This scene is from Chapter 1. My main characters have just returned from their anniversary dinner to find something not quite right about the house. They’re in the car, waiting for the police to arrive and check it out.  This story is in progress over at the NF Archive.

“Happy Anniversary,” he whispers. They are face to face, turned toward one another, as close as they can be with the center console between them.

“Happy Anniversary, baby. I love you.”

“Still?”

Serena laughs. “Still. Even more than the day I married you.”

“That was a good day, huh?”

She nods. “A really good day. But today is even better. Know why?”

He shakes his head. “Why?”

“Because,” she whispers, leaning toward him again. Her lips press into his. He closes his eyes and savors the moment. “Because there’s three of us now. We’re like… a little family.”

He smiles, mostly to hold back that one errant tear that threatens. “That’s amazing to me. You know that? You’re amazing. You’re… growing a little someone in there.”

“Yeah. And everything is going to turn out fine. Just fine. You’ll see.”

“I know. I’m just…”

“Concerned. You said that already.”

“Whatever, Serena.” He kisses her again and then pulls back. “You taste like steak sauce.”

She laughs, ready to throw a jab back at him when the driveway behind them erupts into a blaze of flashing blue lights.  ”Saved by the men in blue,” she says, opening her door and stepping out of the car.

They meet the officers in the driveway, squinting into the flashing lights. The radios clipped to their shirts send squawks of unintelligible noise into the otherwise quiet neighborhood. Down the street, darkened porches light up and front doors ease open. Nosy neighbors, wondering what’s going on at that pop singer guy’s house.

“Another break-in, sir?”

JC nods as he begins to direct the officers through the garage toward the door. Serena follows close behind. They ask JC and Serena to wait while they enter the house and walk through.  A few minutes later, they come back to the garage and open the door wide.

“There’s a pretty big mess. Someone was definitely here. Let’s walk through and see if you notice anything missing,” says the shorter officer, who whips out a notepad and begins taking notes, then grabs his two way communicator and chirps into it. ”Need a CSI unit at one-one-seven-zero-six Lookout Mountain Road, West Hollywood. Got a four-fifty-nine, possible four-eight-four.”

The dispatcher sends something back, to which the officer nods.

JC and Serena glance at each other. Serena’s eyes are wide-someone really was in their house. What if they’d been home?

JC leads the officers into the house but Serena is not far behind, her hand clasped in his. Once they reach the landing of the main floor, one 360 degree turn reveals that every room was touched. The den is a mess of pillows and magazines tossed around, couch and tables overturned, broken glass ground into the carpet. Photos have been removed from their frames and ripped in two-but not all of them. Just the ones with JC and Serena. Their wedding photo, once housed in a gilded silver frame and mounted above the fireplace is in shreds on the floor of the living room.  Several pieces look as if they have been punctured. Serena recognizes the shape of a stiletto heel.

In the kitchen, the refrigerator door stands wide open, the contents appearing to have been rifled through. An empty bottle of vintage, expensive wine sits in the sink.

“Anything seem missing, here?” JC and Serena, in full shock, only shake their heads. They follow the officers up the steps. Serena’s old office, abandoned since the move to Wilshire Boulevard, is in the same state she left it in. The guest rooms are also untouched.

“Looks like they ran out of steam, maybe,” remarked the taller officer, his pen moving quickly across the page. “We’ve got a crime scene unit on the way. They’ll need to take pictures, so don’t move anything. Shall we?” He points to the third floor. After a deep breath, they keep climbing.

Serena hopes the bedroom hasn’t been sullied, but those hopes are dashed once they step inside.  JC’s jaw falls open as he takes in the damage-every drawer in each of their bureaus is open, but only Serena’s are empty.  Piles of her lingerie, socks, and t-shirts litter the floor.  Her jewelry case-a three feet tall chest with glass doors and felt-lined drawers, is empty and laying on it’s side in the middle of the floor.

“My jewelry is gone!” Serena gasps, on the verge of tears as her eyes crawl the floor, looking for anything that might have been left behind. There is nothing. Not even the pieces that obviously had no monetary value, but meant the most to her-gone. She feels faint.  “I can’t believe this!”

