Speaking of Inner Demons

This is rough and unedited, but feel free to enjoy a short snippet of the first-person manuscript I started earlier this week. This piece contains violence and adult language. Reader discretion is advised. Although, anyone who is easily offended is on the wrong blog. Enjoy!

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I became aware standing in a wheat field with my jeans and boots glued to my skin with rain and muddy ichor.  Lightning struck a tree maybe twenty feet away, threatening to arch in my direction. “Well, fuck me.”

This was not the first time I had found myself wandering in a strange location I did not recognize. A flash of light directed at my eyes, momentarily blinding me. Was this it? My mouth had gotten me into some serious trouble before, but this even beat Las Vegas.

“What in the Sam Hill are you doing out here?” A rumbling voice accompanied what I now recognized as a flashlight. “We’re in the middle of a tornado watch...” It took him a moment to realize that I was not the person he had expected to find. I was not even the type of person he expected to find. His voice dropped off.

“I know what you are.” He finally whispered, his tone flavored by bitter abhorrence. “Why are you here?”

The lightning struck a little closer, honing on my position. At this rate, I would be stuck spilling my own blood just to keep us from dying. I would piss off a storm god on my first day back in the land of the living. “Story time later. Much running now.”

I whistled for the pieces of wood to return to me. I could reform them into something useful with just a drop or two, but trying to keep a plebeian from turned into kindling might be another matter. Electricity was one of my elements to harness, but there was a big difference between being shocked by wiring and having a mini-Zeus rain bolts on your ass.

He bolted toward the closest wooden structure, a gray weathered lean-to that had once been a barn. As long as I didn’t direct the lightning his way, this plebeian would not get hurt. “Since when did I become Helpful Annie? Fuck this noise.” 

Oh, right. I liked being free. Incarceration might be nothing compared to what Captain Overcompensation was about to do to me, but I really did want more time being Duchess Valira’s personal whipping girl. The scars still stung with hellfire.

I ripped open my left wrist with my fangs. There was no time to be graceful. My staff reformed from simple oak into hardened ebony and the runes glistened in sanguine hue as I gave them new purpose. “All right, you fucking coward. Get down from those storm clouds and come get me.”

The entire sky in front of me became a black wall of doom clouds. “That can’t be good.” People never seem to be too happy when I talk. I cannot imagine why.   I had not thought King Grab Ass packed away this much power in his itty bitty cod piece. 

“What in the hell are you doing?” The idiot human had not kept running for safety, he had turned the fuck around to grab at my shoulders as if I were your typical bag of easily marred flesh. “You’re going to get yourself killed!”

“That’s my line, hayseed! Get the fuck back in the barn before he...” I did not spit the rest out when lightning tore the right side of my face open, depositing some of my teeth, jaw bone, and tongue on the man. He pissed himself before he could belt out a whining-pitched scream, which seemed to be a perfectly logical response.

The problem is that I am not known for logical. Even as my power began to spill out of the open wound, my eyes flashed with vinegar and sulfur. I was so fucking pissed at this tighty-whitey wearing brat-cum-divine. He would be licking the mud off my boots before I was done with him, if nothing else but because he temporarily took away my right to spew awesomely witty phrases at his lame, zit-covered, face.  

Good endings

As a writer, I am always about a good ending. There is nothing like that feeling of denouement and completion when you set the book down for the last time because the story is finished. I have noticed recently that I enjoy this in terms of chaos as well. A good ending satisfies on its own and not just as a means to a new creation.

That being said, we did not need the tire to go flat on John's birthday while he was at work. We were properly prepared, there was a donut but we were not quite yet prepared to have to buy a new tire around the holiday and bills. I am going to try to keep the hubs calm or at least less anxious after he gets back home. I am not sure it's going to be so easy. Still, it's going to be as great of a birthday for him as I and our friends can manage.

I have done more baking in the past two weeks than I probably have all year. Somehow I need to develop that sort of a habit about my writing. Still, it is the holiday season and we all should be taking time to spend with families and friends more than anything else. It's stressful but it's good. It's the best way to end out the year.

