Unintended Consequences

You sit there bleary-eyed morning tired, your coffee growing cold. The headlines blur. Your mother’s chitter-chatter segues into wall-paper and you try to remember where you parked the car, whether it’s pulled in nice and tight in the garage or whether you left it curbside, afraid the garage door lifting at god-knows-when would wake mom, but you can’t remember, you don’t remember much of anything, not driving, not stumbling up the stairs, not sleeping. Nothing.

But you remember this: mom already on the couch with her Scotch and week’s worth of Tivo, she assumes you’re with Brad and Mac, and you are, but not at the movies, you’re chugging beer and smoking blunts in Lorraine’s basement while you listen to Zeppelin, Morrison, Hendrix, the stuff your mom plays when she feels old, and for the first time all week you stop worrying how you bombed AP biology and how you missed the Berkeley deadline and what the hell you’ll do about college, you don’t have the dough for Stanford but damn if you’ll go to San Jose State, and then Lorraine pulls you from the couch, so alive, warm, so smiley, and you pile into your Mercury and barrel down the street, windows down, the air smells like sea, the night goes forever.

The milk smell makes you nauseous. Your mom says, “Pity about Stacie, some drunk ran over her dog last night,” and you remember the crunching sound when you took the corner at Beloit and Anderson, tires squealing.


***

My penultimate 52/250 flash -- this IS Number 51. Inspired by the theme: unintended consequences. Peace...

Getting Grubby -- Again

Back from The Muse and the Marketplace, Grub Street's annual writefest. And wow. Of course, Boston's primo anytime, but Friday when I emerged from the Park Street T, the Public Garden was awash in pinks and ivories and that sweet Spring green that lasts about a day.

But before I get to the business, here's the pleasure -- spending time with friends. I thai-ed one on with dear friend Colleen Khao Sarn (think keffir leaves with dried shrimp and toasted coconut, crispy calamari, and mango curry shrimp) and the next evening dined with Nudger Steve and Dee at the Erbaluce (think: a well-rounded nebbelio, prosciutto with hazelnuts and organic pear, rabbit roasted with foraged mushrooms, lobster in a saffron sauce, razor clams).

Now, to the writing (it IS all about the writing, afterall). I attended the 10th annual Muse and the Marketplace, sponsored by Boston's own GRUB STREET. A two day conference, this year over 700 writers, agents, and editors converged to talk shop, listen and learn, and do all other things writerly. Saturday morning I met with An Agent, who had read my query and first 20 pages of Novel #1.

Then, off to my first session on revision, led by the very able and fabulous writer Ann Hood. "Take your first draft on a date," she says. "Have Kinko's box your baby up and go to the beach, a cafe, a mountain, armed with pens, highlighters, and post-its, and rip her apart." The best exercise: go through each scene and note the emotion at the beginning and end as positive or negative. If the signs are the same, either ditch the scene or ramp up the tension to switch one sign to the opposite.

Pauline Chen gave a great talk about balancing two careers. A liver transplant surgeon, she penned FINAL EXAM: A Surgeon's Reflections on Mortality. We spoke afterwards, and we talked about mourning lost roles as we formed new ones. I purchased her memoir, which she graciously signed, and devoured half of it later that evening. Her stories resonate so deeply (see Colleen, I can use an adverb).

Lots of great sessions on voice, story structure, tips of applying for residencies and fellowships. Ron Carlson admonished writers to stay in the room -- and write. I met new friends, bought a few books, read three of my 1 sentence stories (I am no longer a reading virgin - yay!), and got super inspired.

Oh, and the Agent? My first full request. Fingers crossed.

And now, I am exhausted. Peace, Linda

Another Year (or Point A to Point B Makes a Line)

Birthdays are sort of like New Year’s Eve – a day to take stock of where you’ve been and where you’re going. This year’s ‘event’ has loomed a bit like a train speeding down a tunnel where there’s no pinprick of white at the end. And now, the day is here and all I can think is, ‘Wow, I breathe. I walk. I think. I talk.’ No big deal, really.

So Point A of the past year started with the sense I needed change, not immediate, not even mid-term, but long-term change. This time last year ennui filled my days, a restlessness, and a desire for something ‘new’. Mid-life, I suppose, and not easily fixable with a sports car (well, maybe a Maserati 420) and certainly I have no desire to trade in my husband or kiddos (I love them all dearly). That caged-in feeling dwelled deep in me, so it was up to me to figure out that hollow-sounding clanging below my diaphragm.

This is what I learned:
--The work I do for pay is satisfying, but it is just… work.
--I get my greatest joy and satisfaction with my family – even if they are individually or collectively driving me bonkers.
--Friends are not what always seem.
--Those who you do not consider friends will surprise you – in the best way – if you remain open to the possibility.
--Happiness comes from within, not without; it is all about attitude.
--I am too quick to anger (hormones).
--Writing is my passion and the single thing that anchors my life beyond my family.
--The best things in life take time.

Point B starts now.
Today. A new beginning, and one heading up to Point C, which is a Big Point. The next year holds a lot of promise. Once again, it all begins with me. My resolutions for this upcoming journey include:
--Let the crap roll off my back (where crap = office politics, other people’s bad manners, kids’ temper tantrums, rejections).
--Spend more time listening (and save money on the cream I use to reduce wrinkles around my lips).
--Strive for better balance between demands, and always do what is important first (my father always said – pay the piper first).
--Spend more time with girlfriends.

And to zap the ennui, I am applying to graduate schools for writing. I have four ‘top tier’ programs in mind -- three low-residency, one a local part-time. The application process evokes all these horrible memories of college and graduate school applications – official transcripts, essays (why I want to go into a writing program, blah-blah-blah), and what really terrifies – letters of reference! Ack! This is one time when I truly wish the ‘writing is everything’ adage held true.

