sees the "lingering dead", and although they don’t speak (not as far as he knows), they do communicate in some way to ask for justice. Now, another kind of person would ignore them, turn their back, scream and run (sometimes these dead show up with the gore and mess that killed them), or perhaps simply go mad. But not Odd. He doesn’t like it, but he accepts that this is his lot with an equanimity that leaves no place for the melodrama of "why me?". And I love him for that.

Odd touches my heart. He’s a good, good man—but he doesn’t know it, doesn’t believe it. Odd Thomas’s humanity jumps out of the page, weaknesses on his sleeve. He seems almost apologetic for telling his story, for making any claim of importance.

But he is important. His qualities are in extreme danger of extinction.

Read the other Killer Character 'Fest-ers choices for Killer Protagonists here.

Killer Character Blogfest -- Challenge #1: Supporting Character

2011-10-24T02:22:00.008-05:00

Welcome to the Killer Character Blogfest! Everyone is postulating for their favorite supporting character today--visit this link to take a look at the other entries.

The supporting character I present to you today is, quite literally, a killer. At least in intention, though not in fact. He’s been my favorite supporting character since the first time I came across him--over twenty five years ago!

He’s not an obscure character, so I'll give you a chance to guess. His untimely death gave him eternal youth in our minds, but he’s only slightly younger than Dracula. He’s unique and timeless, but not undead. He’s irreverent—a fun-loving joker. He talks of dreams, he has unpredictable swings.

I believe he knew, at some level, that he would die young. He’s the embodiment of "carpe diem", in high contrast to the protagonist he supports so ably (a romantic given to writing poetry inspired in platonic love), and I believe the thirst of life of our character is driven by foreknowledge, at a subconscious level perhaps, that he would not live long.

His monologue is famous—pure magic of youth tinged with a fatality that grips the reader (or listener, for it was written to be spoken)—, as is his loyalty: unable to understand why his best friend will not fight the man who has insulted him, he draws his own sword against the threatener and dies. That thrust of sword under the arm of his best friend sets off the events that culminate in one of the literary world’s most poignant tragedies—so easily avoidable, had pride been less entrenched.

Did you guess Mercutio?

Talk of Dreams...

2011-10-23T17:31:00.000-05:00

For twenty five years (or more) this monologue has haunted me... I know a few passages from Shakespeare, but this one I can recite without hesitation any day (notwithstanding the amount of wine or other spirits imbibed):

True, I talk of dreams;
Which are the children of an idle brain,
Begot of nothing but vain fantasy;
Which is as thin of substance as the air,
And more inconstant than the wind, who woos
Even now the frozen bosom of the North
And, being angered, puffs away from thence,
Turning his side to the dew-dropping South.

Such hopelessness in the words, such aching desire for life and its mystery... As if Mercutio knew that life, for him, would only remain a dream.

Bluebell Books Short Story Slam -- Week 12

2011-10-20T18:20:00.001-05:00

I'm back to the Bluebell Books Short Story Slam for this week--finally! This is a blogger share-fair that I really missed, because the other participants are wonderful people that I love connecting with, and because the talent on this "slam" is breathtaking. Please take a stroll over to the Bluebell Books site and check out the other participating blogs. I promise you'll love them!

The prompt for this week is the photo on the right.

As heartwarming as it is, my dark side refused to take it at face value. Here's the result; your comments and feedback are most genuinely appreciated.

You scare the hell out of me. The innocence of your skin, the curl of your tiny fingers. The abandon with which your back heaves in breath. The texture of your hair—no, I haven’t touched it, and I won’t. But it looks so soft, so—fragile. Everything about you is fragile, and that’s what scares me. Because it demands that I be everything, things I’m not sure I want. Things I’m not sure I can.

How does anyone have children here, in this mad world of chaos and brutality? How can anyone, in full conscious desire, make the decision to bring you—you—here? You’re stronger than you look, probably. Still. The responsibility would crush a better man than me.

And, see, that’s the whole thing. I’m not a better man. I’m not even a good man. I’m still a child myself, in so many ways. I’m selfish and a brute. I pretend I know what I’m doing, but I don’t. Most of the time I’m scared, of everything. Of making mistakes. Of missing out. Of living the wrong life. Of not being enough.

And for you I’d have to be, wouldn’t I? One way or the other, I’d have to be. I’d have to have the right answer, I’d always have to be strong.

I’m not. I’m not strong, not enough for you anyway. I’d want to, protect you, but I’m so afraid I’d do the wrong thing. Drop the ball. Drop you.

I’m not ready.

"Scott? Sweetie, are you up here?"

"Over here."

"Aw. She’s sleeping, isn’t she?" Maddie stood on the side of the crib, looking at the tiny sleeping form inside. "She’s beautiful. Isn’t she beautiful, Scott?"

He nodded, smiled.

"Ours will be even more beautiful," Maddie said, reached over the crib to ruffle Scott’s hair on the other side.

He looked up at her, let his eyes trail down to her pregnant belly. Maddie had never looked more alluring.

"I’m sure she—or he—will be perfect," he said.

They hadn’t wanted to know the sex. Makes it more exciting, Maddie had said, and Scott had smiled then too. He’d been doing a lot of smiling the last seven months.

Maddie headed back to the bedroom door. "They’re serving dessert. Are you coming?"

"Be right there."

Scott heard her make her way downstairs, heard the murmur of conversation, the clinking of flatware and glasses.

The minute fist in the crib jerked, settled again. Scott let himself look another long minute, then turned away. He closed the door behind him softly.

I'm sorry, Maddie. I’m just not ready.

Thanks for your visit, and especially for your comments. I'm now off to read the other wonderful entries!