Post-NaNoWrimo 2014 Update

I managed to survive NaNo with a sizeable chunk of text to show for it. I did not make my goal of 50K, but 44,000 words and some change certainly did give me a good start to what I hope will be a good novel after some more outlining, character building, and reorganization of the major events into something more palatable for my picky inner editor. To be honest, I still have not settled on a final title for this book, which is strange for me. Normally I work directly from a title, but in this one, I started with a main character first. She is probably the only fully fleshed out character in the book. Everyone else still seems to be a placeholder in one way or another.

There is the final team project in process for the last accounting class; it is due on Saturday but I think we may be done before then. There may be one more assignment for my other class, but it is a fairly stress-free end to the semester. I know not everyone is so calm, but the rush before graduation has many feeling haggard. Dead Week should not involve assignments unless they are final projects in lieu of an exam. I think very few universities have kept up with the tradition, though, other than to cease student organization's official functions during that week and to keep the name. Professors pretty much do whatever they want in terms of workload even if it is sometimes unrealistic. Still, we all manage somehow so it must not be that unrealistic.

Kansas, per usual, can make up its mind about what season we are actually in. As long as the Blizzard waits until I am done with trudging to campus this semester, I do not really care, because I can bundle up inside with my hot cocoa, blankets, and books. I have plans to sleep until noon at least one day over the break. That is probably all I will get around this zoo that is my home.

The hubs just announced in a much more 'official statement' sort of way that he wants to move to a better house after our lease is up in this house. So, that's probably going to be part of my summer.

Dreaming Leads to Creation

My team's executive summary for ESU's 3D Event - Dream It, Design It, Develop It - made it in well before the deadline. I am curious to see if we make the cut for the top 20 to be able to further pitch our idea. The goal is the prize money more than anything. We intend to use it towards starting capital. We have two dice trays in process at the moment. Photos to come later. We used pine and birch on these to keep expenses fairly low since they're just going to be showcase models. They're taking the stain fairly nicely though, so it will be interesting to show as part of our display. Or they might be going up on etsy sometime soon. I'm a little hush-hush on too many details as to our plans yet for this business, but I think it will be fantastic. My actual class assignments were wrapped up this morning so I have some time to work on research for both business and end-of-the-semester projects.

John's job searching has been frustrating lately. We are still both employed part-time at the funeral home and he is still working the door at Mulready's every other weekend, but some more steady income is definitely needed. It shouldn't be this difficult to get out of a one bedroom apartment, but the job market in this town is becoming exceedingly more questionable despite expansion and new business. I guess that's just another sign that we need to run our own ventures.

I would much prefer that March came in like a lion with thunderstorms, not a possibility of 3-6 inches of snow. My work shoes that I just bought (to replace the ones that broke) are not exactly snow friendly. They're intended for spring and summer. If there's still snow on the ground come Monday morning, I might be in an uncomfortable situation. Somewhat related to cold days, Jim Butcher is evidently going to be in Kansas City to promote his new book Skin Game in June. It remains to be seen as to whether I will be there or not, but it is a possibility. Right now, I'm still working my way through the Dresden Files series. I might be done or close to it by June 1st.

So far, I've only managed to add another paragraph to The Lazarus Hand but I hope to get a bit more done today. Having enough spare time to write fiction at all is a good thing. Granted, I have been gaming a good bit lately as well, but I am trying to get into different types of game in the event that the business venture comes to fruition. As far as video games, though, I'm impatiently waiting the third episode of A Wolf Among Us. I was a big fan of Vertigo comics back in the '90's, so seeing Fables redesigned as an interactive story game is just fantastic for my nostalgic tendencies.

The Lazarus Hand

Despite staying up late last night, my body decided that 6:30 in the morning was the best time for me to get up on a Saturday. Related to this, my mind decided to write a story in dream form while I was sleeping which I feel led to the early release from slumber.

This gem of a future novel, which is tentatively titled The Lazarus Hand, is being told in first person by a snarky teenager the summer before she goes off to college. I blame Jim Butcher before sleep a little for Mallie and her unfortunate circumstances. Still, I think some of you will be excited. It is a fresh young adult project after so long of avoiding the genre.