She marches toward the closet and is faced with more of the same-her purses, shoes, dresses, slacks, blouses, all are sitting on the floor of the closet. JC’s side is perfect. Through the closet and into the bathroom, it is the same story. The room reeks, since her bottles of perfume have been smashed into the sink. Her cosmetics, her mirror, her hair tools… everything has been cast from the counter and onto the floor. JC’s side is perfect; his aftershave, lotion, cologne, electric toothbrush and hair brush sitting exactly where he’d left them that morning.

“Aside from the jewelry, did you have any other valuables? Computers, music players, cell phones, instruments, the like? Looks like all of the TVs and the stereo equipment made it.”

Serena glances at JC, her eyes wide. “The studio,” they say in unison, and fly down the stairs again. JC doesn’t do much work out of the house anymore, but he still has millions of dollars in equipment and unreleased songs of immeasurable value housed in a small room in the basement of the house.

The door to the studio, which is almost always locked, has been forced open with something that violently bent the door frame. The officers take note and start giving orders to the crime scene unit that has just arrived. The snapsnapsnap of photos being taken add to the squawk of radio gibberish and side conversation of the officers and technicians.

JC stands in the middle of his studio, shaking his head. The equipment and instruments sit where he left them last. The music-a tall stack of unmarked CDs that he usually leaves in the studio-is gone.  He heaves a sigh and drags a hand down his face.

“Anything missing here, sir?”

JC nods. “Yeah. Some CD’s. My music. They took my music.” There are backups in the computer, which seems intact, but that doesn’t ease any worries about his unfinished songs being leaked. “This is a nightmare.”

“Is that it? Some CD’s?”

He sighs, bracing both hands against the console. Breathe, he tells himself. “Those CD’s are unreleased songs. My music is… it’s my life. They’re very important to me.” He steadies himself and stands. “My wife’s jewelry and my music. We want them back.”

This is from All I Wanna Do, a novel length serial about the ultimate fan girl fantasy– meeting, dating, and falling in love with a member of the band… except that it’s not as glamorous as one might imagine.  In this scene, my lovebirds have had their biggest blowout yet and Serena has temporarily moved out, expecting JC to come after her. But he doesn’t and now she’s stuck. This conversation is between her and his brother:

“We weren’t really talking about kids. Not seriously, anyway.”

I tried not to remember JC’s flippant comments during our vacation about our girls and boys and my futile attempts to stop picturing them in my head-bright blue eyes, mops of thick brown curls, pretty voices. Sweet little people. Like their dad. Who was I kidding? Of course I wanted that with him.

“I’m sure everyone’s asking how you’re doing and stuff. But I haven’t. So how are you?”

“Life sucks right now, to be honest.”  I shoveled a mouthful of omelet into my mouth but I couldn’t even taste it. I had no appetite since there was no one to pick on my appetite, anymore.

“Yeah.  The house is different without you. You know I didn’t mean what I said, right? About moving out?”

“No, I didn’t know that,” I said, my eyes  flicking up at his. “Actually, I was pretty sure you meant it. And it was okay to mean it. It wasn’t fair to turn everything upside down, for me. It was about more than what you said, though. I’m just having a hard time adjusting and with JC not here… and he wasn’t even home before he told me he was leaving again. I just… I thought maybe…”

“You know what?”  Tyler leaned forward, his hands tightly clasped in front of him. He was rarely serious, but this was one of those rare times when there was no impish smile or glint to his eye.

“You’re a smart girl, Serena. Your brain is big, and you make sure everyone knows it. You’re sensible and practical and down to earth and real. You’ve got a good head on your shoulders and you’re real independent and self-sufficient and that’s all well and good, but sometimes it’s not about being independent and proving that you don’t need help and you don’t need anyone. Sometimes it takes being a strong person to realize that while you can do everything yourself and be a lone ranger, it’s not half as meaningful as building something with someone else.”

“I know that and I miss building with him, but I-”

“You want it your way or not at all.”

“And so does he,” I shot back. “And I don’t know what his hurry is, but the harder he pushes me, the less I want it his way. He runs over me with his opinions and his plans and when I was there, in his house with nothing that’s mine but the clothes on my back, I just felt… trapped by everything he is.”