Rescheduling Life and The Carpe Diem Lesson

2011-10-17T06:00:00.109-05:00

"Carpe Diem" by Claudia Alves | RedBubble
http://www.redbubble.com/people/claualves/art/3380674-carpe-diem

It's funny how synchronicity works. Angela Guillaume is also blogging on this topic today. If you haven't visited her blog recently, you're missing out. She's a fantastic writer with great insights.

I rearranged my schedule. Drastically.

I've mentioned it in passing, but perhaps this is something that deserves a post of its own. I quit my day job on September 30th and I'm now officially unemployed. Why (oh why oh why) did I do this, you ask? The great majority of people I know think I went crazy, had a burn-out or something, lost it. Even those who congratulate me and give a little sigh of something that could--just might--be envy, think what I'm doing is nothing short of bizarre.

Is it? Probably. Actually, I'm certain it is. Because the main reason I quit is because I want to write.

Oh Lord, you're thinking. There goes another crazy person thinking she can make a living out of writing. But I'll tell you now--no, I'm not that naive. I know the chances of my novel (my first novel) making the bestseller lists, or even getting published at all, are, to put it kindly, slim. I do know that. I kid myself not. And I do have a mortgage, and bills to pay. And now you're thinking--my God, she really DID lose it.

Well, maybe I did. But let me ask you this. How long do you think you're going to live? Do you know, for sure, that you're going to be alive this time tomorrow? Do you know for a fact that you're going to make it back to your lovely bed tonight? You don't, do you? And neither do I. That little piece of folk wisdom bounced around in my subconscious for two years while I slaved away in twelve-hour office days, in a hectic schedule that centered around other people's wealth and left me no time at all for the things that enrich my own life. It bounced around until one fine day it coalesced into rationality.

What am I doing? WHAT. AM. I. DOING. My priorities were totally skewed, totally out of synch. My relationships were suffering, my plants were barely holding on to the green, my dogs were gaining weight and becoming ADD. My soul was shriveling. Oh no. No, no. This, I realized, is not the life I envisioned for myself.

For years I'd been locked in the circle of "someday I'll". Someday I'll write. Someday I'll have time to take the dogs to the beach for more than a few minutes. Someday I'll research the family history (I have a very wacky family that will one day come to you in a beautifully bound book of hysterical and heart-wrenching stories). Someday I'll have time to take a weekend off with the boyfriend. Someday I'll... Sound familiar? I bet it does.

And here's the clincher: what if I don't live long enough to make it to that someday? What if I die today, or tomorrow? I don't want to die at this desk, in the midst of all these files, among these people without a soul.

So I quit.

My last day in the office, September 30th, I felt a little under the weather. Raspy throat, bit of a headache. In the late afternoon I realized I was running a fever. Damn, I thought, my first weekend of freedom and I'm coming down with the flu. But it wasn't the flu. It was a bad bout of bronchitis that knocked me down for ten days and took an additional week to recover from. I firmly believe that it was my body's way of saying, "we NEED to rest." So I did. I rested, slept 14 hours a day or more, barely even read, certainly didn't write. And it helped. Enormously.

Now I'm recharged and ready to move forward. What will I do, aside from writing? I'm setting up my own business--I'll be importing merchandise from Mexico to sell here in Curacao. I'm not interested in getting rich from this. All I ask--and because the Universe tends to conspire to give what we want once we decide what that is I believe I'll get it--is enough income to pay my share of the bills & mortgage so that I can write.

This requires a substantial amount of self-discipline. Do I have it? Probably not. Can I do this? I believe I can. Why? Because I'm going to give it my best shot. And in the end, that's what it's about. We all have the power to do marvelous things, and we do them, every day. Think of the mothers that run households, chase toddlers and hold down a job. Think of the businessmen that juggle office politics and customer service and income and budgets and pleasing the boss without pissing off employees. Think of the supermarket cashier that bears the drudgery of that job without complaining because there's a family to be fed, a child to put through college, an ailing mother that needs health insurance. We all do these things, work these miracles. The challenge is to choose your miracle, to choose the life you want to lead, and then work your ass off for that and nothing else.

That's what I'm doing now.

Six Sentence Sunday (Oct. 16)

2011-10-15T20:47:00.002-05:00

So... I'm back for Six Sunday. Sorry for the hiatus. I had a busy September... Quit my day job (yes, to write... How incredibly immature, right?), got a bout of bad bronchitis that I'm still recovering from, and basically rearranged my life. But I feel good. The novel is in its final stages of editing, so I hope to start querying before the end of the year. Any feedback--comments, likes, dislikes, suggestions--is heartily welcomed and eagerly sought.

This week I'm sharing six sentences from the chapter following the last six sentences I posted. The novel explores stretching cultural boundaries through a story of love and loss. I hope you enjoy!

“I promise I’ll behave. Didn’t I behave last night?”

He had. Hand-holding wasn’t a crime, regardless of how guilty I felt about it. It wasn’t about him behaving, though. I might not be able to put it into words, but I knew I had to limit my exposure to Michael—things would happen otherwise, things I didn’t want to think about.

Please remember to visit the other Six Sunday-ers -- some awesome writers and stories in there! I look forward to reading your work, and thanks for the visit. Have an outstanding Sunday!

NaNoWriMo 2011 (For Dummies)

2011-10-14T08:50:00.003-05:00

I signed up for NaNoWriMo 2011. Crazy and disjointed? Sure, but hey--why not? This is the year when I decided to take writing seriously, hone my skills, really get into the whole experience of being a writer. Well then, NaNoWriMo it is.

Yeah, it took me a while to figure out exactly what NaNoWriMo is. I heard people mention it, read it here and there, and was mystified. Then somewhere I found the definition: NAtional NOvel WRIting MOnth. Ah! Eureka, huh? So a bunch of people get together and have a month-long celebration of... writing novels? Wow. Exciting. Oh, but I was so wrong.

