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Surprised by an easy one!

9 Aug

Two easy ones in a row, after a couple of weeks of feeling drained, and talk of limping in my last post. I learned in May that I can write a story even while totally exhausted. I learned in June that I can do it even if I’ve been exhausted for days. I’m still amazed by that. I suppose the next—sad—question is: Can I write a story if I’ve been exhausted for weeks? I hope I don’t have to find out.

Working Title: Mr. and Mrs. Midnight Movie
1st Sentence: The middle-aged man says, “I’m so glad we finally made it to this restaurant. Everything was delicious and the service was great.”
Favorite Sentence: Because the absolute most boring couple he has ever waited on in an instant transforms into Mr. and Mrs. Midnight Movie, because he can’t imagine what this pasty, balding, lemon-shaped man could possibly have done to inspire such passion from this angular, frizzed-out, over-painted woman, because he has never seen anyone throw a drink in someone’s face, before, not in real life, the waiter stares at the two napkins on the floor, forgetting entirely the unpaid bill.
Word Length: 606

Photo of a movie poster advertising “Saturday Night,” 1922.

100 Days, 100 Stories

8 Aug

It’s fitting that today’s shorty is entitled “A Toast.” I remember when thinking of the number “100” in relation to this challenge made me want to bury my face in my hands. I’ll admit that I’ve limped these last couple of weeks to this particular mark. But I’m here. And… dare I say it… on to the next!

Working Title: A Toast
1st Sentence: She knew what she was supposed to say.
Favorite Sentence: Does an unhappy woman win Missus On The Go™ saleswoman of the year three times running?
Word Length: 289

Photo by Quinn Dombrowski, December 2007.

What the hell?

7 Aug

Um… wow. This shorty includes the two most unlikable characters I’ve ever created. And I’ve created quite a few. But these two ladies are just…awful without being interesting. Nothing whatsoever to recommend them. Why? Why would I do that? Who wants to read about people like this? One very interesting thing about this challenge—I’ve written a lot of stories that are so different from my norm that I actually feel incapable of judging them. That’s never happened to me before. For now I trust it’s just the labor and intensity of the challenge and my Inner Critic will be just as full of herself as ever when it comes time for revision. No, Inner Critic, that was not an invitation, go back to your seat.

Working Title: Ladies Who Lunch
1st Sentence: What makes a waiter in his twenties think it’s okay—and actually not just okay but somehow flattering—to refer to two women in their forties as “girls”?
Favorite Sentence: More lime more lime, Romeo, more lime!
Word Length: 1,353

Photo here.

Aside

What’s at stake?

7 Aug

I love fiction that breaks rules and refuses to deliver the expected goods and shape. But no matter what kind of story I’m writing, I’m always asking myself why I, as a reader, should care. I was flipping through my notes on a talk by the wonderful Richard McCann when I saw this great piece of advice on the subject of writing something that matters: “A frequent mistake writers make is chronicling events. When the chronicle of events takes over, ask yourself: Is there enough at stake?”

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Goodbye Week 14!

6 Aug

Ahh, a lovely pecan nougat roll to reward a tough week. I have felt that my stories lack vitality this week but I just looked back at them all and actually I really like a couple of them. And two others have a lot of potential. So a typical week, I guess. On to the next!

Working Title: Dear Congresswoman Brugge
1st Sentence: I write to explain why I am declining your request for a contribution to your campaign for the Senate.
Favorite Sentence: You looked right at Grace, put your hands on your hips, and cranked up your I’m-too-smart-for-your-mother voice.
Word Length: 1,256

I bought this treat at a candy shop in Ogunquit’s Perkins Cove. I remember it with love and gratitude.

Like a Bad Translation

5 Aug

Really empty today. Sometimes I solve the empty-well problem by coming up with a neutral opening sentence, then adding whatever organic, pleasant-enough sentences come along to finish out a first paragraph. Then with the next paragraph, I write a strange line that makes me laugh—one that doesn’t appear to connect with the first paragraph. Then I have to make sense of it in the next lines and let the story build its quirky self from there. In this case I wound up with a shorty that reads like a bad translation of a story written in Poland in the 1950s.

Working Title: A Good Showing
1st Sentence: The weather turned that morning.
Favorite Sentence: Nodding, tipping his hat; after, at the house, attacking the cheese ball.
Word Length: 446

An Easier One

4 Aug

Nice to get an easy one today. Hopefully a sign of things to come! Let’s go, August, come on, let’s pick it up. Now, let’s see… what’s Michael Phelps doing tonight?

Working Title: Now What?
1st Sentence: She sat in the theater as the credits rolled.
Favorite Sentence: The Gofer, the Gaffer, the Candlestick Maker.
Word Length: 274

Photo by Belinda Hankins Miller, July 2007.

