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04 December 2008
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Catherine's Kitchen

Catherine Manning

I APOLOGIZE for neglecting the column, but that's the way the cookie crumbles, sometimes!

I was hoping that the older I got the easier life would be, but it doesn't seem to be working that way, as I appear to be getting busier now than I was five years ago, or even one year ago.

The biggest shock to the system was my 60th birthday was on September 24th and having ignored all the ones that went before, the children insisted that I celebrate this one. I'm not quite sure why, except that maybe I should be happy that I've got here, as many haven't!

Actually it was really nice and after procrastinating (as usual) about what should be done, as the girls didn't want to have a party here because they reckoned that I would do most of the work, we did end up having a lunch here and I did quite a bit of the work! It was a lovely day, the rain held up but we had a tent just in case, which also helped from the sun.

I dealt with the meat (pork, chicken and pepperpot) and got the rest catered; the service took a lot off my mind. It's the first time that I've actually got out of my kitchen and left others in it without interfering too much!

The first guests came at 11am while I was having a shower and the last left after dark at about 6.30pm. But a good time was had by all of the 80 that came. I said 'no presents' but seems they all had other ideas and apart from individual presents, everyone got together and gave me a beautiful amethyst ring and bracelet to match my amethyst pendant and earrings. I wear them all the time now. I also sneaked out with Fleur and bought an emerald bracelet duty-free to match a ring that I had!! It's difficult to wear them all at once, but I try! Guess I'm making up for the 'lacking years'!

After that, Nat had a yoga seminar in Miami and Gerry was going with her, so Fleur and I decided to go as well for a quick 'shop till you drop' four days. They were staying at the conference hotel, which was the Ocean Point Resort on Miami Beach so we got booked in there as well. Yes, well, say no more, I could have lived there quite easily.

We managed to make a big dent in Aventura Mall and Sawgrass. I left Barbados with one piece of hand luggage with a change of clothes and arrived back with four large pieces of luggage packed to capacity. I had no problems, either at MIA or arriving back in Barbados and I say this as I had heard all sorts of horror stories since 9/11. Maybe I just looked honest? This might sound strange, but Barbados is not cheap with all our taxes, so we run to Miami to shop and get away with what we can as much as we can!

Now I'm back to normal or trying to be, and wondering why I'm still working my butt off which is hindering me otherwise, on projects such as this column, which I have missed now for three months.

However, I'm trying to get back online, so forgive me and next month I'll hopefully be back to normal, with recipes!

Cath

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Craft of Writing

Sheila Bender

Put Your Ear To Work In Writing Your Essays

Recently, Whitney Potsus, the managing editor of T-zero's "Craft of Writing" section, sent me an essay she’d written that is ultimately about knowing for sure that she’d learned an important personal skill from her mother. In the very polished draft that wasn’t satisfying to her, Whitney had written about her mother’s quilting, how she valued the quilts her mother had made, and how she admired her mother’s ability to form meaningful patterns out of scrap after scrap of fabric.

In the essay, Whitney announces in the first sentence, “I can’t sew.” Therefore, the “difference” between her mother and herself seems very big — at least until Whitney takes up beading, a hobby her mother put together for her when the speaker announced she needed one as an antidote to work and school: 

When I was in high school, in a fit of acknowledged masochism, Mom started a quilt with an ocean wave pattern — triangles composed of 88...no, I'm not kidding...88 smaller triangles. I'd sift through the piles of triangles, not seeing a pattern, but deciding that if Mom pulled this one off, she'd surely qualify as a master quilter. Originally intended for my parents' queen size bed, it was downsized for my twin bed after Mom spat and fumed over one too many 88-piece triangles. More than once, while watching her try to fit together pieces that wouldn’t cooperate, I asked why she didn't quit.

"Oh," she replied, "it's not that hard if you take your time."

The 88-piece triangles, deceptively simple when you see the completed product, were joined together by larger pieces of peach fabric with seashells stitched on them. When completed, it was another testament to Mom’s ability to take unremarkable pieces of fabric and turn them into something extraordinary. I was suitably impressed, and ever more chagrined that I couldn't sew.

A little more than a decade later, Mom gave me the gift of a hobby: beading. Partly in response to my obsession with jewelry, it was also in response to my declarations of desperately needing a hobby after school and work had consumed my life for too many years in a row. Beading was so natural a choice for me that I still wonder why it took me so long to discover it.
Do you hear the sound of admiration in the author’s words, as they keep up a steady momentum in the first paragraph? This paragraph has the beat of conviction — “my mother is a master” seems to my ear to be a baseline. “In high school,” “masochism,” “ocean wave pattern,” “88 triangles,” “downsized,” “for my twin bed,” “suitably impressed,” and “pieces of fabric” are among the phrases that go boom, boom, boom — this is the way it is, this is the way it is, this is the way it is.

But something in the sound changes in the last line of the third paragraph: “I was suitably impressed, and ever more chagrined that I couldn't sew.”  The opening phrases in this sentence lack the emphatic beat. Emotionally, these words are going somewhere new. While the sentence sums something up that we have already experienced in the beat and momentum of the earlier words, in the new sound we hear the speaker turning her attention to another quality of her life as daughter to the quilting mother. However, the words that sum up do not convey any emotion about where the speaker is turning. Something very soft-spoken lies beneath this sentence’s report of the speaker’s admiration. There is an up and down sort of sound to the phrasing as if it is asking the speaker to consider something. What does “suitably impressed” mean vis a vis a child who has grown up with a "master" quilt-making mother? In this version of the essay, Whitney has not yet heard this question in the sound of that sentence, but that up and down sound is an opportunity to take a deeper turn in the essay than merely using time, which is what the essay does now: 
A little more than a decade later, Mom gave me the gift of a hobby: beading. Partly in response to my obsession with jewelry, it was also in response to my declarations of desperately needing a hobby after school and work had consumed my life for too many years in a row. Beading was so natural a choice for me that I still wonder why it took me so long to discover it.
In this paragraph, I hear the sound of someone filling me in without really letting me in. What do "declarations of desperately needing a hobby" sound like? The near alliteration here with the words that start with “d” are a hint that there is emotion in the declarations, emotions that could be evoked with more information on the page.

Whitney writes, “Beading was so natural a choice for me that I still wonder why it took me so long to discover it.” The repetition of the word “so” creates a sound parallelism as does the fact that the two phrases “so natural a choice for me” and “so long to discover it” have almost the same number of syllables. But what is parallel emotionally? We don’t really find out, although the sound here invites us to ask: Why is beading a natural choice? Why does Whitney wonder why it took so long for her to discover it? Had she ever asked for a hobby before or thought about one for herself? Why had she turned to her mother when she wanted a hobby? Why had her mother thought beading would be good for her daughter? The answers to these questions will help the speaker mine the emotions of her experience for the page. As the essay stands now, the speaker instead describes her beading experience with a difficult pattern, which draws a comparison to the way her mother took on the pattern of triangles with 88 smaller triangles inside each of one and dealt with frustration:
Eighteen months into the hobby, in a fit of acknowledged masochism, I tackled a Bead & Button cover project: a monster of a twist necklace with some two dozen strands of seed beads — one of those projects that makes your hands cramp and your eyes squiggle. I spat and fumed over the knots created when I joined a new line of beading thread to the one that had just run out at a most inopportune spot in the necklace, eventually taking the whole thing apart and starting over again with an enormous length of beading thread. (Was that the right thing to do? Probably not. At this point, I'd just as soon not know.) Spat and fumed when things didn't come together under the end caps like they did in the magazine's photos, irritated enough that I dragged the whole thing  project and magazine to the Beadworks shop in Norwalk, Connecticut, where one of the shopkeepers assured me that I'd done everything right.