Instead of working on my team's competition proposal for the Dream It, Design It, Develop It contest at ESU, I am writing out chapter one this morning. I have a feeling that I might be shaking up the Zombie Warhols for this one. We might meet today if I have time. I still have two assignments that are due today. One's done. One's partially done, but it's a group project so I can't do it all anyway. Waiting to hear from my teammate about noon to wrap things up.

Believe it or not, I've not even had a cup of coffee yet.

Here's a short (unedited) sample of what I've managed thus far: 

Waking up before noon, the day after the semester ended, seemed like a shitty way to start my last days of freedom before college and true adulthood. That is just what happens when your adoptive parents are Satan Incarnate and Mistress Hades who thought work built character and resumes at the same time. My groggy brain did not appreciate a wake-up call of nine in the morning after I kept a Call of Duty session going until about three.

 Missing an interview might mean that Uncle Mark's farm awaited me for yet another summer. Among those joyous chores would involve shoveling horse manure and repairing his barn. I didn't mind taking care of his horses, Lucifer, Peanut, Margot, Silver Tequila, and Callais, that much until Peanut had one of her moments where she tried to live up to Lucifer's name. Ever been bit by a horse? On the shoulder? Repeatedly?  Follow that up with the perennial favorite of an equine kicking manure in your general direction and you've got the genteel actions of a pissed-off Peanut.

I do not know for the life of me why I thought working for a funeral home sounded like less work. Maybe on some egotistical level, I thought it would be a great conversation starter when I moved to Tulsa. Like most people who have never been in a funeral home, I had no idea what I was getting myself into. (c) 2014

This is an urban fantasy and it's not a recap of my experiences at work by any stretch of the imagination. (That would not be legal.) Obviously, I will be drawing on elements of "what usually happens..." without going into unnecessary details or specific cases. The funeral home is more of a catalyst setting for certain things to happen. The title is a bit of a clue.

I don't necessarily seeing Mallie as being an immediately lovable character, but she has some issues to work through besides what life throws at her. She's not exactly a sweet person. At the same time, if young adult novels are mostly following the hero's journey, the protagonist should not be hero material at the start of it. He or she has to find ways to become that person.

Thanks for any comments, thoughts, well-wishes, etc.

Have a great weekend!

Interesting developments

The semester has been fairly pleasant so far save for the awkward sinus infection and head cold from Hades that sneaked up on me last week. This one refused to run its course without the threat of antibiotics, but I am doing much better now. I had back-to-back group assignments last week and this week for my Supply Chain Management class. I felt I was actually able to contribute my fair share this week as compared to last week. (It's not a good idea to trust the sick person to run the numbers or make entirely reasonable assertions, but, I did what I could.)

Because I can never be satisfied with having just a few pans in the fire, I'm entering a team business plan competition for my school. Fairly excited about our prospects, though. Who knows? It might allow for investor interest and possibly starting the whole entrepreneurial gig again. At the very least, the cash prize is certainly interesting.

I need to return to Sunshine the Morning After, but I've been fairly busy keeping up with the semester, the day job, and other random projects. I have a science fiction novel idea pinging around in my brain that's wanting a bit more attention though. Just not sure where I'm going with it yet. It keeps resurfacing at random, quiet, moments so I might do some plotting for it over the next few days.

Kansas is doing that annoying thing again where it makes national news in a negative way. To the majority of the Kansas House: you're an embarrassment, go away, and stop trying to make policy because you clearly don't know what you're doing. We're all questioning your collective sanity, as well.

Dues on a Saturday

Rent's due. A case study is due. We're due to have some more ice and snow, I would imagine. I'm due to have a visit from at least one friend today. My sanity is due some coffee to keep plugging along with the banality of doing a case study analysis on a Saturday morning. I should not already be experiencing the graduate student brain dead in week two of semester two, but that's where I am at today.

My brain is slowly waking up with the promised aroma of freshly ground coffee. It speaks my name and it is magical. Those of you without a taste for the bitter caffeine infusion of life that is coffee cannot understand this phenomenon.

