Sunday's Serving - Willow in the Desert

 

 

Gordon scanned the list.  Yes, she had laid everything out for him with precision.  He was still a little nervous about being in charge of the Becomings, but it seemed doable now.  “These mutations, are they thought to be stronger than us Becomings?”

“That I don’t know yet, but as I said, those who have firearms training will be armed.  And those who aren’t skilled with guns will be encouraged to learn.  It’s far better for you to kill these things from a distance than to be hurt or killed yourselves because you had to fight them hand to hand.”

Gordon lifted his eyes to look into hers.  Blue as the sky, they were very pretty, but they moved too much.  He was still stressed enough that their motion made his thoughts jumble.  He jerked his gaze back down to the list.  “You really trust me with this?  Wouldn’t a human be better?”

“Don’t be silly, Gordon.  You’re still more human than not, no matter what your appearance says.”  Carli got back to business.  “If the town is overrun, help Kearns and Pearson get as many of our people as you can to the air base.”

Gordon considered, trying to get his thoughts in order.  “Which is more important, holding the town or getting others to safety?”

Carli fell silent for a little while.  He waited, thinking how she never hurried him along when he got tongue tied.  Like Amanda, Carli was patient with his conversational shortcomings.  Though his anxiety wanted her to answer the question immediately, he held his tongue to reciprocate the kindness.

Finally she said, “One thing I like about you Gordon, is that you can consider things more rationally than most.  You don’t let your feelings get in the way of what needs to be done, no matter how unpleasant it may be.”

“Asperger’s doesn’t make me emotionless.”  So many people got that idea.

“No, but it has helped to make you levelheaded.  I admit that my emotions scream hold the town no matter what.”

“I bet Arner says the same.  You’re both warriors.”

Carli laughed. “Me, a warrior.”

Gordon tried to figure out why she found the idea funny.  It was true; she was determined to destroy the Old Ones, even at the risk of her own life.  Battling impossible odds so humans could someday rule their own world again, taking the fight to the aliens that had defeated every army on Earth.  Despite her short stature, Carli Black Elk seemed to him an avenging angel, wielding guns and explosives instead of a flaming sword. 

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Funny Stuff This Week

Do Not Disturb

I love my work life.  I am beyond fortunate in that I get to make up stories for a living.  I get to sit at home in my jammies, drink coffee by the gallon, and take leisurely meals.  I have no right to complain.

So you know what comes next.  A complaint.

When people ask me how I’m doing, I often like to say, “I can’t complain, but I do it anyway to stay in practice.”  Welcome to a practice session.

Being at home means few think I’m working a real job.  Because I don’t jump into my car and drive to an office as soon as I’ve got the kid on the bus, I’m not perceived as really engaged in a meaningful endeavor.  I’m at home and therefore at liberty to chat on the phone, goof off on Facebook, or shmooze at the dining room table over coffee.  At least, that’s what everyone thinks.

Here’s the scoop:  I am working.  I am working very hard.  I spend five days a week fielding issues with book distributors, answering fan mail, marketing and promoting, and ... *gasp* ... even writing the books that pay my mortgage.  I’ve got deadlines just like many other people who commute to their workplaces.  I’ve been known to put in a 12-hour day to get everything done.  Add to that fact that I juggle two writing careers as two different authors, try to keep a path or two clear to move about in my house without tripping and breaking my neck, and play the part of Mommy to a busy seven-year-old.   

Yes, I am working. 

Yet I have to contend with those who think dropping by and interrupting is no big deal.  “Oh hi!  I was in the neighborhood.  Let me tell you all about the latest.”  Or the phone ringing.  “Hey, I know you’re writing, but I just had to talk to you about the show I watched on TV.  Did you see what happened on Dancing With the Stars last night?”

Sigh.  No matter how many times I tell people I can’t be interrupted, they interrupt anyway.   

Imagine this:  I’m writing really well, completely in the zone where I can see the scenario I’m working on in all its vivid detail.  I’ve got the perfect word, phrase, or sentence that is going to portray this scene to the reader...it’s a thing of beauty.  Nothing else will ever fit what I’m trying to get across as wondrously as this word/phrase/sentence.  Fingers are poised over the keyboard, ready to tap that extraordinary passage ... and then... 

“Hi!  Sorry I’m interrupting, but this will only take a second.” 

The word/phrase/sentence that I’d held so tenderly in my mind, ready to birth onto the page, as ephemeral as a midnight dream – it disappears.  I’m jolted out of my little world, never to find that tiny mote of perfection ever again. 

At those times I feel like Jack Nicholson in ‘The Shining’ when Shelley Duval interrupts his writing and he completely loses it on her.  Oh yeah, it’s a good thing I don’t own an axe at that moment.  I could commit mayhem in finely arcing splashes of gore.  I really could. 

To those of you who have an artist, writer, musician, or other creative beast in your life ... or even someone who simply works in the home ... have a heart.  Yes, we love you.  We love you with all our beings.  You are more important to us than anything, truly you are.  Whatever it is you’re dying to share is important to us too.  But please understand we really are working.  I’m not showing up at your job in the middle of the day, interrupting your work.  All I ask is the same respect in return.   