I took the project home one weekend to show my parents — it was the most ambitious thing I'd tackled to that point, and I was eager to show it off. My father, who'd done some pretty impressive needlework projects (all of which hang on the main wall of my parents' living room), was impressed. But would my mother be?

Fingering through the individual strands in the necklace, silently counting to see just how many there were, she eventually looked at me over her glasses. "How in the world did you ever do this?" she asked, clearly impressed.

"Oh," I replied, "it's not that hard if you take your time."
I think if the answers to the questions I asked were in the essay, they would heighten an underlying theme that Whitney wants to pull together by the repetition of her mother’s words, but hasn’t fully. Whitney waits for her mother’s response to the beading with some tension as the word “eventually” makes clear — five syllables drawing time out for us. It is most important that her mother be impressed. But why? What is at stake? There seems to be something our speaker wants to learn — that she has an attribute she admires — and it’s not the pattern-making alone. But more than learning it about herself, she wants to have something seen by her mother. So much so that we wait those five syllables for a big release when her mother admires the work and asks how Whitney had accomplished it. Was Whitney thought to be an impatient person? Did her mother have doubts that she could do what she set out to do.

It is fun that Whitney repeats her mother’s wisdom, but it will be more fun when we learn more about their relationship and what issues are at stake.

The personal essay uses the sound aspects of language to embrace emotion and experience. Drafting the personal essay, an author can “hear” the sound of memories and musings to find the reasons for writing. When essayists learn to listen closely to the music they are making on the page and examine what the changes in the music mean, they learn to make the sounds of exactly what they have experienced and of exactly what they have learned. That is when essays reach true depth and speak most clearly — both to their authors and to their readers.

About The Author
Sheila Bender is a poet, essayist, and publisher of WritingItReal.com, an online writing magazine. A past columnist for Writer's Digest Magazine, her books include Writing Personal Essays: How to Shape Your Life Experiences for the Page, Keeping a Journal You Love, A Year in the Life: Journaling for Self-Discovery, Writing Personal Poetry: Creating Poems from Life Experience, and Writing in a New Convertible with the Top Down. She teaches at writers conferences and online. For information, visit http://www.sheilabender.com and http://www.writingitreal.com


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Craft of Writing

Donna Sundblad

The Chrysalis Of Discipline

"You could write a story about that." Words like these kindle memories of a lifetime of unique experiences, and the myriad of untold stories that beg to be freed from the inner world of wonder known as your imagination. But you retard your growth as a writer when you allow excuses to overtake your dreams. If you neglect to challenge yourself to develop these ideas, it is by choice. To improve your writing the key is discipline…another choice.

Among the caterpillar’s stages of life, the chrysalis is where the most dramatic change takes place. The cocoon develops slowly, beginning at one end of the caterpillar’s body, until the entire body is encased. It is similar for a writer.

I remember setting my first serious writing goal. Sentence by sentence I penned my sci-fi novel. My first completed draft brought a sense of accomplishment five years later, but large spans of inactivity had caused the project to needlessly drag. I had wasted valuable time re-reading my story to refresh my memory regarding pertinent details because I lacked the discipline to make my writing a priority, instead of simply something I did in my spare time.

Like many novices, I also made the mistake of painting myself into a corner by using trademarked characters. This narrowed my submission possibilities to one publisher, and brought a new and bigger challenge. After five years of work, I needed to start over, developing my own characters and worlds while using the same plot.

Why did it take me so long to learn this valuable lesson? Again, I lacked discipline. In this case, it was the discipline to allow my work to rest before editing and rewriting, to enlist the help and support of others as I went along, and to be constantly in search of new ideas and topics.

Had I enveloped myself in the chrysalis of discipline prior to sitting down to write my sci-fi thriller, right now I would have a novel ready to submit rather than a lengthy rewrite project.

Challenge Yourself Not To Waste Time
For many people, January brings the routine of re-evaluating goals for the New Year. I vowed to set aside 30 minutes a day, five days a week, to write. I’m a morning person, so I set aside my 30-minute allotment for the time of day that works for me. One advantage to scheduling my time early in the day was that it was less likely to be overtaken by the busy-ness of the day’s activities.

In addition, this discipline primed the pump of my creativity because the 30-minute time slot made me hunger for more time to write. Today, if an opportunity affords itself, I’m prepared to make use of it. I carry a hard copy of my current projects in my briefcase so that I can work on them whenever I find myself with some time to kill. Instead of returning home with a complaint about how long I waited at the dentist’s office, I arrive home with completed revisions.

By watching for possibilities and not squandering the spare moments that present themselves, I disciplined myself not to waste time and fought the inclination to procrastinate.

Let Your Work Rest
New writers need to curb their excitement about a new draft and allow it to rest before editing and rewriting. On the other hand, it is important not to waste time with long periods of inactivity.

My goals no longer focus on one project, but rather on the craft of writing. This freedom allows me to work on multiple ventures, hone my skills, and put my freshly written articles aside without wasting valuable time. I move back and forth from one undertaking to another, setting each project aside for a day or two. When I pick it up again, I have a fresh perspective, making it easier to see needed improvements. This is when I read it aloud and look for flaws in words and structure. Does it say what I want it to say? Are the words precise?

Now I know the importance of disciplining myself to wait, revise, and rewrite.

Seek Help & Support
There are a variety of places for writers to find support, including formal classes and local writers’ groups. In today’s busy world, the assistance available online is priceless. In such an atmosphere, I would have learned sooner of the pitfall of using trademarked characters in the first draft of my novel.

Now, I am involved in more than one online writer’s group. The key word is "involved," another thing that requires discipline. The guidance offered within these cyber-walls, including peer feedback, is not only helpful but also inspirational. It is here among peers that I realized I customarily wrote in the passive voice, and challenged myself to change. Within these groups there are deadlines, assignments, and accountability. It helps me write even when I don’t feel like it. This nudge prepared me to handle deadlines.

Fresh Ideas & Topics
When you write regularly, your need for a bevy of ideas from which to draw increases. Discipline yourself to take note of what happens around you. Look for fresh topics. Write them down. We are surrounded by stories.

Last night on the way to dinner, someone in the car told me about a woman who parked her car on the lines around a handicap-parking place. She received a ticket and returned to the store she patronized, expecting them to pay her fine because she had been shopping there when ticketed. I took out my notepad and wrote it down.

When you maintain a writer’s mindset, you net topics before they escape. Put a notepad on your nightstand. You may think you won't forget the fantastic idea crossing your mind as you fall asleep, but it evaporates like the dew in the morning light. Capture it on paper.

Before You Submit
Just tink how an editor feels when they receive a error filled submission. You see how the previous sentence distracted you? I purposely allowed a typographical, as well as a grammatical error, to make my point. Not only are careless mistakes distracting, but they scream out that the writer is unprofessional. In this day of spell checkers, there’s no reason to submit work with misspelled words. However, after using spell check, it is important to read your work. Do you mean disburse or disperse? Spell check will allow both; it is necessary to manually proof your work.

Research your market. Learn the editor’s name and be sure the publisher, agent, or magazine publishes the type of work you are submitting. Obtain a copy of the submission guidelines from your potential prospect. A useful source for such information is Writer’s Market. You can usually find this resource in your local library, but I find it a book worth purchasing. It’s a waste of your postage, time, and paper to make an inappropriate submission. Armed with pertinent information, present your proposal.