Even if it's not my favorite type of writing, I still get satisfaction from putting fingers to keyboard and mind to the words that are coming out on the word processor. I might complain on some level that I really do not want to be doing a case study on Seven-Eleven Japan but it's simply not entirely true. I get sadistic pleasure from progress and completion. It's still words written this week even if it's not going into Sunshine the Morning After, my main fiction project at the moment.

On a happy note, Violet found a home yesterday. I can only think that so many people spreading the word had an impact. So, thank you, because you all helped.


 

Grad School Semester #2

So, after my experiences last semester, I am down to just three classes, all of which are online. Some of my desire for the online classes was related to the hours at work. Now that I have less hours at work, I have even more time to focus on my class work. Only two of my classes are going on right now. The third doesn't start until the second half of the semester.

I am under doctor's orders to eat better because I've not been getting enough 'good' cholesterol lately. No matter how pithy our food budget is at times, I have to stop eating like a carbohydrate-obsessed freshman. No excuses. Hey, at least I stopped putting sugar in my tea. I am also down to two cups of coffee per day on most days that I drink coffee. I've started enjoying hot tea again on occasion. Some days, I need to not rile myself up which is one of the negative things coffee will do to me when I'm already annoyed or upset. In other news, however, my blood pressure is awesome, no reasons to be fearful of my glucose levels for type II diabetes, and my weight is slowly going down. Although it did fall 40 lbs over the course of three weeks when I hadn't really done anything except stop stressing as much. Yep, I bloat when I'm running on pure adrenaline due to fear/stress/etc. Isn't that an awesome defense mechanism?

I've actually starting taking fish oil pills at my doctor's advice. How crazy is that? For the most part, though, as long as I eat properly and keep active, I'm pretty healthy despite weighing more than I should.

As I have said before, I love working at the funeral home, but learning some personal and political attitudes from coworkers made me more than a little uncomfortable this week. Especially I'm not exactly sure how the topics were reached or deemed appropriate for work and my boss was part of it. I know I'm the square peg in the round hole when it comes to the majority culture in Kansas. I believe that everyone has the right to believe as they wish in America, but I think, especially in a work setting, you should keep your weird religious,  political, and paranoid messy thoughts to yourself. Especially if you start the sentence with "This is going to sound horrible, but I believe..." Yes, it does sound horrible, because that was a horrible thing to say about other human beings. (I'll leave the meat of the conversation to your imaginations.)  In some ways, I'm ashamed of myself, because I kept quiet. The sad truth is that I cannot afford to lose the job right now, but it certainly reminded me that perhaps I need to keep looking and striving for better opportunities. The sad part is, my boss had all my respect up until Monday. It's slightly diminished, but I still feel like I can put those feelings aside to work as hard as I can while I am work. That's pretty much my work focus until I move on to better things.

Codeacademy has been my new 'go to' for refreshing my HTML skills and eventually building up my repertoire to include some web programming. Programming is just something we all need to know for today's job market, so I'm going back to the basics. If anyone has any better or further resources, I would be grateful. My goal is to have a much stronger skill set once I am done with my MBA. I'm still plugging away at my rudimentary Japanese at times as well. (Not nearly like I probably should.)

Here's to a good half-week of classes! Congrats to everyone who is back in school right now. Some of you probably have been there for awhile already. I hope to have more regular updates to the blog this year. It's not exactly a New Year's Resolution, but, I had so many other plans for this blog that I've not yet implemented. 

One more week of freedom

For me, the next semester starts on January 22nd. This really has been the longest break ever, but it's quickly coming to an end. I have three classes this semester, instead of four, which I think is much better for me. My ability to cram everything into a long day is not as awesome as it used to be. I also am determined to keep devoting time to my writing. I mean, I can talk about writing until I'm blue in the face, but until I start producing more, it's hardly anything more than fluffy daydreams.

You would think working in a funeral home, I would have a better grasp on my own grief, but I don't. It's one thing to give others sound advice, and yet another to take it yourself. The most important, perhaps, is that there is no time scale to grief even when you really want there to be one. I lost one cousin to Afghanistan in December of 2011. I lost another to brain cancer on the exact same day this past year. I joke sometimes that I have more than enough cousins to go around and that I barely know most of them, but, they're still part of my family. It still hurts like someone driving an ice pick through your ribcage and twisting. Right now, I just want to black mark the day off the calendar. Not that it would really help.