I’m looking forward to a productive year and one less filled with inner turmoil. Thank you for sharing the journey with me. Peace…

P.S. If you are looking for my #fridayflash #52/250 #napowrimo weekly contribution, please wander: HERE

Can't Wait @ Monkeybicycle

My manic one-sentence story CAN'T WAIT up now at MONKEYBICYCLE. A huge thank you to Steven Seighman for publishing my work. Peace...

cold

when the doctor came,the room stilled, a sterile still life colder than the air used to keep the machinery bleating and pushing blood through my arteries, the frigidity
keeping engines cool from shorts that would gum wires and tubes and send electric shocks down lifelines to the system, my system, and when he shook his head, a brief motion, the air grew colder yet and heaved my heart into a pulsing mass of valves and vessels, one last gasp before it puttered into a puddle of tissue, of hope gone south



***

Inspired by the 52-250 Flash A Year theme: cold front. A prose poem as we ease into the home stretch of NaPoWriMo. Peace...

The Universe -- and Beyond

This will put you in awe...



The latest from Terje Sorgjerd, a photographer who also recently caught amazing footage of the Aurora Borealis. The time-lapse footage was captured between April 4th and 11th, 2011, from atop El Teide, Spain's highest mountain. At one point a sandstorm blows across, which rendered Sorgjerd unable to see the sky, but left his camera with some stunning images. Via HuffPo (18 April 2011) via my husband. Peace...

raleigh before the tornado hits

Cresting the inner loop
after seven hours of slick asphalt,
the city stretches before us
shrouded in haze the yellow
of nicotine stains. Trees droop
still as skyscrapers, the radio spits
static. In the rearview black clouds
churn, the children sleep, and I
press the gas until my foot goes numb.


***

The kids and I arrived about 15 minutes before the tornado touched down in Raleigh. At least three died in the city limits, and many homes and businesses suffered major damage. Tornados continued to wreak havoc throughout the state, with more lives, homes, and hopes lost. Peace to all...

Tainted Love

Tainted love is stained love, a dirty jeans love, mucky
under nails and knees from garden dirt and worms
slippery, slickery things compost-heaped, grubs chewing love.

Tainted love is tinted love, a greyer pink love, edges purple
from necrosis, halitosis, the lack of osmosis, a hypoxia
of the heart hardened boundaries kind of love.

Tainted love is skinny love, skinned and thinned weak
broth love, fight veneered, resentment adhered, salty-teared
nicotine-laden cloud love, breathed in and cancerous.


***

Inspired by National Poetry Writing Month and the 52-250 Flash a Year Challenge theme: tainted love.

Rules for Surviving Eighth Grade @ Eclectic Flash

I am honored one of my micro-fictions has found a wonderful home in the Spring Issue of ECLECTIC FLASH. Take a peek at page 62, then travel to poems and stories by some of my favorite writers, including Laurita Miller (page 84), Meg Tuite (page 80), JP Reese (page 53), and Jan Knox (page 43). A HUGE thanks to editor Brad Nelson who consistently turns out beautiful issues of some best flash and poetry found on the web.

Open publication - Free publishing - More eclectic flash

blind

what world is this

when in the parking lot

a man squeezes

breakfast

from catsup packets

his girl squats

by Xerox boxes

she calls home

and you send back

your triple-slam

with yolks too runny?


***

Inspired by the 52-250 Flash a Year Challenge theme: blind spot. And the daily walk from subway to office where the fall-out from the economy multiplies like bunnies. Peace...

April Showers

bring word powers.

'tis National Poetry Writing Month. I'm writing my daily -- are you?

Peace....

A Delicate Flower

by Dan Powell

One day, though not a suspicious person by nature, Claudine decided to spy upon her husband. He had been coming home late more often than not in recent weeks and had been less than attentive for a good deal longer. Though she tried to dismiss the former as simply the outward effect of increasing pressure at work in a difficult economic climate and the latter as nothing more sinister than the natural cooling of their relationship into something harder and more lasting in readiness to weather their final years together, she couldn't shake her deepest fears free from her thoughts.

Unable to confront him she hid in his office as a vase of daffodils, perching unobtrusively on the window sill early one morning. She watched his work day marveling at the tedium of it as he shuffled his way through files and interminable phone conversations with someone called Derek. He disappeared at lunchtime and she turned her trumpeted, petaled heads to the window and watched the clouds. She thought of their life together, up till now an uncomplicated, some might say dull history, unfettered by children or commitments beyond those they had sworn to each other long ago; in short a simple, pretty, quiet little life.

The office door opening and a hushed voice shook her from her reverie.

'But you will tell her, won't you. Soon.'

And Claudine watched unable to move as her husband closed the door behind himself and his secretary, a woman Claudine had met many times before, watched him take her face in his hands and kiss her in a way Claudine could only barely remember being kissed.

'I will,' she heard him say, 'I promise.'

And with those words, unable to distinguish between the betrayal, the blatant cliche of the situation, and the heat from the midday sun blazing at her back, Claudine wilted.

***

APRIL FOOLS!!!!! The fabulous story you read appears here as part of the Great April Fool's Day Friday Flash Blog Swap(GAFDFFBS) organized by the exuberant Tony Noland. Dan Powell, a marvelous writer based in Germany, created A DELICATE FLOWER. You can find my story Divine Wind -- and more of his fiction -- at his website Dan Powell - Fiction. We both wrote based on the prompt: wilted flowers.

To read all the dozens of stories swapped around as part of the #GAFDBBS, check out the index at Tony's blog Landless. For more fantastic flash, check out #fridayflash on twitter. We flash every Friday.

Happy Day o' Fools, and peace...