See, NaNoWriMo, which always happens in November every year, is not a celebration--not like Women's Day or Labor Day or Banned Books Week. No, NaNoWriMo is a marathon for novel writers. From the first day of the month until the last, novel writers from around the world will pledge to write 50,000 words towards a novel. That's around 1667 words per day--no breaks, no weekends, no days off. I've heard people say there's not even time to sleep during November, and there's real glee in their voice when they say this.

For those of you who have no frame of reference as to how much, exactly, 50,000 words is, let me tell you that a "normal" novel (let's say The DaVinci Code, or most thrillers and romances) is about 90,000 words long. Mind you, that's an average. A work of 50,000 is more of a novella, really. But no one expects the thing to be actually finished (edited, polished, reviewed and revised the hundreds of times it needs in order to be published) by Nov. 30th. No; see, the point of NaNoWriMo is simply to WRITE. No going back to edit, no fixing plot holes, no analyzing character arcs or thematic development. Just the writer and her keyboard, clicking away to increase word count.

Of course content matters. Anyone--ok, maybe not anyone--can sit down and type 1,667 words a day... By copying them from Wikipedia, for example. Or a favorite book. Or simply (and this is actually addressed in the site's FAQ, incredibly) typing the same word 50,000. Aside from the knuckleheadedness of this, who'd have the stamina to do that? Whatever. If it's in the FAQ I'm sure someone either did it or brought it up. People, huh?

But I digress.

What happens on November 30th? Every single one of the participating writers (Wrimos. Yes, really.) will upload their work to the site's word count verifier. If it's 50,000 or more, you WIN! What do you win, you ask? Well, duh. You have a NOVEL (or draft zero for it, anyway) in your hands. And you have the satisfaction of knowing you can, indeed, write 50,000 words (or more) in 30 days, if you really want to. Oh, and the NaNoWriMo people will email you a PDF certificate to attest your achievement. Now inn't that cool?

Above all, NaNoWriMo is about two things: a personal challenge of discipline and stamina, and a fun environment full of other (crazy) writers like you that interact in forums and set quirky rules for each other ("include a bloodied handprint in your novel today", or some such thing). It's about the networking, sure, but it's mostly about the fun. Let's see where I stand on the "fun" part come November 15.

So. NaNoWriMo. If I finish, this will be Novel # 2. I have no idea what to write about, to tell the truth. Sure, I have a few ideas kinda floating around in my head, but nothing real. No outlines, for sure. In true pantster fashion (for more on pantsters click here) I'm going to wing it. Or maybe, seeing I still have 16 days to rethink this, maybe I'll try a bit of plotting for a change. We'll see.

However this goes, whatever happens, I'm really psyched about this. If you're participating look me up: I'm signed up with my name, Guilie.

Have fun!
G

A day of diving deep...

2011-09-25T23:01:00.002-05:00

It's like a moonscape, isn't it? It's so alien down there. Formations that challenge belief, and yet are familiar to a part of us we'd rather not acknowledge.

The explorer group is small; only five of us this time. But there's no fear -- only excitement, the thrill of discovering something new. We communicate with hand signals, unable to speak due to the equipment we must carry in order to breathe in this foreign environment, and our eyes glint and shimmer in delight behind the masks we wear.

"Ok?" The hand signal asks.

"Ok," we all lift our hands, thumbs meeting forefingers in the universal sign. I wonder if the creatures we're about to encounter also understand it.

With a hiss of air, we descend, some faster than others, some slower to equalize the pressure in our ears. Our artificially webbed feet touch down on powder-soft sand.

"Ok?" The hand demands again.

"Ok," we answer.

We move forward, following the leader. The blue before us is impossibly intense. Am I really going to be a part of it? The cliff drop-off looms, looms, and then is gone as we drift down its face.

Oh, the wonders we see! The beauty, the strangeness... For a while it's too much, it overwhelms. Your eyes cannot be everywhere at once; you want to move forward faster, see more, but at the same time you want to stay -- stay by that particular rock and discern the microlife within it. Everything, everything, teems with life.

The only sound is the breathing. Bubbles issue below your range of vision, filling your ears. It's disconcerting at first, not being able to hear anything besides that. You try to breathe slower, quieter. But there's nothing else to hear. It's perfectly, absolutely quiet. Except for your bubbles.

Someone is gesturing ahead. We approach slowly, trying not to crowd each other, waiting for our turn to look.

"What is it?" Upraised hands and a shrug ask.

"Here." The hand points.

It's so easy to get disoriented here. A turn of the head, and when you turn back, the view is different. Where is left, where is right? Up is easy; up is where this medium, the floating medium, ends. Down is where the light fades.

"Here," the hand is pointing.

I move closer. It's a rock. It's a pretty rock, but it's... Just a rock.

Then the rock blinks.

I turn, my eyes wide behind the glass. Wide eyes meet mine, softly crinkling against the mask's restriction.

"Ok," I signal. I see it. Yes. Wow. Wow.

A rock fish. Dangerous creatures if you touch them, if you accidentally step on one, for example. But at this depth no one's going to step on him. And we know better than to get too close. But... He's amazing. The camouflage of his body perfectly imitates the rocks he lays on. Even a foot away he's hard to see. Until his frog-like eyes move, blink.

Range of vision is limited here. Because of the mask. And mine is especially uncomfortable today. Maybe that's why, when the swirl of blue comes, it takes me by surprise. Hundreds, no, thousands, of blue fish with a bright yellow stripe eddy around us. They're not big, perhaps a one-and-a-half handspan. They must be feeding. We swam into a current of plankton, or whatever they eat. They're so close that I see their gills pulsing, I can count the scales on their bodies. I could touch them, but my hand is slow underwater, and they're very very fast. I'm content to watch, revel in their brief company.