Please, for all our sakes and to keep blood off my carpet, do not disturb the writer when she’s working.  Don’t make her go all Jack Torrence on your ass, busting down the door and yelling “Heeeere’s Johnny!”

 

 

Sunday's Serving - The Willow and the Stone

            The massive stone sat atop several crushed aliens.  More dead aliens tangled in the thin branches of the willow, limp insect marionettes in the delicate grip.  The air hung heavy with the coppery tang of blood. 

            Leo ran his fingertips over the stone’s craggy surface.  Hard, implacable, it told him nothing.  What it represented he couldn’t imagine.  He dusted the grit from his hand.

            He turned to the tree.  It drew away from him, and its shuddering fronds fled from his touch.  Leo stared; it was actually aware of him.  He reached toward it, palms up, the way one might offer a hand to a friendly but skittish cat.  The tree’s limbs drifted toward him.

            Trembling branches whispered against his legs.  He felt a hesitant touch on his cheek.

            Friend?

            He shivered at the shy touch of the mind that called to him.  He caressed tiny leaves with his fingertips.  "Friend," he whispered.

            A breeze sighed through the willow's branches.  Who?

            "A survivor.  I live in a safe place, a hideaway inside an old limestone mine.  It‘s called the Rock."

            Safe?

            "No aliens bother us here.  We’re well hidden.  It's just north of Pittsburgh in a town called Boyers."  He motioned to the corpses hanging from the tree's limbs.  "What did you do to them?"

            Who?

            "The aliens."

            The tree shuddered all over.  The dead aliens jiggled an obscene dance, their limbs jerking as if under the control of a puppeteer having a seizure.  Aliens?  Where?

            Leo realized only he saw the horrible creatures.  Many of his visions were filled with symbols that demanded careful analysis.  The willow was aware of him, but not the components of his vision. 

            "Hush," he comforted the tree.  "It's all right.  You have nothing to fear here."  

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Funny Stuff This Week

Feeding the Beast

Being a writer is an interesting way of existing.  To me.  Not to you, the non-writer.  For someone on the outside, I would be as fascinating as a blank sheet of paper.  I like to tell people I could double as a throw rug.  That’s how boring I am. 

Yes, for the most part I am a quiet, unassuming gal.  I like to sit in the background.  If I think of something to contribute to a conversation, I do so.  I might even crack a joke or two.  Most days I get up in the morning, send the kid off to school, exercise, sit at a desk to work, clean the house, and try to resist seconds at meals.  I shop way too much.  I surf the ‘net.  I take the boy to his games or swim lessons.  I watch TV. 

Yawn.

No one looking at this middle-aged near-hermit of a woman would ever guess the monster that lives inside me.  I’m so very bland.  How could you know about the inner beast that eternally growls to be fed?

Because I’m a writer, I live a large part of life in my head.  Most of the time, it’s not my own life.  I’m dreaming of my characters and the situations they get themselves into.  I’m always writing, even if it’s only in my thoughts.  Stories cook and marinate in my brain soup almost every second of the day.  They come from an overactive imagination, which I have affectionately named the Beast.

The Beast doesn’t run on nothing.  The Beast continually wants experiences to feed on, to add and enrich the stories it conjures up.  It gobbles up everything in its path:  my childhood experiences, my friends, the places I’ve been, the friends and enemies I’ve made.  It watches the world I inhabit, snatching at everything.  Devouring everything.

If we meet, the Beast is eyeing you, wondering how you taste.  Do I find you riveting?  Ridiculous?  Amusing?  The Beast will add you to the brain soup and make you a part of the next tasty tale it spins.  Have I visited your house?  Perhaps it will meet the setting the Beast needs for a scene of murder, a party, or a lover’s tryst.  Did you show me your quirky hobby?  Guess what – the Beast has just decided my newest heroine has that or a similar pastime.

My friends, family, foes...many have shown up in my books.  I have too.  The Beast is a cannibal in its neverending frenzy of gathering people, places, and experiences.  When it runs low on outside ingredients, it turns to me.  It is never sated. 

I am forever watching all that is around me, making note of everything and paying attention.  So when I’m standing apart from the rest of you, watching quietly, don’t write me off as a wallflower.  Don’t think I’m being aloof or anti-social.  I’m very engaged, in fact.  Unlike me, you are fascinating.  You are the perfect food for the Beast.

Sunday's Serving - Lilith's Return

 

As she ticked off things on her list, putting St. Christopher medals in a hard-shell case next to crystals and voodoo gris-gris bags, Lena walked into the room.  Alex couldn’t help the renewed surge of relief that her daughter looked like her old self.  Thank God she’d suffered no residual effects from Lilith’s possession.

That bitch better stay away from my kid.  I will fuck her up ninety ways to Sunday if she dares to harm one hair on her head. 

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