The holidays are tense around Casa Mihulec anyway. We've not had the best of luck in winter. It's become the mythical season of the dead and the pain and the hopelessness, wondering when the light is going to return. It's gotten a bit better now that we're past the new year. Which, in fact, New Year's Eve was pretty awesome. Even if John had to go out of his way to ruin the sentimental moment with his "adopted" sister. In fact, the paper flicking into the champagne glass (a transgression that had to be repaid by crepes the next morning) might have been one of the best moments. At least it won't be forgotten. Also, New Year's countdowns are more amusing when you cannot hear the commentators over the general sounds in the pub. Best opportunity for color commentary ever.

I love my job, but the gain in hours I had initially received because we were getting more cases has gone back down. It's not looking too promising for the business to build quickly enough for me to work anywhere near full-time in the next few years. I think this is a good thing, because it's forcing me to think about getting out of my comfort zone in a big way. As great as it is to have a boss and a job you like in a locale you mostly enjoy, that's not always enough. There's little advancement to be had in a small college town that is still learning how to bank on it being a college town. I suspect John and I both are going to be setting our sights on larger cities and better regions. There's a lot of push still for Seattle or Portland, although Austin, Texas has also been suggested as it is becoming a big technology area. It's also trying to bank on 'weirdness' which seems like it could be a good fit.

Going back to my original topic of grad school, as I said, I'm taking three classes. Next Friday, I should have my financial aid and be able to go get my textbooks. Last I checked, I only had one required textbook but blackboard is timing out so I cannot really check if it's changed. If that's still the case, I may just buy it although my original intent was to save a little bit of money by renting if there were multiple books.

I think I will be feeling some better once classes start, although I was annoyed not to get a call to interview for the scanning assistant position in Human Resources. The position starts in four days, so I'm going to assume someone else was chosen. Either that or they got way too busy and still haven't finished going through applications. John's getting ready to find part-time job number three since the bar hasn't been able to provide as many hours as he wanted and the funeral home's on-call work is not steady or reliable.

By the way, I find New Year's resolutions to be ridiculous ways to fail and hate yourself. I'm just setting small goals on improving different areas of my life, little bits at a time. It's really all I can do. I know what the big goals are, but it's not a good idea to focus on those too often. One of my goals, this particular blog post notwithstanding, is to spend more time focusing on positives and what I can change rather than what I cannot.

At the end of the day, I have good friends and family which, in my book, is worth more than anything else. So that's my positive out of all this convoluted mess I've written.

"Those" Productive Days

Thus far today, I've not even managed enough fresh text for a paragraph's worth across my current projects. Rent check was dropped off. Laundry is mostly caught up and put away, although there's still an almost full basket to be washed along with random dirty clothes strewn over the floor courtesy of the 'boys' in my life. Never underestimate the clutter power of a man with bad aim and two male cats who like making up nests out of previously worn garments. I might have everything in order before the start of the next semester but who knows?

That being said, I think I have managed to write more for the start of 2014 than I did at the same time last year. My attitudes towards writing have become more of a professional bent, which was one of my minor goals. I'm pretty much on a standard writing, editing, and reading schedule around part-time work and graduate studies.

Here's to tying together some tenuous threads that an unlikeable character has left for me. I'm sure you've all had days like this, where being productive is relative and low in output.

Start of Week 2

Despite my best intentions, I lost momentum on my NaNoWriMo project towards the end of this past week. I finally hit over the 10K hump when I should be nearer to 17K at this point. I still feel pretty confident about finishing my 50K this month despite that. I do need to work on matters of laundry and homework today, so I may treat writing as more of a reward today.

Endings are a bit of an issue both in writing and life, as I have seen lately. We have so much anxiety in our culture about failing, leaving, and quitting, which seems so counterproductive. I am looking forward to yet another interesting shift. And, yes, Herodotus mentioned this: "Illness strikes men when they are exposed to change." So the issue has been a part of Western culture for some time.