Someone signals "half-tank". A "T" shape made by holding hands perpendicular to each other. It's time to turn around, swim back the way we came. But we rise a little, so the reef we observe on the way back is not quite the same we saw on the way in. There's no rush. Our legs barely kick -- we're swimming with the current now, effortless.

Too soon, we're back on the beach. The weightless creatures we were, pirouetting and carousing as though gravity barely existed, are lost. As our legs take the burden of our bodies and the equipment we carry on our backs, the feeling is one of leadedness. Ponderous, we make our way up the surfline, helping each other along. Equipment removal, rinse, recap, tighten, loosen, empty and fill. Count everything, make sure nothing is left behind.

There's a price for the freedom of underwater carefree. Before, and after, equipment must be assembled, tried on, tested, checked and double-checked. But the reward is obvious. Tired and exhilarated, we sit or lean by the pickup, talking over what we couldn't voice underwater.

"Did you see it? It was huge!"

"I tried to signal, but you guys were too far ahead."

"What was that spider-thing you had in your hand?"

"But they're poisonous, right?"

"I got a cramp halfway out."

"I think you had your mask on too tight."

With a sigh, we put out the last cigarette, cap the water bottles, pick up whatever's left lying around.

"Ready for the next one?"

First Six Sentence Sunday of September

2011-09-17T17:41:00.000-05:00

Yep, I've been away for far too long. Good news is I've had a chance to work on my novel (Restoring Experience), and I have more six-sentence tidbits to share with you. I hope you enjoy this one, from the end of Chapter 6.

When our whispering voices faded into the dripping remnants of the storm in the potted azalea bushes bordering the terrace, Michael reached again for my hand. Relaxed, I hesitated an instant too long, and the unfamiliar contours of his fingers closed around mine. My breath caught, a mixture of guilt and something that felt surprisingly like pleasure. The chemistry between our skin was electric. I may forget our conversations, or the exact color of his eyes, the texture of his hair. But I will never forget that first touch.

Please remember to visit the other Six-Sunday Bloggers -- there are some awesome writers in there!

The Versatile Blogger Award -- Part II

2011-09-12T14:47:00.002-05:00

Yes, Part II is here. So yesterday I made good on the first two of three commitments I accepted by accepting this award from Stuart Nager at Tale Spinning. Today is the day I pass this on to 15 blogs I've recently discovered -- if they'll accept. Regardless of whether they accept or not, please do take a stroll around these marvelous places:

It's All About Writing, Nicole Humphrey
Jonathan Dalar, who blogs on some interesting perspectives for Dystopia
John Geddes, whose writing is, truly, versatile.
Intense Sensations, a blog that reviews sensual literature
Laura Stanfill. Truly beautiful -- concise, so perfect it cuts -- prose
Martha Carr, who's writing a short thriller every week -- don't miss it!
Haiku Blog
Rough Water John, for some truly awesome poetry by a -- yep -- Pirate!
A Blog About Writing, Arts and Other Randomness...
Austereseeker, a member of my writer's group that writes brilliantly
1000th Monkey
Book Republik
From The Inkwell, From The Vein
Jools Sinclair
Write Castles In The Sky

Now it's your turn. Thank your awarder (that'd be me) and link back to their blog. Share seven things about yourself. And pass the award on to 15 blogs you've discovered recently.

Thank you for being part of this community! It is much, much appreciated!

The Versatile Blogger Award -- Part I

2011-09-11T12:26:00.002-05:00

Stuart Nager, whose outstanding blog is at Tale Spinning, has kindly shared the Versatile Blogger Award with Quiet Laughter. By accepting, I've committed to:

- Thank the awarder and link back to them (done; see link above),
- Share 7 things about myself, and
- Pass this award to 15 blogs I've recently discovered.

We all suffer from lack of time, yes. I've procrastinated enough with this, so I'm going to cut it in two: today I'll THANK STUART FROM THE BOTTOM OF MY HEART for sharing this with me, provide the link to his page, and share 7 things about myself. Tomorrow, I promise, I'll pass this along to another 15 bloggers that may, or may not, accept.

Seven Things About Quiet Laughter

1. "Quiet Laughter" was a meaning assigned to my name, Guilie, by a Californian that changed the course of my life many, many years ago.
2. I like a bit of coffee with my milk and sugar, thank you.
3. I'm shy. Yes, I am. The gregarious and outgoing facade is... well, a facade.
4. The last day of the month is also my last day at my present employment. I've decided to trade financial services for full-time writing. I know. My mother did raise me better than this.
5. I hate to iron. Really.
6. Patience is seriously not one of my strengths (contributed by my boyfriend, who's a saint for putting up with me)
7. I'm a spin doctor. I can spin any situation into the reality I -- or you -- want it to be. I can find the bright side of ANYTHING.

Thank you for the visit, and I'll be back tomorrow to complete my commitment. Now... I'm off to the beach :)

9/11: What was it like, outside of the U.S.?

2011-09-11T11:58:00.001-05:00

"Something just happened. In New York."

My friend, the one I was meeting later for a leisurely brunch on this day off, sounded subdued on the phone. In shock, almost.

"'Something'?"

"Dunno. Something crashed into the Towers."

"The Twin Towers? What, like a truck?"

"No. In the air."

"In the air?" That made no sense. If her voice hadn’t been so solemn, I would have laughed. But, as absurd as this something-from-the-air sounded, I understood it was no laughing matter. ""What, like a… a plane?"

"Yeah. A small one, they think."

"Damn. I hope no one is seriously hurt."