As writers, it is often these non-creative aspects of our profession that require the most discipline; however, if you neglect them, you are sealing your fate as an unpublished author.

Transformation Within The Chrysalis
Changes occur gradually as we learn to incorporate various disciplines into our lives as authors. Following these guidelines will allow you to reap the benefits afforded within the chrysalis of discipline. It can transform you from a humdrum writer inching your way among unfinished projects like a caterpillar to a prolific, published author.


About The Author
Donna Sundblad resides in southwest Florida, a vast change from the suburbs of Chicago where she was raised. She raises birds and is affectionately known as "Birdie" among her writing peers. Her published credits include several Writer’s Tips for WVU, and short stories published online at Writer’s Hood, and Night Wind (the Fiction Magazine) where she serves as the Write Right Editor.


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Craft of Writing

Marcia Kiser

Coloring Outside The Lines
How To Add Depth & Texture To Murder Mysteries

In this three-part series, Marcia Kiser will show how mystery writers add depth and texture to their work by going beyond the obvious. This first article covers character descriptions.When I was young, one of my favorite treats was a new coloring book with a brand new box of crayons. The box of 64 was great, but the box of 128 was awesome. Tongue caught between teeth, I'd color the heavily outlined drawings with all the concentration of a nuclear physicist splitting an atom. And, most importantly, I'd stay inside the lines.

As writers, we need to make our characters living, breathing people. We need to go beyond obvious and dull descriptions, such as blonde hair or blue eyes. As writers, we need to color outside the lines and add texture to our characters.

Give Your Characters A Twist
The first important lesson novice writers learn is that no character, or human, is completely good — or completely bad. Dudley Do-Right and Snidely K. Whiplash are one-dimensional stereotypes. To make a character memorable, the writer needs to make them real.

To make a character memorable, do the unexpected. Years ago I read a book, which I, unfortunately, no longer remember the name of or the author. I do, however, remember one character: Angel. The novel was a suspense-thriller and Angel had a very small part, only appearing to report on, or accomplish, an assassination. No description of Angel was given although the reader formed the impression that Angel was the stereotypical hired gun — the older, disillusioned, hard-as-nails, mercenary male. The character turned out to be female, fat, short, middle-aged, and extremely unattractive. This unexpected revelation changed a worn cliché into a remarkably memorable character.

The movie "Nature Of The Beast" is an excellent example of how important character descriptions are and how easy it is to befuddle a reader by relying on stereotypes — or by twisting those stereotypes. In this movie, two men are traveling together. One is clean-cut and clean-shaven with a suit, tie, and shined shoes. The other has long hair, two- or three-days' worth of beard, faded and torn jeans, a baggy, stained T-shirt, and a worn flannel shirt. As they drive, two crimes are reported on the car radio: a hit on a Las Vegas casino and a series of killings believed to have been committed by one person. Part of the fun is trying to decide which man is responsible for which crime or if one man is responsible for both and, if so, which one?

Bring The Inside Out
As individuals, the way we wear our hair, clothing, and make-up tells others a great deal about us. We can use these as reflections of our personality or as camouflage. As writers, we want our characters to be human. But we also want them to be memorable. When describing your character's outward appearance, throw out the heavily drawn lines and color beyond the obvious.

Thomas Perry, in his Jane Whitefield series, shows us just how important outward appearances are. Jane's job is to "spirit" people away from danger. One way she "disappears" a person is to change them physically. Hazel eyes become blue, or green, or brown with contact lenses. Blonde hair becomes brunette, or auburn, or black. Long hair gets cut short. Clothing preference is altered. A quick-paced walk is changed to a slow ambling gait. By changing the outline, she changes the person.

Slight nuances also make a big difference in how readers perceive our characters. Are your character's lips simply "pink," or are they "pale to the point of being bloodless"? Is a person's complexion dark, or is it bronze, gleaming olive, the color of a burnished penny? Are the eyes the icy blue of a glacial heart or the soft blue of faded denim? Is your character's hair brown or is it dishwater blonde, mousy brown, walnut brown with golden highlights? To make a character stand out, give your readers something unique to remember, like dark, shaggy eyebrows, a scar, or an eye twitch.

Accessories Make The Murder
Our favorite mystery characters usually have unique identifiers that readers remember. All one needs to hear is "deerstalker cap" and Sherlock Holmes leaps to mind. Hercule Poirot has an enormous mustache, Mike Hammer carries a .45 named Betsy, and Kinsey Milhone drives a VW sedan. Some have a character flaw, like Nero Wolfe's obesity or Peaches Dann's terrible memory. Others are identified by their day jobs: China Bayles runs an herbal shop, Clare Malloy runs a bookstore, and Christine Bennett is a former nun.

One caveat. This is one item to give careful consideration. Whatever you decide on should be reasonable and memorable but not completely outrageous. Hopefully, you'll be writing the character a long time, so you don't want the identifier to become cumbersome.

The Color Of Murder
Colors have a language of their own. Alfred Hitchcock, the master of suspense, paid attention to every detail of his films, including the coloring of the costumes for his leading ladies, to create subtle, yet lasting, impressions.

In "Psycho," Janet Leigh first appears in white undergarments. After she steals the money, she's in black, indicative of a good girl gone bad. In "Rear Window," Hitchcock has Grace Kelly appear in a black and white gown, which reflects her personality as a glamorous woman who sees everything as black and white, good and bad — with no middle ground.

And then there's Hitchcock's "women in red." Joan Chandler has switched boyfriends three times. Not truly promiscuous, so Hitchcock dresses her in a dark red dress to acknowledge that she's not quite a scarlet woman. Grace Kelly, on the other hand, appears in a true scarlet gown in "Dial M for Murder" while in the arms of the man who is not her husband — a true scarlet woman in Hitchcock's world. That image of the red gown stays with the audience throughout Kelly's ordeal, even when she's dressed in a frumpy gray dress.

Twists, descriptions, accessories, possessions, and colors can help make your character memorable. Writers have imagination. Use that imagination to color outside the lines. Go beyond the obvious and make your characters walk and talk and stay with the reader...long after the last page has been read.


About The Author
Marcia Kiser writes, works, and lives in Lubbock, TX. She is a member of Sisters in Crime and her short stories have appeared in Nefarious, The Thrilling Detective, Dusty Cowboy, Novel Advice Mysterical-E, FUTURES, and the recently released Novel Advice Anthology. She can be contacted at Mek357@sbcglobal.net. 


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Drabble Corner

Michelle Swisz


Our Drabble for this month on the challenging theme of True Stories:

The First Half

By Craig Stroud

Closing the book, he sits, staring, enjoying. Artificial excitement drains into the night. The book gets stacked with the others. Turning off the light he stretches. A small Maltese nearby stirs, yawns. Barefoot, he winds his way on the cool plank floor to the front door, yawning. Bolted. The small Maltese watches—almost bedtime. Resting his forehead on the cool glass pane he stares longingly through the window at the dimly lit world outside. Turning, he ambles down the hall toward his sleeping wife. "Forty tomorrow," grunts the ambler to the dark. He wonders what the second half will bring.

Recently I’ve been wondering more and more whether it’s normal to be happy.

One thing I like about New Age thought is that in it, happiness is not suspect! In academia, one is allowed happiness only in the context of being in love, and then, only for a honeymoon period, which is considered disgusting, if not abdication of serious life, if it lasts for more than six months. It isn’t just that misery loves company; one truly is not taken seriously in most venues of life if one is happy, or even just sincerely wants to be happy.