He nodded slowly as he listened. After a few beats of silence, he asked,  ”So, how do you feel right now? Any better than trapped? Things looking up for you, living in Lara’s guest bedroom?”

“Okay. That’s enough. I hear you. I do. I just. I gotta figure this out.”

I stabbed the fork into the not even half-eaten omelet and slid out of the booth.

“Well, you better figure it out fast. He leaves tomorrow.”

The image of rain has been rolling around in my head for quite a while. I was trying to figure out if it was supposed to be metaphoric or symbolic, but it just wasn’t coming to me. I guess I was trying too hard, because last night I cued up Youtube and listened to the sound of rain (my writing soundtrack lately) and started writing. Still not quite what I was going for, but it has been haunting me for a long time, so maybe now it’ll leave me alone!

Check it — The Nature Show, The Rain Dance:

The day dawns grey with full, heavy raindrops that beat against the window pane in steady rhythm.  The music of nature calls to him in his sleep, the sound wrestling him from deep, satisfying slumber. Two crystal clear pools of blue focus on the droplets that build, join, cascade down the outside of the patio doors. They pond on the deck and seep through the cracks to the pavement below.

He yawns quietly, stretches his arms and the muscles across his back and shoulders. He scissors his legs between crisp sheets before sitting up and swinging his feet to the floor. His toes dig into the carpet and he yawns again, trying to muster the strength to stand.

The mood and style of the day is comfort and warmth. It’s just going to be that kind of day. He slips on a pair of sweat pants and a t-shirt and pads out of the bedroom.

He bounds down the stairs, not toward the movement in the kitchen or the scent of coffee, but to the living room where the sheets of rain and the dark sky have created a cave-like atmosphere. He heads for the window and pokes a finger between the curtains to gaze out at the weather. The raindrops splash into the pool and bounce back. A never-ending river swirls down the drains in the concrete.

He steps away from the window and takes up his favorite spot, a well-worn corner of the couch. The cushions have a permanent indentation from where he has sat, day in and day out, for over ten years. There is mumbling about replacing the couch (or at least the cushion), but he ignores it. He has molded and shaped this corner to his liking.

He stretches out, his legs crossed at the ankles, feet resting on the matching ottoman. He doesn’t turn on a lamp or the TV. He’s watching the Nature Show. Listening to the Rain Dance.

“Hey. You’re up early.”

Her voice is gentle, feminine and melodic, beautifully lilting with just enough grit underneath to send his heartbeat into a tail spin. He has always loved the sound of her voice. She sits on the edge of the couch and slides an arm around his shoulder. She drops a kiss on the top of his head. She smells like peaches.

“Rain woke me up,” he replies, nodding toward the window. The view is a blur.

The house groans as the air kicks on and a breeze wafts through the room. She deserts him, in search of the temperature gauge and when she comes back, she doesn’t sit next to him.  She moves in front of the fire place and in minutes, the room is lit by the dim glow of flames.

His eyes never leave her full, round backside as she passes, yet again. He grins and taps his appreciation. She giggles and playfully smacks him back.

When she returns, she holds a super-size serving of coffee, still so hot that a tendril of steam licks the lip of the ceramic mug. In her other hand is a saucer bearing a single pancake, doused with butter and sprinkled with powdered sugar.  A candle stands in the middle, lit and glowing and flickering in the air.

He smiles and sits up. She loves doing this kind of thing, on this kind of day. He closes his eyes and blows out the candle, takes the saucer and the mug from her and gestures for her to sit with him. He savours the bold taste of coffee, the sweet taste of the pancake and the comfortable feeling of her smashed up against him.

“Did you make a wish?”

“Didn’t have to. They’ve all come true.”

He can’t see her face, but he feels her smiling. “Happy Birthday,” she whispers. “Sorry it’s so gloomy.”

He sets the empty saucer on the end table next to him and drops an arm around her. She curls into him, where she fits perfectly. Her arm slides across his belly; her cheek rests over his heart.

“It’s actually not so bad,” he says, sipping his coffee, watching the Nature Show. Listening to the Rain Dance.