The old adage about when one door opens, another closes, tends to be thrown to a wayside, as a comfort for that "shameful" moment when something has gone wrong. But a pagan perspective has a slightly different perspective: you have to destroy to create and there is balance in the ebb and flow of fortunes. Everything you do make a mark on the universe that ultimately affects everyone within it. It is silly to think that whatever "bad" happens to you is some sort of punishment. If karma was actually about biting people in the ass or giving them rewards on the basis of actions, we would not need a legal system.

The police sirens were quite busy in our neighborhood last night. It should be interesting to read the paper tomorrow to see what happened. I do know, however, that my chaotic people are aligned within the confines of the Law, which has made for some interesting fireworks. Everything is getting ready to ignite as it shifts, burning the fabled Tower to the ground.

I Write Like....

I write like
David Foster Wallace

I Write Like. Analyze your writing!

Because silly tests like this are what NaNoWriMo'ers do when they are bored or avoiding their manuscript. Or, in my case, because they have been generally sleepless and decide that a quiz is a lot more fun than pressing through with a manuscript. If you are interested about the readability of your writing, check out this neat little app.

Evidently this is the week for insomnia to rear its ugly head. You would think that would make me more productive but instead of I am goofing off more than I probably should. I am also contemplating evil things to do in writing to the people who keep pissing me off in real life. That is particularly, healthy, I am sure, but better than the alternative. Trust me.

On that note, I really should be wearing this t-shirt.

Gritty Word Counts: Day 3!

Cheating has become a bit more common place about NaNoWriMo; this is not a bad thing. A good writing buddy is taking this stance because she's such a rebel. If building on a current manuscript is getting you going, if you had to start in October because you could not stand to wait anymore, or you're just trying to finish up a 100,000+ project with that last 50K, good for you!

This year, I decided to go back to being "organic" with the process. I have a brand new and characters that I barely know. They are surprising creations that seem to be moving in directions I had not anticipated. This is the joy of writing without an outline. Despite some of James Patterson's advice for the kickoff, this writer operates by the seat of her pants. (I am, however, quite adept at lying to myself.)

As I am writing this, Day 3 is nearing hour 7 in Kansas and I have been plugging at my manuscript from about an hour already this morning. I am about 900 words from today's goal and feeling fairly confident about my success this month. I was flagging last month

I also need to complete a project for my accounting class that I have been procrastinating on because this weekend has been an odd mix of stress, partying, and writing for sanity. I hope the rest of the Zombie Warhols are doing well on their word counts.

Some gritty tips for increasing your word counts early on:

• Use Chapter Titles - They help mentally set the scene and  give you a boost in the word count department. 
• Use absolutely no contractions - You get two words for the price of one. Even if it seems too formal for your character now, you can always go back and change it during the editing process. 
• Use action verbs as much as possible -  Not only will your sentences pack a punch, you may be more likely to offer better description, which leads to my next tip.
• Adjectives and adverbs are your friend - Ignore rules from high school or early college composition classes. Be as flowery as humanly possible and introduce characters with as many details as come to mind when you envision them. You likely will edit a great deal of that out later, but in the meantime, it gives you a better idea of how that person looks.
• Kick your inner editor to the curb - Never allow yourself to think that something sounds silly or ridiculous. Just write it. The editing can happen in January. (You can try to be nice and send him/her on vacation, but that rarely works.)
• Schroedinger is your saving grace - Not sure how something should happen? Write the two most likely scenarios and move on. You can decide later on how things should actually progress.

 Have a great November everyone! Feel free to post about your current projects in the comments section. I look forward to hearing from all of you. 

Sunshine the Morning After

Despite the title of my current writing project and this blog post, the morning after Halloween and the first full day of National Novel Writing Month is anything but sunshine-filled. That's just how I like it and my main character might agree what with her sloshing around in the muddy wet pasture turned music festival site in which I've stuck her. Good thing Susannah Yearout is a pluviophile. (That's someone who loves rainy weather, if you were wondering.)

Our new neighbors might be nice people but they are really noisy at night. I suppose Halloween is just another excuse to party for some people. I can't say much. My crowd is going to be tearing it up tonight in grandiose fashion. Trick-or-treaters aren't really a thing around here, but that's good since I had not bothered to buy candy by that point anyway.