I thought it was an accident. I found out later we all did.

I wandered through the mall, the crowd thin on a Tuesday morning, but still busy. There was an empty spot in front of an internet cafe computer, and on a whim I took it. CNN.com, I typed. The server automatically brought up the Mexico version — the same way it always loaded Google in Spanish; how I hated that — and I scrolled through the page, left, down, right, to find the link to the original page. My eyes jumped from irrelevance to irrelevance, barely catching a word here and there, until they snagged at a link. Manhattan video, it said. U.S. under attack. I clicked it.

I watched that two-minute video for maybe half an hour, over and over. The streaming wasn’t good, so it kept freezing. The images, no matter how many times I watched them, didn’t belong in this reality. The puff of smoke from the side of the Tower. The gleam of fire in an increasingly gray world. And the soundtrack. The "oh my God", repeated over and over. The camera shook in the owner’s hand. That, the shaking, was what finally made me shut it off.

No, I wasn’t in the U.S. I’m not American. I lived in New Jersey for a couple of years, yes, but that had been too long ago. I had friends there, sure. But September 11 would affect me, all Mexicans, far beyond any personal ties we had to the U.S.

Mexico is the U.S.’s backyard in many ways. I’ll extrapolate on that some other time. But this tragedy was our tragedy too, simply because the U.S. was invincible. It was the Big Brother that kept the wolves at bay. Defensor of truth and liberty, and with the moral and military might to enforce righteousness in the world. In so much more than the practical aspects of economic dependence, I’d grown up in a world in which the US was, quite simply, Daddy. Like any teenager, we’d complain about its all-encompassing influence and chafe at it, but… We also depended on it. We depended on the safety of its existence.

My own father died when I was 19. I was a spoiled brat, a horrid child that always got her way and always did what she wanted. I was fortunate, I guess, in that my father was able to provide for my every whim. When he died, unexpectedly, life most certainly did NOT go on as before. Turned out my father had debts left and right, and the wealth I’d taken for granted all my life had, behind my back, skulked out and disappeared. I was left alone in a huge house — which had been run by a nicely balanced team of maids, cooks and gardeners — with no money and no clue on what to do next. My father’s family showed up one day and said the house wasn’t mine, it hadn’t even been my father’s; instead, it belonged to a corporation of which they were now at the head, and I had to move out. They would, they said, lend me the money for a moving truck to transport the furnishings. Those, apparently, were mine after all.

My father would never have allowed this. Of course, they had to be wrong. But I was a very naive and very incompetent little girl, and my father was not around anymore to fight for me. I’d have to do this on my own. And, God, I missed him.

The feeling was very much like what Mexico, as a country, felt in September of 2001. The invincibility, the sheer untouchability of our neighbor to the North was shattered. If this could happen there, it could happen anywhere. The whole world was at the mercy of… well, anything.

And that was, perhaps, the final step for my generation towards an adulthood we’d been only flirting with. I was twenty-eight then, no longer a child, certainly. Still, this took away the last veils separating us from the monsters under the bed. Yes, they were real. And, no, there was no Daddy around to come and shoo them away. We’d have to do it on our own.

Come on, you chicken-shit. Turn on the light. Peek under the bed. Do it.

Rule of Three Blogfest!

2011-09-01T21:29:00.002-05:00

AND... The Rule of Three Blogfest is officially open! Visit Amloki's Blog to get the official rules; it's a GREAT challenge to set your creative mind to throughout October -- and they've already posted the first prompt so you have 34 (yes, THIRTY - FOUR!!) days to play around with ideas and make something really radiant and shiny for this. No excuses, people. This is a fiction writer's dream. Now let's make it happen.

Stuart Nager even prepared a trailer for this blogfest -- check it out here, it's super cool and bound to get your creative juices flowing.

This is a unique challenge. Make it yours!

About Lovability in Mexico (Ex-Pat Part II)

2011-08-29T22:13:00.001-05:00

Today's our last night in Mexico. We've spent ten days here, traveling around the center of the country to visit my family and go to a friend's wedding. We've eaten like crazy, basked in the sunshine of the amabilidad of the Mexican people.

Amabilidad is probably a concept I should explain, for those of you who don't speak Spanish. Literally, it means "lovability", that is, the characteristic that makes someone lovable. However, in Spanish (and especially in Mexico) it's not used that way. To be amable is not to be lovable; it's to be kind + friendly + polite + attentiveness. Yep, all ~~three~~ four rolled into one. (Apologies. I'm mathematically challenged.)
It's the attentiveness of the waiter in bringing you an ashtray before you ask for one, the friendly way he smiles as he puts it on the table and the polite way he avoids interrupting your conversation as he does so, and the kindness with which he finds the least obstructive and most convenient spot for the thing on the table.

Amabilidad is everywhere in Mexico; it's a currency but, more importantly, it's a cultural identity. It's important to be amable, we learn at our mother's knee, with everyone around us: the maids that clean our rooms, the cooks that serve our breakfast chilaquiles or squeeze our fresh orange juice, the chofer that drives us to school, the vendors and beggars on the street, our teachers, our peers. It's important to be polite, and kind, and attentive, and friendly; not only does this make us lovable by the people that should love us, but it also makes us unreachable for the people that shouldn't get too close.

Mexico is a country, a culture, of classes. Money has nothing to do with it; class is about upbringing, about culture, about skin color and family, but especially about amabilidad. The rude nouveau riche, with all their latest-model cars and Rolex wrists, their caked Sisley makeup and Hermes ties, will always be considered low-class in Mexico... Until they learn some manners and start being amable to the people that serve them. The struggling university student that lives with distant relatives because his family cannot afford the expense of even a rented room on top of the costs of books and tuition, who smiles politely at the people he passes on the college quad, who nods at the fruit vendor outside the gate and, whenever he has change to spare, places it with a blessing into the beggar's cup, who addresses teachers politely and respectfully and never ever engages in graffiti decoration... Yep, you got it: he'll always be a higher class than the Gucci-bedecked brute in a Mercedes.