 

Yesterday I introduced this week’s topic, “What I’ve Learned About Writing from Writing Fan Fiction”, with the first lesson that anyone with a talent for writing will have to eventually convince themselves:  Fan Fiction writing is real writing.  While we don’t produce material that can be bought and sold, it is writing all the same. Anyone who’s writing fan fiction should consider their pieces to be their novellas, their novels, their short stories and be as proud of them as if they were being bound and printed. Today’s Lesson can be a hard pill to swallow.

Lesson #2: How to Take Your Lumps, and I’m not talking about the Lady kind.

They say we are our own worst critic, and that adage applies to every writer I know. The pages of this blog are full of whining and moaning about my writing not being as good/deep/prolific/magical/life changing as I’d like it to be. Once I’ve edited a piece to the nth degree, there is nothing so nerve-wracking as putting it up for public consumption and hoping that people don’t hate it.

What If They Hate It?

I always try to measure negative reviews against positive but the lone dissenting opinion can weigh heavily, especially if you don’t really get a reason as to why they don’t like your latest work. If readers hate your work and are so bold as to tell you so, what do you do?

I’ve read post after post about what to do about negative reviews. The answer is NOT to fly off the handle and get into a comment war. My personal rule is that a negative review has to have merit. This sucks and so do you doesn’t tell me much.  If they don’t expound upon why they think it (or I) sucks, I delete it. Criticism should be constructive, otherwise it’s simply childish meanness that I have no use for. Help me get better or shut it.

Or go into further detail about the suckage… exactly what part inhales wind?

What If They Like It?

But what if they don’t hate it? What if they ooh and aaah and swoon and you sit back and *squint* your eyes and say ‘Really? Because… I mean, it’s totally weak from here to here and I obviously flubbed this and that and I can’t believe you actually like the ending…’

Well. Don’t do that. A few lives ago, for a very short time I was a Personal Assistant for a fledgling Christian Music group. And yes, even Christian groups have groupies. One of the first thing that group members are taught is to not downplay themselves in front of fans. When fans fawn, don’t insist that you’re not like, totally awesome and you don’t like, totally rock. Say thank you. Smile. Express your appreciation. Sign whatever they want you to sign. Don’t make them feel stupid for thinking you’re great.

I think this is a lesson that any artist or writer could take to heart. It’s tough when we’re so supercritical of ourselves. And we want to stay humble– no one wants to be the pompous ass who thinks s/he is the greatest in the world. Trust me– if you were a pompous ass, it would have become apparent long before you wrote a great story/book/ chapter.

Bottom Line: Try to take something from everything, the good AND the bad. You never know when ‘this sucks because…’ might help you in the future.

Do you have a hard time accepting praise or criticism? How do/did you battle it?

Photo courtesy Melissa Wilkinson | Photobucket.com

Good Wednesday Morning, Fellow Writers! I have an exciting announcement today!

After much nervousness and changing my mind and changing it back and finally just putting my big girl pants on and DOING IT, one of my pieces- Try to Say No- is featured on the Peer Review Page at Story Fix! Yay!

And I already have one comment in which someone does NOT hate it! Even more yay! (It’s pitiful how big my smile was when I saw that first comment.)

If you’ve been following this blog for awhile, you’ve seen the evolution of this piece. I have reworked it since it appeared at Short-Story.net and I feel it is the best it has ever been.  Something about the past tense wasn’t working for me. I changed a bit of the imagery, revised the tense, punched up some scenes and removed some “explanation”. Sometimes it’s better to just let the words stand for themselves and let the reader figure things out. It really is a process, you know?

It is… nerve wracking to have your work posted for public consumption, especially on a site where so many will see it. It is not unlike that nightmare we have where we arrive at school naked and everyone can see our private bits.  Even worse than someone having something bad to say is no one saying anything at all, especially if you are kind of proud of your private bits. A piece generating zero reaction is… well. I mean. A failure. So I am at least hoping for really good or really bad comments.

But seriously, really good comments would be great. I’m also hoping for some constructive criticism on how I could improve it or what doesn’t work.

I want to thank my friend Sarah over at He Loves Me Not, who gave me a swift kick in the pants and made me submit after she was so kind as to review it for me.  I submitted it yesterday and I expected it to be a few days but it is already up and available to read and review. If you have a few extra moments, please pop over and take a read and leave a comment about how terrible awesome it is.