Is it possible to make ourselves into people who find happiness in what we define as good? This reminds me of Plato saying that someone who wants to govern shouldn’t be allowed to. He said their willingness to govern, (which I’m taking liberties to extrapolate as their happiness at the thought of it), in itself would make them unfit for the job they seek. He seems to be saying that one must be unwilling, must not be seeking happiness or other compensation for the soul, other than the (necessarily, apparently) abstract knowledge that they’re doing the right thing, in order to be doing the right thing.

My question for our next Drabble: Is happiness okay? Is it unnatural, or base, or edified? What does it mean about us if we want to be happy; does it mean we don’t understand the nature of life? Does it mean we’re naive? Does it mean we’re unbalanced, or altogether mad, or taken over by spirit? Or is there hope for us—are we not doomed to misery in return for doing the right thing in life? Can we not be such that it would make us happy to do the right thing? Must the right thing necessarily preclude happiness? Can we not recognize and act on the categorical preclusion of happiness as wrong? These questions boiled down to a theme (wish me luck!): A happy and productive encounter (and I’m not talking about sex scenes here; not this time, anyway). Is there anywhere in life other than in bed where we can be both happy and productive? Productive and not complaining about the hours, the inbox, the boss, the nonlife?

Our theme for December: A happy and productive (but nonsexual) encounter


Here are the Drabble Guidelines once more. In summary—100 words exactly, not including the title, and send to Drabble@wvu.org by the 10th of the month preceding publication (December Drabble submissions are due by November 10.)

See you next time, and, if you dare, have a HAPPY holiday!


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Fiction Short Story

by Marcia Kiser

Mona Lisa Smile

Kathryn Gray smiled softly as she scrambled eggs for her husband's supper. He'd fractured her wrist last night, so eggs were all she could manage. Of course, he'd told the emergency room nurse that she had fallen. Derek had glanced over his shoulder to see if Kathryn had heard. She had, but she didn't let him know, she just smiled. Not a big smile, not a vacant smile, just a small, knowing smile that infuriated Derek. When she smiled like that, Derek couldn't reach her, no matter how much he pounded on her. He called it her 'Mona Lisa Smile'.

Kathryn learned Derek's rules quickly after their honeymoon. Towels to be dry and hung exactly straight. Meals served at the time specified—by Derek. The menu was also chosen by Derek, who didn't have a clue how long it took to roast a duck, but did know how to deliver body blows that never broke a rib, but left her breathing shallowly for weeks.

Within a month, she'd learned the wisdom of quitting her job. Not that Derek would have suggested it. Fortunately, he earned enough to keep the lifestyle that he so enjoyed.

By their first anniversary, Derek had bought her a whole new wardrobe and had thrown out all the clothes Kathryn had bought over the years, including her favorite worn out jeans and faded college sweatshirt. She had no more scruffy times. She was always dressed, coiffed, painted and perfumed—to Derek's specifications. She felt like a Stepford Wife.

By their second anniversary, Kathryn could serve twenty guests a nine-course dinner with two hours notice. Derek insisted she keep up her skill on the piano, and often insisted she play for his dinner guests—people she didn't know, but had indexed on their computer, so she'd remember to send cards on birthdays and anniversaries and have their favorite liquor and chocolate on hand.

By their third anniversary, Kathryn couldn't remember what a tort or a writ was. Her days in law school seemed like a vague and fuzzy dream. Three months later, after a soufflé collapsed, Kathryn found her secret place. That was the first time she had awakened in the hospital and learned how she had clumsily fallen down the stairs, and miraculously, broken no bones.

Now she scrambled eggs that would have made a Cordon Bleu chef envious. Derek chatted while she stirred. She smiled and stared at the prescription bottle on the shelf over the sink. In her secret place, she didn't need the pain medication, but Derek didn't know that. He never looked at the bottle.

She picked up the vial and shook it. A faint buzzing reached her. She lowered the flame under the skillet and turned to the table where her husband sat.

"Honey, move your papers, please. I need to set the table."

Derek looked up. "Don't you want me in here with you?" he asked, smiling his oh-so-charming smile. "Just move the centerpiece and we can use the other end of the table."

She nodded. "All right." As she picked up the centerpiece, she flipped the lid off the prescription bottle and dumped the bee into the vase. She hit the vase, making it spin crazily.

"Kathryn."

Her eyes widened and her nostrils flared at the warning note in Derek's voice, but she held onto her smile. "I'm sorry, Derek. It's too big for me to pick up one handed."

"Well, honey, why didn't you say so?" He gave her a hug, hitting her cast lightly. "I'll help," he murmured into her hair.

Derek shouted and slapped his neck. Kathryn jumped back.

"How the hell did a bee get in..."

As Kathryn watched, the red spot on Derek's neck grew larger. Derek clawed at his throat and his breath became harsh and ragged.

Without warning, his rigid body relaxed and slipped to the floor.

Kathryn tilted her head to one side. Warily, she stepped closer and held a spoon close to his nose, then his mouth. As she pushed herself up slowly, she realized her broken wrist ached. She took the skillet from the stove and scraped the eggs into the trash. She took the prescription bottle and the loose pain pills and replaced them, after swallowing two.

She turned to the phone. As she dialed 9-1-1, she realized she was no longer in her secret place. She'd lost her Mona Lisa smile.

© Copyright 2003 Marcia Kiser


About The Author
Marcia Kiser writes, works, and lives in Lubbock, TX. She is a member of Sisters in Crime and her short stories have appeared in Nefarious, The Thrilling Detective, Dusty Cowboy, Novel Advice Mysterical-E, FUTURES, and the recently released Novel Advice Anthology. She can be contacted at Mek357@sbcglobal.net. 
 

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Fiction Short Story

by Les Combs

The Piano

I sit in my new apartment, first night alone; just me and a cold Sam Adams. Indifferent and unfocused I stare at the television. Cheerless. The No Spin Zone fails to revive me.

Like tinkling raindrops music seeps through the wall, awakes my conscious mind. Someone's playing a piano in the next apartment. I mute the television and melt back into my recliner to listen. It can't be Fats Waller, but he's playing "All My Life," stride-style. I picture dark stubby fingers in blurred flight, a flock of starlings rising. Memory recalls the lyrics in Waller's hoarse voice. I am transported. And then the music ends, folds in on itself and fades into wistful silence.

I take another beer from the refrigerator, hurry into the hallway and knock on his door—too loudly, I think. The sound of security locks opening, and she's standing in front of me. Brown eyes with flecks of gold calmly appraise. Behind her a Baldwin upright stands in ebony stillness.

"You're the pianist?" I ask, surprised in my gender-biased assumption. She's almost as tall as I, blonde hair tumbling onto the shoulders of her Cal Poly sweatshirt. Her fingers are not dark, not stubby.

"That's who I am," she answers, a quirky smile turning up one corner of her full mouth. "Was I disturbing you?" There doesn't seem to be a lot of regret in the question.

"No. I mean, yes." I always was good with words. "What disturbed me was the music stopped. You know, like that old tune "The Song Has Ended But The Melody Lingers On."

She opens the door wider and says, breathes actually, "I think you had better come in."

I step inside, uncap the Sam Adams and she accepts, takes a sip. "Could you play some more?"

She motions toward a couch and I sit. She glides easily onto the piano bench. After a few tentative notes she begins "What A Little Moonlight Can Do" in Teddy Wilson fashion. Improvisational runs above the left-hand notes excite, captivate, enthrall. The second time through, she sings the words. Her voice is sultry, somewhere this side of Billie Holiday. I close my eyes and let the magic wash over me.