BUT being amable is not the same as being friendly. Not always, anyway. It's an art to develop the right kind of smile for the right kind of class. A cultured Mexican knows how to be kind and polite to a waiter without inviting more personal contact. A cultured Mexican, if he or she is the waiter / waitress, will know how to serve politely and attentively without putting themselves at the same level as the patrons they serve. Amabilidad is, in brief, the way through which Mexicans of a certain class identify each other and identify themselves to other classes.

Have you seen those foreigners in Mexico accosted by beggar children or obnoxious vendors of cheesy souvenirs? Have you ever seen a Mexican accosted the same way? No, don't say it's because of the dollars; there are plenty of Mexicans with far more acquisitive power than the average tourist. Why don't these vendors pursue the Mexican so insistently? Because of amabilidad. Ok, sure; there are cases where the rude nouveau riche pushes the vendor away so rudely that there's no way the vendor will follow. But that, more often than not, results in a broken windshield, or a tire that goes mysteriously flat. In more extreme cases, it results in a quiet, quick mugging farther down the street. The vendors and the beggar children may look helpless, but they have their resources and a pretty effective network. Amabilidad, on the other hand, always results in a smile and a vaya con Dios. Why? Because the way the cultured Mexican says "no" isn't rude, it isn't insulting or denigrating; it's human contact, authentic and genuine. "No, I don't need what you have to sell right now, but I hope you sell a lot and I wish you all the best." It is such a pleasure to do business like this, to interact with everyone -- patrons, market vendors, street sweepers, business owners -- in a friendly, polite, respectful and amable way.

I find it very strange that there's no word for amabilidad in English or any other language I know. The concept must exist, I'm sure, but everywhere I've been (which is not that many places, admittedly) it seems to connotate subservience, or haughtiness, or mercenary service. No, to be amable is not any of these things although it serves all well. It's more than "bending your hands", to quote an untranslatable Mexican saying, in servitude; it's more than putting yourself above someone -- it's actually the very essence of non-haughtiness. It's definitely much, much more than mercenary service; fake smiles and efficiency will never take the place for amabilidad, and do it a serious injustice when it's mistaken for it.

What does it take to be amable? Self-assurance, certainly. There's no way you can be amable if you're insecure; that's what breeds the rude nouveau riche. Generosity too; selfishness cannot support an authentic caring for others. Respect and understanding, so that you can see that others' "faults" are only such in your eyes and not their fault really. Respect for the differences in people, for the amazing variety that makes up this beautiful country and how they're expressed, is essential.

I love Mexico, and I love the lovability of it and of its people. I don't care about the drug war (insecurity is a myth here, by the way, but I'll say more about that later) -- I'll never stop traveling here because my soul requires amabilidad, even if it's only in non-continuous doses, to thrive. If you've never been to Mexico, please visit at least once -- Mexican amabilidad is something that everyone should experience. If you have visited Mexico, I'd love to hear about your experience here and whether you can recognize what I've written on this very Mexican characteristic.

Lovely beginning of the week for everyone!

I vacation, you vacation...

2011-08-20T20:07:00.001-05:00

So we're off to Mexico on vacation tomorrow. This is our first vacation since we bought the house last year... My poor b/f hasn't been off the island in almost two years. If you've ever lived on an island you know how crazy that will make you. I traveled a bit last year; true, it was for work and not really a vacation, but still. I got off the Rock. I kept my sanity. But my b/f? He's a hero for not having lapsed into nervous tics or worse.

Why didn't we travel? We have four dogs. Yes, four. And now we have a giant yard that I've managed to fill with plants (not full enough, as far as I'm concerned). If we leave, both of us together, who's going to feed the dogs and water the plants? It's a full-time job (especially the plant part), and we didn't want to inconvenience our friends like that. Plus, we were (still are) so in love with the house that, although we took time off from work, we were happy to stay put and go shopping for... oh, you know. Cushions. Curtains. Cupboards. Cool kitchen stuff. And, of course, I would shop for plants. Pots and pots and pots of beautiful living green things. And then I'd spend five days up to my elbows in Miracle Gro soil, building flower boxes and garden boxes, lining the entire property with flowers (where there's sun) and beautiful shade plants (where there isn't).

But now a friend -- a good one -- is getting married, and we haven't been to Mexico in a while, and I'm quitting my job soon, and I'm starting my own business which involves stuff from Mexico... So it added up. Let's go to Mexico for a week or so. Yay, right? But now I'm sitting here worried sick that our housesitter won't be a good dogsitter (or good enough), that the plants will be nothing but dry and crackly piles when we're back. God.

And instead of packing, I'm sitting here (at 9 pm) writing a post on my blog. Define procrastination: Guilie.

Bluebell Books Short Story Slam -- Week 8

2011-08-16T22:54:00.004-05:00

The Bluebell Books Short Story Slam! Visit the home post here, and join in the fun!

This week the prompt was a photograph... Darkish, perhaps, or perhaps that's just me projecting my darkish mind. I was surprised how easy this story came, especially because I almost passed on participating this week -- I had no clue what to write. Stream of consciousness may not be a bad thing after all ;) I hope you enjoy!