From Same Time Next Week, enjoy today’s Snip!

Shelby shifted on the couch so that she was on her knees next him. She was going to distract him from whatever was on his mind, one way or another. “I’ll just take your word for it. But uhm, can you help me figure out if there’s anything under here that’s sexy?”

His eyes dropped to her chest, where the folds of a frosted white satin robe, so micro that it may as well have been called a shirt, were being pulled open and skin was slowly revealed. Her entire wardrobe that night was new, from the frilly blouse with the endless neckline and skintight leather pants to the slinky, nearly see-through robe and the lacy lingerie underneath. He hardly noticed when she let him in, excused herself and came back out to the den in something considerably more comfortable. A DVD was already in the player and he was already zoning out. Disappointed, she curled up next to him and tried to enjoy the movie and just be happy he had the mind to put his arm around her.

Now that she had his attention, she had no intention of letting it go.

“Under here?” The tip of his finger poked under a flap of the robe, pulling it open further. A burst of red peeked out from underneath. “Well I have to examine it to be able to tell, really.”

“Oh, do you have to? I thought maybe you could just look and be able to tell.”

“I can, usually. But sexiness of this magnitude really needs an in-depth evaluation.”

“Hmmm. You think? What does an… in- depth evaluation entail?”

“I’d tell you but I’d much rather show you. If I may.”

Here’s a snippet from that story, which will be posted in its entirety at the fanfiction archive and my personal archive.

“Your mom, she’s okay?”

“More than okay. It was just me and her for a long time, you know? She put herself through nursing school, put me through school. She made it work.”

“She must have given you your spunk.”

“If that’s what you want to call it, yeah. I’m proud of her. When I graduated, she went back for another degree. And then she married one of her doctors, so…” Gabby stopped to laugh.

A knowing smile broke across his face. He nodded. “So she’s doing just fine, huh?”

“Just fine,” she said, nodding back.

“So your… stepdad? Is he a good guy?”

“He’s the best thing to ever happen to her. He’s why she’s always after me to date and meet new guys. She wants me to be as happy as she is.” Gabby snorted a laugh. Like she could subscribe to the fairytale her mother tried to plant in her head.

“You sound like you don’t think that’s possible. People find love everywhere. Anywhere. You never know.”

Even on the Sunset Strip. Wait. What? 

Et Voila. I hope you’ll read the rest later on today!

I did my Sprint today, answering the following questions:

Character name:  I decided to go with a new character, Maxine Donovan. She is every selfish, pretentious, self absorbed and vain woman you know, times ten. The only relationships she maintains are those of her friendship circle, simply because they have known her for so long that they’re used to her. As she approaches her late 30′s, she is desperately seeking a man to provide the finer things in life for her and to take care of her and will stop at nothing to make this happen– even attempt to steal a man away from a friend who deserves to have someone good in her life.

What does she want most in the world? To love and be loved, be taken care of, to find her prince charming, by any means necessary.

What is standing in her way? Lazyness, entitlement and holding onto old fashioned and materialistic beliefs. Max is unwilling to really do any work to find Him. She wants Him to fall into her lap. She has a past—a mother, mostly—that has taught her that money and objects and what a man can do for you equals love.

Maxine’s weaknesses: 1) Materialistic  2) Insatiably unsatisfied 3) Judgmental Bonus: Viciously jealous and entitled.

Define a situation that makes her struggle: Seeing others gain, seemingly easily, what she has always wanted and can’t seem to grasp.

Make this situation even worse:  Seeing her frumpy, dowdy friend easily land a good man that doesn’t want MAX.

Exercise: Write a few scenes that put your character in this situation. Make life really hard for him/ her.

In the last scene I wrote, a man fell straight into bookstore owner Renee Gladwell’s lap. He invited her to dinner and she accepted. They’re seated at Bee’s Soul Food, a neighborhood restaurant frequented by many of Renee’s friends and acquaintances. Maxine happens to be satisfying a craving and stops in, happening upon the burgeoning love affair. Despite her flirty ways and skin tight clothing, the gentleman seems to want nothing to do with her, even brushing her off a bit. Miffed and offended, Max storms out.