When it ends we remain silent and motionless for long seconds. She rises and takes two diamond rings from the piano top and slips them on her finger. "I think you'd better leave now. My husband will be home soon." She hands me her near-full bottle and escorts me to the door.

"Thank you, it was beautiful," I tell her before returning to my apartment. I survey the emptiness, sigh and sink into my recliner. It's just me, Sam Adams and Bill O'Reilly.

© Copyright 2003 Les Combs


About the Author
Les is a California native retired in Arkansas. His interest in jazz goes back to the first record he owned, a 78 r.p.m. of Tommy Dorsey's "We'll Get It."
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Fiction Short Story

by Jerry Race

Ring of Darkness

The moment his eyes opened, Diego Vargas could feel a warm breeze sweeping over him. His back was pressed against something square and hard. When he tried to move his arms, he found they were bound to a wooden post behind him, with his wrists tied together. His entire body was numb. The stench of his own urine clogged his nostrils.

Someone had heaped dry twigs and branches around his boots.

Blurred images of an approaching crowd shifted before him. The flames of their fiery torches danced in the warm breeze. They stopped in front of the post and, from the fringes of the crowd, an old woman who had scraggly gray hair and was wearing a ragged, dirty dress, approached.

"Diego Vargas," the old woman yelled up at him. Smiling, she waved her fiery torch. "Do you hear me?"

“Si. I not only hear you, I can smell you, you filthy whore."

"You will be burned alive for all the murders you committed in this village. Do you understand?" She pointed a grimy index finger at Diego. "Your spirit will not enter the gates of hell or heaven." Her gray eyes glared at the black onyx gem in a gold setting on Diego's finger. "Your spirit will become a prisoner in that ring on your finger, the very ring you stole from my husband when you killed him and our only child. Do you understand?"

"Si."

"Kill him!" the crowd chanted. "Kill him!" Kill him!"

"It is time," the old woman said. She thrust her torch into the branches and twigs. Other torches followed.

Flames ignited the branches. Orange and yellow flames leaped upward until they wrapped around Diego's boots. Red-hot rage burned furiously through his veins, every corpuscle coming to a boil hot as lava. Unbearable pain flowed through him. Blood pounded in his temples. He growled.

The whites of his eyes became crimson, pupils with slits formed over his own. His boots fell off as his feet turned to claws and burst through them. Then his hands changed to claws. Coarse black hair sprang up from his skin as wings sprouted from his back, growing to massive proportions as his arms melded into them.

The crowd shrieked at the hideous sight. Balls of fire shot from the flames and flew toward them as his wings flapped furiously. The crowd ran screaming toward the haciendas.

The old woman tripped the frightened man next to her, bringing him down with her to the ground. The crossbow he'd carried fell between them. As a ball of fire flew over them, she grabbed the crossbow, aimed it at the Diego creature and squeezed the trigger. A pointed wooden stick soared through the night air and penetrated the creature's chest.

The old woman and the man rose together, gawking at the creature as it faded into Diego's charred body. "The deed is done," she muttered, handing the crossbow to the man. Both turned away from the post and headed to the haciendas.

Diego's spirit floated out of his lifeless body, drifting upward until the old woman's remembered words sent it spiraling back down. Your spirit will become a prisoner of that ring, a prisoner for eternity. Unable to resist, the spirit fell into the black maw of the onyx and sank deeper and deeper into the dark void until it was completely absorbed and a white light of great intensity flared.

© Copyright 2003 Jerry Race


About the Author
Jerry Race was born in Los Angeles, CA on September 2, 1944. He was raised and educated in Tulsa, Oklahoma and currently resides in Portland, Oregon. Ring of Darkness is his second short story to be published by T-Zero. The first, Daddy's Dead, was published in January of this year. Jerry is a Vietnam vet and has been a member of WVU since 2002. He's learned a lot and has received valuable feedback from his peers in WVU. Ring of Darkness is actually the prologue of a novel he is currently writing. Thinking the prologue would be a good short story, he submitted it to T-zero. His URL is http://www.angelfire.com/ca6/boys

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Fiction Short Story

by Celia Jones

The Stout-Hearted Mouse

A loud clap of the cat door and several short, sharp squeaks interrupted my television watching. Charlie, my large tabby cat, undoubtedly had ‘a prize’ for me in his jaws—a live possum, rabbit, mouse or rat. Dreading the worst, I met Charlie in the kitchen as he proudly deposited a gray mouse at my feet. The last thing I wanted was a rodent taking up residence in my home, and I had visions of mouse droppings in the cupboards and cereal pouring out of chewed little holes.

I screamed at Charlie to pick up his prey and take it back out the way he entered. Being the recalcitrant cat that he is and highly offended by my ungrateful attitude, he turned and walked off in a huff with his tail in the air, feline equivalent to “giving the bird.”

The mouse and I momentarily eyed each other off. It was an unfamiliar thing to be standing so close to a live mouse. I glimpsed a bit of surprise in his bead-like eyes and a twitching of his pointy ears as Charlie exited through the cat flap. No doubt he felt incredibly lucky to be spared the usual painful end for a captured mouse—clamped between the cat’s jaws, dropped, battered around like a clockwork toy before being impaled on hooked claws and eaten alive.

With a quick glance at the retreating cat and then at me, as if to say, “Well, lady, if you don’t mind, I think I’ll dash before that needle-toothed Hitler changes his mind,” the mouse became a dark blur heading for the space under the couch.

Moving the couch just sent the gray flash down the passage toward my cluttered bedroom, where he could safely hide for years. “Great!” Now my night would be spent listening for scratching, waiting for little feet to run over my face while sleeping and afraid to get up to visit the bathroom!

After a fitful, jumpy sleep, I awoke relieved that the mouse never appeared in the night. I opened the curtains and was struck with the sight of a large dark worm swimming in my pool. Going outside to have a closer look, I saw that it was my very bedraggled fugitive mouse, nearing the end of his energy reserves as he frantically treaded water. I couldn’t help but feel pity for this tiny creature as well as admiration at how remarkably he clung to life. With the skimmer net, I picked him up and unceremoniously dumped him in the garden. He breathed heavily and shook in exhaustion and relief.

A few hours later, taking my bicycle out of the shed for my ride, the mouse appeared near the back gate. Though his coat was still ruffled, it had dried and looked almost velvety. On seeing me, he played it safe, and squeezed his small body into the space between the weathered, rough, paling fence and the gate. Just his head, wire-thin tail and delicate, white paws were visible. As I watched him, he wedged himself deeper into the space and casually observed me.

An hour later, I found him still there in his scratchy shelter, seeming even more relaxed. Despite a day of being hunted, abducted by a sharp-clawed monster, nearly eaten, drowned and dumped on the ground, he sported a contented expression on his tiny face. The sun glinted off the long whiskers, and I saw it was true; this little survivor’s face said, “Ahh, life is good!”

© Copyright 2003 Celia Jones


About the Author
Celia Jones earned a Bachelor of Arts with honors at U.C., Berkeley in 1969 and immigrated to Australia in 1972, where she taught high school until retiring five years ago. She has been published in two anthologies on Parkinson’s disease (When Parkinson’s Strikes Early and Voices from the Parking Lot) and will have her story, Weighing In, published next year in the anthology series, Chocolate for a Woman’s Soul.


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Poetics

Tom Spencer

Poetic Cerebrations

Words are the musical notes of both poetry and prose. In prose you have a symphony of words that express the color, tone, pace, and mood of the theme the story relates. The emotions rise and fall throughout the work according to the maestro’s (reader’)s, life experiences. As the writer of prose, you have a multiplicity of opportunity to play with the emotions of your reader.