It feels like the Friday that it is around the Mihulec apartment, but I need to clean because I promised a less disastrous looking abode by 5 p.m., writing or no, and there is shopping to be done today. Here's to a great start to the weekend for everyone. Keep calm and keep writing!

Let's Scrap a Cinderella

My main character in Scrapping Cinderella is half fire-demon. Her name is Ashley. I imagine most of you are used to my very bad puns at this point. (Ashley... Cinderella... get it?) She is telling the story and while no narrator is trustworthy, you're really going to be questioning what she tells you, probably as much as I have been the past eleven day.

Here is a small preview from the dirty and unedited prologue:

“Police reports indicate that area resident, Marisol Blacksmith Eldrid, has passed away from injuries related to the fire that occurred at her residence just outside of Eastwood. Investigators are still searching as to the cause of the fire.”

Everyone but Mr. Uchida wore black that day. Gray, darkening clouds, provided a dense cover of shade but the air grew heavy in the ninety-plus degree weather. My grandfather’s hands proved strong, stalwart, guides as my sister and I headed towards the family plot. My mother’s body was lowered into the dry earth by a mechanical wench system that looked more like a monster to my eight-year-old self. My older sister was twelve and seemed more aware of what was going on; she, at least, mourned properly.  Tears and gasping cries mottled her face a peculiar purplish red.

I clenched my tiny fists and silently swore death upon whoever or whatever had taken my last parent away. Father’s grave was barely a year old. Our grandfather had buried his only remaining son and his daughter-in-law over the course of a few months. I cannot imagine what he was feeling that day, but I know I was bitterly swallowing the fact that we were orphans, but perhaps fortunate orphans.

The state could not take us with grandfather around. That was enough. I remember how long we kept the funeral home staff that day as we mourned. I remember the colors and the texture of the casket spray. I could tell you every single minor detail. But I can’t remember anything about how my mother looked or who she was; memories of my parents are long since lost to me. I envy my sister that, more than anything else she has received in life. I would kill just to hold a mental image of them, rather than just what I have to try to glean from worthless photographs that can never tell me anything about the person who lived a life and gave me my own shot at existence.

When we walked away from the cemetery that day, Grandfather was once again the head of the Eldrid clan.

Rain beat a somber tattoo against the metal roof of the main house when we returned to our new home. Drunken mourning wails from the downstairs main areas kept two sisters clinging to each other’s wet skin like we were the last two lifeboats in a swelling ocean.

We’ve never been as close since that day. In fact, it would be safe enough to say that we quickly grew to hate each other after our mother's death.

 

Let's All Speak Out

I have the greatest respect for Laurie Halse Anderson for her fantastic young adult novels. This morning, it was shocking to see on Anderson's blog that her book Speak has been targeted as being "child pornography." For those who do not know anything about the book, it addresses the aftermath of rape; what no one should have to go through, but what many women, children, and some men are forced to survive. It is a terrible ordeal and something that should be addressed as compassionately, but accurately, as possible.

I am thoroughly disgusted at teabilly politics anyway, but to try to tear down novels that provide a worthy discussion intended to keep rape from being the private shame that drives so many people to suicide is beyond repugnant. From a writer's standpoint, I also find it unreasonable that so many people are saying such negative things against Anderson's work when most of them haven't read the book. Those who have, clearly did not understand it, having read it through biased blinders determined to find something unworthy and foul. Unfortunately, this is not a new issue. Speak has been attacked as being child pornography before.

Thankfully, some enlightened educators are not giving to this negative culture of ignorance and anti-female mindsets. No one should be excluded to having to understand that rape and abuse happens; and that they are foul parts of our society. Ignorance allows society to excuse the behavior and blame the victim when we should be teaching everyone in our society not to harm other people.

Furthermore, it seems like these naysayers are the ones who find rape to be sexually exciting. That makes them the ugly element in society. They should have no say in decisions that affect the direction in which our society needs to grow, especially in matters that concern children. At the end of the day, we are all human, but the aggressors need to be the ones held accountable, not authors who shed light on the aftermath of the horror these sick individuals cause.