Turning Back

The road back is the longest of them all. It’s not a line; not even a circle. It’s a meandering footpath, rocky and uphill most of the way, only downhill, mostly, when the slippery slope leads further away. You don’t realize it, at first, when you begin slipping. Perhaps you’re glad it’s not uphill, perhaps you feel you’re close. But then you slide faster, you scrape your hands on muddy rocks, and you realize the darkness enveloping is — yes, it’s familiar, but it’s what you’re trying to get away from. Your fingernails dig for purchase, dirt painfully gathering under them, but there’s no purchase, no stopping. You just slide.

Why did you walk away? Why did you need more, more than the sun, the clear sky? More than the planes of fields that enclosed our world in their openness? Why did you not feel the freedom of the wind, of the rippling prairie grass? Did you look back, as you walked away? I didn’t see you turn, but perhaps you did.

It took you years, didn’t it? Years of running, of not turning back, before you even wanted to. And I wonder, when you did turn, if what you saw there, what you felt, scared you into running faster. I wonder, when the yearning began, if you pummeled it into silence out of hatred or out of fear for what that meant.

When the pulling started, when it kept you awake, when it made you absent to the fake world you’d built around yourself, did you fear it? Or did you give in, in bits and pieces, perhaps indulging first in simple memories that couldn’t threaten in their careful little boxes? Perhaps you remembered cookie trays coming out of the oven. Perhaps you remembered a teddy bear, a stuffed giraffe. You opened their little boxes carefully, daintily, not allowing them to spill. Spilling is incontainable. Spilling is messy.

But the boxes must have spilled; other memories must have come. You stayed away from music; I know exactly which music you stayed away from. But you can’t keep music away forever. Music filters in, like the wind through cracks in even the tightest window.

So you come, then. Down the winding path, down the slope that wasn’t slippery, finally, and your feet go faster in spite of yourself. You don’t want to go fast, because all of a sudden you’re not sure anymore. Is this it? Nothing is the same, and everything is. Everything is the same, but you’re not.

You found your way back. But… Now you’re remembering, aren’t you, why the sun wasn’t enough, why the clear sky couldn’t hold you, why the open fields enclosing felt so tight. And now it begins again, the walking. But now, after here, you have nowhere to go back to.

There is no coming home.

A Milestone

2011-08-14T17:27:00.002-05:00

I finished the novel. I FINISHED the novel. I finished the NOVEL. I... I did. Cannot believe it. Of course, it's not finished-finished... It's not polished. It's not edited. It's not "tightened"... But I reached the end, I managed to work through and reach a point where -- yes, this is the end. Maybe the final version, if there is such a thing, will have a different ending. That's possible, certainly. But... Still.
I feel very proud of myself.

I know, I know. I shouldn't indulge in hubris right now. This is like a jockey feeling inordinately proud that he and his horse made it out of the gate. True, if the horse never made it out before... But still. The real work, the real achievement, is still all the way around the track. I've done nothing until the book is published, I know that. And that is still far, far away into the future.

A first book is a learning curve, I've heard (read). It's true -- I never learned so much as I did with this one, and I'm sure I'm still in diapers when it comes to being An Author. Here's the thing, though: I'm ENJOYING this, like I haven't enjoyed something in... well, a very long time. I can feel myself growing, my skill expanding. "The greatest of faults, I should say, is to be conscious of none," Thomas Carlyle said, and I believe I've passed that first of hurdles: I now know, a bit at least, what faults I have as a writer.

I tell too much. I'm too wordy, my prose too... prosey. I require an infinite number of drafts and read-throughs to cut through the superficial and make it down to where things synthesize, where they become the bare, most poignant bones of what they are, where they lose the trappings of artifice, of social acceptance.

And in that, too, I have found the quest I must fulfill as a writer. That is the kind of writer I want to be: the writer that tells of complex feelings and complex interactions and boils them down to the hardened salts that constitute their true essence.

Yes, much to do, much to learn. And now I know where the finish line is at, at least.

Six Sentence Sunday - The First Sunday of August

2011-08-06T19:09:00.001-05:00

I'm back this week again... This Six Sunday thing can so easily become an addiction :) This week I'm sharing the very first six sentences of my WIP, a novel that doesn't have a title yet (or a genre, to tell the truth), but is going by "Open Circles, Burning Bridges". If you like it, I'll share more every week.

He wasn’t supposed to come to Mexico that summer. Cuernavaca, the three-million-inhabitant city just southwest of Mexico City that was home to me, was not as touristy as San Miguel de Allende or Taxco, but recently it was becoming a popular destination for language students. He told me later that a friend of his, who’d been planning and saving for this three-week experiment to learn Spanish for months, had broken a leg hiking and had begged him to go in his place to salvage the deposit. A freak accident, like the untimely flutter of butterfly wings that wreaks havoc in a distant hemisphere, and the life I cherished would crumple like wet clay in unskilled hands.

“Alex, we’re ready to start.” Jorge, the principal of the school where I taught, popped his head into the faculty room where I was working on my lesson plans.

Thanks for stopping by, and remember to visit the other entries at the Six Sentence Sunday site! Have a lovely Sunday, everyone!

Bluebell Thursday Short Story Slam -- Week 7

2011-08-04T20:30:00.003-05:00

My first participating entry in the Bluebell Thursday Short Story Slam... Not really sure what the rules are, if there are any (except for the inclusion of four of the words in the Wordle above, of course), so your feedback is much appreciated. Hope you enjoy this tale at least as much as I enjoyed writing it!

Howler Monkey

“Did you see that?” Her voice was shrill. “That monkey threw a coconut at me!”

“He didn’t. Or she. Can’t really tell from here,” I squinted up at the jungle canopy. The light barely filtered through in patterns that made me think of the dappled surface of the summerhouse pond.

“He did, Chris! I saw him look at me right before he threw it, like he was taking aim.”