In poetry the composer coordinates the arrangement of the rhythms of musical notes (words) as movements. The poem is the sonata to the theme or storyline of the orchestration.

I find that with these thoughts in mind, theme poetry is easier to compose if you first write out the story that you are trying to convey to your audience.

Once you have your story, the poem or poems are often found in the prose by ferreting out the high impact emotions expressed, and setting these emotions in similar grouping.

A well written story has three parts; beginning (scene), middle (action), end (reaction/conclusion)

A poem often deals with one section of the prose composition. A poem can extract an epiphany from any stage of the prose story. Therefore, from any story you can write a minimum of three poems relating emotional value to the reader. Another choice is to write a three-part poem presenting a beginning, middle and end, encompassing the whole of the story, (ending in an envoy). The possibilities of poetry from prose is limitless. You can use form poetry to tell the same story in a multitude of different ways.

Example: Littletown was abuzz with rumors about the explosion. It was the week twenty-six seniors graduated from high school.

Jerry Bloomfield, the class clown, was critically injured by the explosion in the chemistry lab. Someone had left a Bunsen burner turned on without lighting it when they left the little room.

The blame was placed on Jerry by most of the community. "A practical joke gone wrong," was the opinion quickly turned to gospel by the rumor mills of the town.

Jerry was to be arrested when he recovered, if he recovered. The local police had had enough of his pranks, mostly harmless until the "big blast" at the end of the school year as it came to be known.

The investigation by the State police determined the blast was caused by a faulty valve in the Bunsen burner.

Jerry recovered and went on to become a community leader and member of the school board.

If I were to set a sonnet to this story I would start with the envoy. The envoy being a two-line, end rhymed, couplet in the English sonnet or a six-line envoy in the Italian sonnet.

I'll do the couplet:

Life was cast in the shadow of a blast
Justice redeemed the charges of the past

I would work the rest of the story leading up to the couplet in reverse order, one quatrain at a time until I have twelve lines of iambic pentameter in blank verse, leading up to the couplet (envoy) that I have already established.

I find if you know where you are going with your poem, it is much easier to compose it in reverse order. After I have the finished structure I edit to see if there might be a way to insert end-rhyme or internal-rhyme to better establish the rhythm of the meter.

If I were creating a sestina, I would set the tercet first. After setting the tercet I will find the nouns and verbs that each phrase presents. I will extract my six words from their position in the tercet and set them to their places in the spiral of the sestina.

I have worked sestina stanzas in many ways. A reverse order being the most common. However, the stanzas quite often demand a change in their order. This change of order of stanza will change the order of your repeat words, causing the whole of your structure to be rearranged and sometimes rewritten entirely.

My tercet for a sestina from this story might be:

A laboratory blast, Jerry's fate was cast
The law proclaimed the guilt, and justice would reveal
Bunsen was the culprit, failure was the cause

With the ending tercet of the sestina set, I work the body of the text, extracting the verbs and nouns from the tercet. I set them in order as they will occur in each stanza.

The first stanza will have ending verse words in this order: Blast, cast guilt, reveal, culprit and cause labeled in the order they occur that would be
a, b, c, d, e, and f.
second stanza f, a, e, b, d, c,
third stanza c, f, d, a, b, e,
fourth stanza e, c, b, f, a, d,
fifth stanza d, e, a, c, f, b, and
the final six line stanza b, d, f, e, c, a,

This is followed by the tercet that I have already created.

I have the order of ending words established for a proper sestina. I now have the choice of writing lines that have relationship to the story ending in each of the different key words. I usually write ten to twelve lines for each key end word trying to stay in nearly the same syllable count per line. I will choose the most relevant lines to place together in each stanza following the end word order prescribed by the form.

After composing the seven stanza sestina in this crude method I have an armature to work with in creating the finished poem.

I edit to (a) smooth out the relationships of lines, (b) make sure every line is capable of being understood when it is read independently, and (c) make sure I have used proper words for proper meaning (Always!!! check for inadvertent homonyms). This assures there is continuity of theme, and most of all, I assure myself it is a work that I can be proud of setting my name to as author poet.

If the sheep are all wether, or all weather, will make a difference in whether or not you poem is understood.

There are many poems to be written, a multitude of emotions to be explored, the world and all its foibles can be expressed in rhythms of words creating a symphony of poetry that makes the reading pleasurable as well as informative.

As writers and poets we grow as we write. Be kind to your aspirations and write every day.
 

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Poetics Presents

Bruce McKellar

Bruce has been in the construction business for the past forty years and has lived and worked in Canada, The Netherlands, Algeria, Iran, Papua New Guinea, Australia and the United States. He has been writing poetry and short stories since high school. Bruce lives in a log house on top of a small mountain in central Idaho, along with his wife, Darlene, Max the Dog, Joe the Cat and Crackers the Parrot.

KENNY'S ISLAND

Kenny Black

stood seven feet tall, lived

in a wood shack with his wild-eyed wife

and equally wild-eyed daughter, and farmed

a hundred acres of disaster at the end

of a two-rut road, passable by horse and sleigh

or wagon most of the year, by tractor

for seven months, and by his beat-up Nash

two-door for maybe four

in dry years


He was among the poorest of the poor

as each year brought spring too late

and frost too soon and rust and blight

and hoppers, but like many others,

he had three suits of clothes; his

over-alls for work, his over-alls for town,

and shiny black suit for funerals. His John Deere "D"

tractor, hung together with rusted bolts and wire,

ran as good as any, pulling his

mish-mash of second-hand machinery

slow but sure through the good ground, going round

the alkali by the sloughs, where he harvested

the sharp swamp hay for winter.




His four-room house is best described

by the little that it held;

the kitchen hand-pump above the wooden

wash-stand didn't work; the handle used for

drying dish-rags. Hot water came from

the reservoir; part of a huge black iron range

that fed on wormy poplar wood, or coal

in good times.

A huge plank table, wooden benches seating

threshing crews for one week of the year,

was shiny-worn at one end where

the family took their meals.

The living room held two straight chairs,

a lumpy davenport, a chime clock from Scotland

that didn't work, a battery radio,

and a pile of cheap-paper religious periodicals

from a sect professing simple living;

a convenient philosophy

for a stump farmer.

No other written work was anywhere, nor allowed,

even by the blank-eyed hired men

who came to stay for two bucks a day

and left in two weeks, thinner.



On his tree-lined island

Kenny lived, and recently, I hear he died,

most likely doing more good for his land

beneath it

than he ever did above it.

I hope God has some quiet corner;

a dour spot

for Kenny.


Copyright © 2003 by Bruce McKellar



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Poetics Presents

Paul Ranes

Paul Ranes was born and raised in Kentucky. He now resides in eastern North Carolina where he is restoring an ante bellum house. He lives with Mr. Puss whose former residence was the local pound.

In The Meadow

Morning sun winks thru branches
swaying back and forth in the gentle breeze

a mad painter brushing light across the meadow
highlighting splashes of reds and yellows on the verdant canvas

I ease into this colored sea on the mare
slowly, parting its waves, and search for the muse

she runs her fingers first through the trees
then gently bending tops of the grasses

approaches me with a gentle caress
I loose the reins, let the mare wander aimless in the meadow

she speaks to me of love with her warm breath
words floating on perfumed scents, whispered in the ether

helpless babes, we cannot even choose
for the choice belongs to love

she may batter down the door and claim the prize
or pass by fickle, unnoticing

we turn up our lamp to light the way for another
love may become a beacon or extinguish it with a sigh

to have the heart for a day or a lifetime
the choice is hers

not the philosopher who says I think therefore I am
but says I do not love therefore I am not

The warm sun mingles with the muse
intrudes
evaporates the ether

my hands regain the reins
the mare responds to my touch
we turn toward home once more

Copyright © 2003 by Paul Ranes



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Recognitions

Joan McNulty Pulver

Welcome to Recognitions, a column dedicated to proclaim the writing successes of Writers' Village University members!