I continued my scene by changing POV back to Renee, getting her side of the encounter with Malcolm and Max at the restaurant, then had Max call Renee and try to pump her for information, laying on the inferred insults and assumption that Malcolm is better suited for Max than Renee.

I ended up writing over 4,000 words which is awesome considering my original pieces don’t usually flow so well. I’ve been having a bit of a crisis of conscience lately and feeling like I am getting something accomplished was helpful in allaying that. Sometimes this writing life is so solitary– there’s no one around to tell you that you’re doing a good job but YOU. And I personally suck at telling myself Good Job.

I’m opting not to post the blurb in case it ends up in something publishable.

I’ve been writing for awhile and I’m a pantser for the most part, so I sit down and I jot out some stuff that’s in my head (cause it’s been writing itself for awhile) and then I get to a certain point and plot out the rest so that I’m not writing into oblivion. I write and I write and then I cut and I edit and primp and then contemplate and meander and what I like to call marinate.

And then I edit and reword and send it off to brutal, vicious crit partners (not really, they are the sweetest, ever, unless you don’t make sense in a bit of dialog and then I get “???? I don’t get it???” and I’m all *scoff* ! “I get it!”) and theeennnn once I get it back I make recommended changes and then whew I am done. Post on the fiction archive and wait for the accolades to roll in.

I mean, that’s how it was before. You know, pre- Really Serious Original Writing Project Time For Serious.

Now I am trying to plan. I am trying to develop. I am trying to create fully rounded 3 dimensional characters with stories of their own. I’m trying to plot out a story and think of the important pieces and the lessons that have to be learned and the milestones that have to be uncovered. I’m writing ON PURPOSE.

Uhmmmm…..Ya know what?

Please tell me you remember the Vancome Lady from MADTV?!

This. is. hard. I swear, the few words I’ve written this week during our study of character for DIY MFA have been harder than the 8,000 word chapters I bang out for fanfiction. Making stuff up on the fly is real easy for me. THINKING ABOUT IT is hard. Planning and interweaving and creating a puzzle out is more difficult. Definitely gaining a lot of respect for the process.

So I haven’t been doing a ton of writing this week, not as far as story creating, but I’ve been up on my writing exercises for DIY MFA. We talked about images and how they help us shape characters, scene and setting; we did some Character Compasses to examine dialog and determine if we’re doing more telling than showing; we used 20 Questions and Character Interviews to round out our characters, give them backstory and depth. That was a great exercise! Today I’ll be trying to do an Acrostic Character bio for the same character I’ve been working with this week. As soon as I figure out what her middle name is…

See now, this is all well and good and helpful and important… but I have 4 other major characters and minor characters to do this for… so I’ve got some WORK to do. Not to mention these people inside my head are kind of screaming and angling for attention and they sort of want OUT and I won’t let them OUT and it’s getting a little ugly up in there.

I guess I’d better get to work… the sooner I finish the planning, the sooner the characters can come OUT.

I typically write at home, on my bed. I have a little lap desk that I set up and here is pretty much where I’ve written anything I’ve ever written. I don’t have a desk, so here I sit, day and night, writing. I normally have complete silence… if the TV is on, it’s muted. I also like to have some music playing, at least in one ear. And sometimes, even if I don’t have music, I have ear buds to cancel out any noise from outside, or my neighbor upstairs, whom I call THE STOMPER. One of these days, my prompt is going to be what THE STOMPER is doing up there, making all that noise.

Today, to break that comfort, I went to the Cafe at my local Barnes and Noble bookseller. And instead of writing on my laptop, I took a pen and a pad of paper. How did I do?

I’ll be honest, it was hard. My brain moves much faster than my fingers do, but I have to slow down while I’m writing so I can read it later to type it up. And then there was the finger cramping… I was able to push through and get down about 1500 words in about an hour and a half. On my laptop, once I get going I can get 1000 words in about 45 minutes. So it seems it took me twice as long, but at least I got it done.

I just typed up what I wrote, which is a scene from my next project. It’s also a scene from what I estimate to be about the middle of the book. I’m a linear writer, so I will actually write forever just to get to a certain point. I’ve been delaying starting this project because I don’t have all my ducks in a row.

No more. Today, the project started!

I got a total of  1,504 words in today. Great start.