“Monkeys don’t do that, Sheila. The coconut probably just slipped from his, or her, hands.” I chanced a glance in her direction. She was staring at me, arms crossed over her chest. I was glad, for the first time since she’d bought them at the duty-free minutes before we boarded, she’d found these ridiculously huge sunglasses. Their lenses shielded me from the sting of her glare, but still I looked away.

“Listen,” I tried for conciliatory, secretly aching to throttle her, “why don’t you try throwing it to her? She’s probably trying to figure out how to get her lunch back.” In truth, the monkey in the trees was as nonchalant as I was not, its attention already caught by something more interesting than overdressed safari tourists, but I hadn’t given up trying to get Sheila to care.

“I just might try that.” She bent her head, but not before I caught a corner of the smirk I’d come to hate, and looked for the coconut on the ground. It wasn’t really a coconut, but it was some kind of hard-shelled fruit, and it had landed close — too close — by Sheila’s feet with a solid thwack. Glad it hadn’t hit her. Imagine the drama.

“What are you snorting at?” She’d found the coconut — not a coconut, whatever — and was hefting it in both hands. What are you, I wanted to say, a pro not-coconut pitcher? But I swallowed and just shook my head.

Flinging her blonde ponytail in my direction, she turned towards the monkey’s perch.

“There you are, little sucker. Take this!”

She let fly, hard, and for an instant I had a vision of the not-coconut blasting the monkey out of the treetops. With agonizing clarity I saw the monkey land with a thump, blood already staining its tawny coat. I imagined rushing to it, a cry stuck in my throat, kneeling just in time to see the intelligence in its eyes, now twisted in a grimace of pain, fade to blank.

But Sheila wasn’t a good shot. The not-coconut landed far off its mark, disappearing into the underbrush with a bounce.

“Dammit!” She looked around for something else to throw.

“Sheila, let’s move on. The group is already out of sight.”

“Not letting him get away with it,” she muttered, eyes on the ground.

“Sheila, please.”

“Here,” she picked up a rock about the size of a baseball. “This’ll do it.”

I caught her arm before she could pitch it, holding it above her head.

“Stop it. Enough.”

Her mouth opened in protest, but instead of words only a grunt and a whimper came out. I frowned, uncomprehending, until I felt movement at my feet. A branch — yes, it looked like a branch, maybe a root — was snaking up Sheila’s leg. I backed up, out of its reach, as the rock in Sheila’s hand dropped to the ground. It made the same noise I’d imagined the monkey would make as it fell.

The sunglasses covered her eyes, but I stared anyway. Her body, up to the waist, was encased in bark, and the branch snapped faster with every turn. Then I realized it wasn’t the branch — it was Sheila’s bones snapping and I wanted to look away, didn’t want to see this, but I had to, just couldn’t tear my eyes off Sheila disappearing into a root, for the love of God, a root that grew out of the ground and swallowed her whole.

She never made a sound, except for the snap of her crushed bones and a wet pop that I imagined (because it was mercifully out of my sight by then) was her skull imploding. There was absolute silence as I tried to think, to move, to scream — at least scream. But I couldn’t, not until I heard the scream of the monkey above — a howler monkey, yes, now I recognized it — and its scream swallowed my own.

Clarity of Night

2011-08-01T09:19:00.003-05:00

I just realized I completely forgot to link the Clarity of Night contest to this blog... I cannot believe I did that. I was overwhelmed, true; first by the sheer raw talent of the 102 entries -- seriously, these people can write! And second, by the fact that my own entry received an honorable mention (an HONORABLE mention... MY entry! Un-freakin-believable), and I was apparently inducted into the Forties club (for high punctuation in the readers' choice voting). So, yes, I was flabbergasted and in shock for a whole five days, until today I suddenly thought, "wait a minute...".

Please forgive this incredibly careless oversight, and take a jump-click over to Jason's Clarity of Night blog. If you want to read my very humble and undeserving entry, click here (or find entry #97 in the index of the Elemental contest post), and please check out some of the other entries. For those ADD'ers out there, know that the word limit on this contest was 250 words. That's, like... not even a page. You can read a page, right? Believe me, these are worth it:

Here are some of my favorites:

No One Would Catch Fire, by D. Biswas
The True Story of How Casey Tillson Became A Vegan, by Wendy Russ
Your Mother, by Francis Tan
The Answer, by Kilian Conor (this one has a line that I love... "I am bone and meat interlaced for breath to speak your name..." How unearthily beautifl is that!)
Bait, by Richard Levangie (an awesome awesome awesome story!)
The Wall, by Peter Davidson (3rd-place winner!)
Golem, by Loren Eaton (2nd-place winner AND Readers' Choice!)
RIF, by Darby Krenshaw (1st-place winner - wonderful story!)

Hope you enjoy them as much as I did!

Six Sentence Sunday!

2011-07-30T10:46:00.002-05:00

So I finally made it to Six Sentence Sunday... Not sure how, exactly, this works, and I'm pretty sure I'm going to screw it up the first time, but hey -- you live, you learn. Check out the other Six-Sentencers here and, if you have a blog, maybe you want to participate next week. The more the merrier, toch?

And [drumroll] the Six Sentences with which Quiet Laughter participates this week are taken from a story called "Red & Black":

The boy and the dog hunker under the shrubbery. Dim green light dapples the boy’s reddish hair, the matching coat of the setter panting next to him. The boy’s arm is around the dog; the dog doesn’t need the restraint, but the boy needs the warmth, the sense of complicity.

-“Sshh, Shandy.”

The green light catches a welt on the side of the boy’s face. His grandfather’s hands are big, heavy.

If you liked it, you can read the full story here, and when you're ready to go back to the Six Sentence Sunday blog, just click that link. Thanks for the visit; hope you enjoyed it, and look forward to seeing you around!