Blaise Kilgallen, known to her Writers’ Village University peers as Foxy, wrote Wild Knights, an erotic romance novel set in present time. It hit the cyber waves on September 1, 2003 at Liquid Silver Books. Her story is about Carla, a sex-starved thirty-seven year old widow who develops an obsession for a brawny, black-haired young Turk named Evan. As it turns out, Evan likes older women and asks her out on a date. One thing leads to another and they become lovers.

Foxy, a WVU lifetime member, practices her abundant writing skills in the Hole in the Wall study group. Born in New Jersey, she now lives in a semi-rural county in the Garden State with three four-footed companions: a retired thoroughbred mare, a half-Siamese cat and a large Rottweiler.

She earned her BS in Fine Art Education with the intention of teaching but found she would rather "do" than teach. Blaise worked for a number of years in a series of New York advertising agencies. Later, she developed direct mail and catalogs for several manufacturers and was involved in the public relations field. She now writes romantic fiction, paints and markets her watercolors.

Kathy Kubik’s two poems, Canine Cancer and Quiet Time, appeared in the October issue of SaucyVox(Dot)Com. “When I found out they had accepted my poems I was pleasantly surprised, since I just sent out these two poems on a whim. Their October issue dealt with death. I thought my poems would have something to add and am looking forward to the October issue.”

Kathy, a lifetime member, joined WVU two years ago. Involved in P123 Senior Poets Workshop, she is also a member of the Persist & Publish fiction study group. “I have not found a community such as provided by WVU elsewhere. It is remarkable how even though we are all busy with our own writing projects, jobs, and family, everyone comes together to help each other's writing grow and be the best it can be. I have grown so much as a writer and have stretched myself so much farther than I would have on my own. I have learned more at WVU than at any traditional writing school. I view each member as a member of my own family and we are all there to support each other—both in writing endeavors and in life. I recently had some deaths in my family and many members sent me a condolence card, or sent me an email to see how I was doing. I am so thankful for finding WVU.”

Working on her first novel, Kathy said, “Poetry is my home, but I am starting to write more fiction. It is my hope that the poetry and fiction mixed together will compliment each other and add to the craft of storytelling.”

Faye Whyte submitted the poem Death, Good? to The Bark Magazine over a year before she found out it would be published in the fall 2003 issue—on newsstands now. “When I learned it was to be published, I was pleased. This poem was written as an exercise in the introductory poetry class given by Harry and Glennis [Hobbs]—I can't thank them enough for their kind advice and the suggestion that I polish and submit this piece.”

The poem, written from personal experience, exemplified Faye's work as a veterinarian. Shortly after it was published, Faye received a message from a celebrity in California, complimenting her work and telling Faye how it had touched her. “The moment it took out of the her life to contact me really had an impact. I saw how important it is to appreciate the work of others and to give praise where you feel it is due.”

Faye took F2K and then joined WVU in 2000. A member of the Freestylers study group, she said, “Belonging to a group of writers has been pivotal for my development as a writer. My writing friends have helped me further my craft and supported me through the victories and the agonies.”

Congratulations, Foxy, Kathy and Faye. We wish you continued success in all your writing endeavors.

We look forward to reading about your writing accomplishments in this column. If you or someone you know received recognition for writing, please send the information to recognitions@wvu.org. Let us know!



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Signs of Life

Nancy L. Horner

Elvis is in the House

The weekend of my romance writers group's retreat was nearing and I was excited. I planned to head out by mid-afternoon on Friday to make sure I made it to the bed-and-breakfast in tiny Leakesville, Mississippi before dark. As the weekend approached, I wrote up my packing list and began to gather things together in preparation for the retreat. I was double-checking the list on Thursday evening when my husband called me outside and motioned for me to sit in the driver's seat of our Toyota.

"I've programmed the GPS," he said. He plunked his Global Positioning System unit on the dash and plugged it in. "Turn on the car and I'll show you how to set it."

I'm notorious for making wrong turns—although I've always managed to find my way to my destination—so the GPS was a welcome addition for the four-hour drive by myself in an unfamiliar part of Mississippi. David showed me how to turn on the GPS and set it for both my original destination and the return trip. Then, just to be on the safe side, he took an old-fashioned, fold-up map and highlighted the entire journey. You'd almost think he expected me to get lost.

The next day, I finished packing and set out for Leakesville.

Apart from two bizarrely unmarked major turns at which the GPS practically screamed at me, "Turn now, turn now, turn now!", the journey was fairly uneventful. I pulled into the gravel driveway of the bed-and-breakfast and joined my friends from Magnolia State Romance Writers on the screened porch.

After a bit of chit-chat, I hauled my suitcase inside and looked around a bit, totally overlooking the most interesting part of the house.

You could hardly miss it. Later, with plate in hand, I ended up transfixed in the dining room. I was staring at the gigantic framed monstrosity that my romance buddies dubbed, "The Glitter Last Supper," when one of them walked up and stood next to me.

"Isn't it awful?" she asked.

"Yeah. I was just thinking," I replied, "how gauche." The rest of the room was remarkably tasteful, by comparison, with the usual magnolia prints (always a mainstay in Mississippi) and a few roses thrown in here and there. One had to wonder what on earth the owners were thinking when they hung such an idiosyncratic monument to tackiness on the wall.

The Glitter Last Supper consisted of an oversized print of the Last Supper done almost entirely in red, green, and beige with a wide border of gold glitter, a tabletop of silver glitter, and mirrored tiles over Jesus and the apostles' heads. Nobody could quite figure out what kind of dried-up-looking fruit sat wilting on the table, but one woman observed that the tablecloth must be new because the artist had painted fold lines and another noticed that the wine was in clear glasses, rather than opaque decanters of wood or clay.

"They're dressed for Christmas."

"Oh, yeah, all that red and green."

"Did they even use tablecloths in Jesus' time?"

"Maybe the wrinkled things are figs."

All sorts of theories about the details of the print were batted around. Some of the members of MSRW had been to the bed-and-breakfast when it was under different ownership and knew that the print had been up on that same wall for years. They wondered aloud about the possibility that there was a huge hole in the wall that the print covered.

"Maybe," said one of the ladies, "it's in the contract that The Glitter Last Supper has to remain on that wall."

"Or maybe there's some sort of big flaw underneath and it's the only thing big enough to cover it."

After we played a trivia game and worked on helping one of our members plot her next novel, I found myself staring up at the print, again, arms folded.

One of my writer friends walked up beside me. "I was thinking," I told her, "that The Glitter Last Supper would be very much at home with one of those paintings of Elvis on black velvet."

"Oh, Elvis is in the other room," she replied without skipping a beat.

"You're kidding."

"No, he's up on the wall over the window. He's not on black velvet, though."

I walked to the small living area to take a peek at Elvis. As it turned out, Elvis was only one of about a dozen very subtle pencil portraits hanging on the living room wall. Naturally, the other walls were covered with a further cacophony of magnolias and roses, both painted and in floral arrangements. The decorating scheme was definitely unique in that house.

After a weekend full of plotting, chattering, and restful fun, I loaded my car and headed home with the GPS reset. I absentmindedly pondered The Glitter Last Supper as I drove north on the highway. Or maybe I was headed west. Not that it mattered which way I was headed, I thought, as the GPS began to shout at me. "Turn now, turn now, turn now!"



T-Zero: The Writer's Ezine
http://TheWritersEzine.com
Copyright 1998 - 2007, Writopia Inc. All Rights Reserved

Writer's Read The Writers' Ezine - T-Zero Xpandizine

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Writer's Read

Wynelda-Ann Deaver

Blog. Blogging. Bloggage.

Blogs are wonderful things. The online equivalent of a diary or journal, blogs are everywhere. People write about their days, about issues, about writing. Some blogs are funny, some sad. Some are well written, and some are just written.

But should writers blog? Are they more than a public confessional? Are they worth the time and effort? It depends on what you’re looking for in a blog.

I use my blog to keep up-to-date with some of my fellow study group members. Family and friends both have the address to my blog, so I am careful about what pops up there when it’s of a personal nature. But I also use the blog as a tool for writing.

At first, it seemed like it would just be a venting ground for my writing and the editors that rejected me. But the blog took on its own personality. Some of the writings are more of a mini-essay than a journal entry. A few times, I’ve used it to post my goals for my writing: Send out a short story. Write so many words. It can also be used to sing out when you triumph.

Blogs are also a place where you can experiment with fiction. I did a fairytale spoof in one entry. A friend of mine was using hers to do flash fiction, and it turned out that she was really good at it. Another friend does third person musings on the world around her, which are beautiful.

There is one draw back to blogging, however. I find myself going to my favorite blogs, checking to see if they’ve been updated. Some have great information for writers, by published writers. Sometimes, I even use them as a procrastination tool.

In the end, it depends on how you intend to use the blog on whether or not you’ll enjoy it. Some people don’t like feeling like they “have” to blog, that their audience awaits them. Others thrive on it. As for me, I like to keep them guessing.
 

Submissions Guidelines The Writers' Ezine - T-Zero Xpandizine

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Submissions Guidelines (Updated)

Until further notice, only plain text submissions in the body of the email will be considered.
NO ATTACHMENTS.

What We Pay For

Fiction: Stories should be of interest to writers in general, not just a narrow group.

Fiction should be submitted to fiction@thewritersezine.com. Payment starts at $15.00.

If considered for publication, you will be asked to return an email agreement including your name and address.

Craft Features: Queries about Craft features should be sent to nonfiction@thewritersezine.com.

Payment starts at $15.00, and, if considered, you will be sent an email agreement to fill out and return.

Poetry: Due to the large number of recent poetry submissions, a temporary hold on further poetry submissions is in place until early 2008.

Please do not email us to ask what we pay for in other categories. When we can add to our list, we will include it in these guidelines.

What We Publish

Original short fiction, poetry, and non-fiction, particularly non-fiction related to the craft of writing and interviews.

For fiction we prefer something with a plot and resolution. If we like the main character, we are more likely to accept the story. If the main character has a problem to resolve or has to make a choice, that's conflict, and we love conflict! Too many writers confuse conflict with fight scenes. Don't be one of them. Give us a protagonist who acts, makes choices no matter how hard they are to solve his or her dilemma, not a wimp who drifts along and has to be rescued.

Non-fiction should be related to the craft of writing or be good resource material for writers. Accuracy and originality are vital. No reprints. If it has already been published somewhere else, our readers will spot it and let us know.

What We Won't Publish

Anything that inspires "hate," is defamatory or is pornographic.

Simultaneous submissions.

Material that has appeared elsewhere (reprints).

Seasonal material submitted during the same month (i.e., a Christmas story in December). Our lead time is short compared to print publications, but we do need time to edit, html and proof submission. A good guideline is to submit the manuscript by the first of the preceding month (i.e., submit a Christmas story before November 1st).

Length Recommendations

  • For Fiction, under 1500 words is preferred. We will consider excerpts from longer works.

  • Poetry should fit on one printed page if possible. A maximum of five poems may be submitted at one time (when the hold is lifted).

  • Non-fiction or Craft features have the most leeway in word count. In general these manuscripts should be 750 to 2,000 words. We like to take advantage of the hypertext capabilities we have available and link to charts, graphs, lists and so forth. Thumbnail versions may be included in the body of the article.

Rights

All rights other than first electronic, non-exclusive 'anthology' (for collections of T-Zero: The Writer's Ezine works only), and non-exclusive archival rights (we keep back issues online) are and remain the sole and exclusive property of the author.

Formats We Will Accept

Plain text in the body of an email.

T-Zero: The Writer's Ezine is an HTML publication. This gives us access to a variety of options but it is also a limiting factor.

  • Underlining is used exclusively for links in HTML. Please do not underline in your manuscript. It you are including a link to a webpage for reference, please mark the link the following way: (WEB LINK) http://thewritersezine.com (END WEB LINK).
  • The less than (<) and greater than (>) signs are used to enclose HTML encoding. If you need to use brackets, please use the square [ ] ones instead.
  • Paragraph indentation requires time consuming insertion of multiple HTML symbols. Please separate paragraphs by inserting a hard, blank line between them.
  • Fonts need to be simple. No multiple fonts. We prefer standard fonts such as Times New Roman, Courier or Arial set at 12 point. If your subject matter requires something else, ask us first.
  • The curly (smart) quotes, apostrophes, the em dash (two hyphens together) and ellipsis … (three periods) become strange and exotic characters when copied from your word processor into email. Check your preferences or options to see if you can use straight quotes. 
  • Text formatting such as bold, italic, centering, bullet list, etc., should be noted in the text by using all caps in parentheses. For example, if you wanted to italicize the word submission, you would type: (ITALICS) submission (END ITALICS).

Editing

We expect you to run spell-check and to check your grammar and punctuation before submitting. We will not reject a submission for a few typos or errors, but will if there are an excessive number of errors.

Note: Since our reading audience is international, we do not require a specific version of English. Use the spelling appropriate to your region.

We will automatically correct obvious typos such as “ton” for “not” and may correct simple agreement problems. For anything beyond that, time permitting, we will return the submission to you with a request for corrections.

Getting to Know You

Fiction and Craft features published in T-Zero: The Writer's Ezine include brief third person biographical notes on the writers. For all submissions, please compose your own bio and include it to save our editors and yourself time later if/when your piece is accepted for publication. We suggest sharing a little about your background, occupation, geographical location and what inspired your story.

How and Where to Submit

We do not accept submissions via US mail. Email submissions only, to the appropriate department, in the body of the email. No attachments accepted.

Fiction should be sent to fiction@thewritersezine.com.

Craft Non-fiction should be queried first. Send query to nonfiction@thewritersezine.com.

Poetry: Due to the large number of recent poetry submissions, a temporary hold on further poetry submissions is in place until early 2008.

Include the type of submission (fiction, non-fiction) in the subject line.

Be sure to include your name and email address in the body of the email.

If you do not receive an acknowledgement that your submission or query was received within a week, please send a follow-up query with “Did you Receive?” in the subject line. In the body of the email, please include your name and email address, the title of the work submitted, and if different, the email address sent from. Do not resend the submission unless we request it.

Good luck!


T-Zero: The Writer's Ezine
http://TheWritersEzine.com
Copyright 1998 - 2007, Writopia Inc. All Rights Reserved

 

© Copyright 1998 - 2007, Writopia Inc. All rights reserved