Still Wobbly

3 Aug

Again, had to work hard to get the story on the page and then I had to press like crazy to finish it. Really liked the vision for this one but had to settle for a mediocre delivery. Hope it comes together in revision. I really miss the days of this challenge when I had time to look at older stories and re-work them. Maybe soon I will find a better rhythm and add revision to my days again. Not until the Olympics are over, that’s for sure.

Working Title: Me, Too
1st Sentence: Juror #3 complained about the bottled water.
Favorite Sentence: They were arguing about the war, about the last thirty years of trickle-down economics, about gun control and racism and gay marriage, and whether public school students should be forced to observe a moment of silence before lunch because some Baptist kid had been taught to believe the whole world should stand still while he thanks Jesus for a bologna sandwich and a bag of Fritos.
Word Length: 1,071

Photo here.

Slow as molasses in January.

2 Aug

Too many things to do and I can’t seem to just set my feet, scowl, and knock down each pin. I think it might be time to admit that having to complete a story every day is extremely mentally taxing. What to do? I can’t stop.

Working Title: Tango Tangle
1st Sentence: Sure, they could learn a couple of others, too, but it was the Tango she wanted in her feet.
Favorite Sentence: In the end she sank to the ground in a kind of slow motion twirl, landing in a bunched up slump with Cliff leaning over her, his face red as a split tomato.
Word Length: 1,959

Photo by Jenny Mealing, October 2005.

Greetings August!

1 Aug

To celebrate finishing a quarter of stories, I took the day off from everything but my shorty. Which is good, because it took me ALL DAY to put this little thing out. I started three stories, even wrote three pages for one that I just threw away. But finally, finally, August sets sail.

Working Title: Miss Lucky
1st Sentence: The winner is… Melissa Belby!
Favorite Sentence: Occasionally—in a moment she knows by instinct is exactly right for it—she opens her eyes a bit wider, even, and smiles small.
Word Length: 570

Photo by Vera and Jean-Christophe, April 2008.

Three Months of Stories!!!

31 Jul

Hell yes! A quarter! I’ve written a story a day for an ENTIRE quarter! And just to add to my bliss, I really enjoyed working on my story today. Took a while to get the idea but I was patient and kept revisiting it. Finished it up with a nice polish tonight. Yeehaw! Now stand back while I cut this gorgeous “tiramisu cake” that appeared at a fabulous wedding reception attended by my friend Mark.

Working Title: That Kind of Relationship
1st Sentence: I think he knows.
Favorite Sentence: They complete their tax forms to the best of their combined ability, they try not to snack too much, and they look forward to events like a new Mystery series on PBS or the opening of a new café downtown.
Word Length: 712

Thanks to Mark and his sister Amy for this and yesterday’s yummy picture. And thanks to every man, woman, and child who has the talent to create such delectable treats. You make the world a better place, my friends. Mmmm.

Goodbye Week 13!

30 Jul

Enjoy with me a delicious, custardy shortcake, to celebrate the close of another week. I’m feeling… Olympian. And resourceful because I started this shorty in the parking lot while waiting for a doctor’s appointment, added to it in the grocery store parking lot while waiting for the husband to fetch one more thing, and finished it at home during the commercial breaks from men’s gymnastics. True, I took a huge hop on the landing, but that’s just a one-tenth deduction….

Working Title: Inheritance
1st Sentence: On My Mother’s Side: She had green eyes—that’s where I got mine—and she loved curry.
Favorite Sentence: I am zero for three on nuts, institutionalization, shock therapy.
Word Length: 683

Thanks to my friend Mark and his sister Amy for a picture of the yummiest looking dessert I’ve seen in a long time.

Loosening up.

29 Jul

I have not changed my official rules. I must complete a story every day for a year to meet my personal Daily Shorty challenge. Because I never know when I might fall, I’m going to continue to celebrate every completed story by gathering story facts and I’m going to scream from the rooftops whenever I complete another week, scream louder if I close out another month. I’m about to hit another mark partly because I’ve been less strict with myself re unofficial rules. Until this last week, if I hand wrote the entire story, I was insistent about typing it up before going to bed. I was posting before bed, too. But the length of the challenge is beginning to wear on me and the Olympics will be a huge distraction for a while. So if I want to stay steady, I’m going to have to be a little more loose about typing and posting. Wish me luck!

Working Title: Falling Forward
1st Sentence: Your standard adrenaline junky races into every new, more dangerous stunt with arms wide and a huge smile.
Favorite Sentence: Jack had charmed her with those puppy dog eyes, took her hands in his, and told her that he couldn’t care less about whether her mother gave her enough love or her father enough attention, but he would be so pleased, just delighted, if she would consider going sky diving?
Word Length: 865

Photo by Dinanna1, July 2008.

Unable to Budge

28 Jul

I just talked about the glories of pushing until you get something new and interesting. I wrote this shorty first thing, looked at it many times through the day, piddled with it for more than an hour tonight. Refused to be anything other than what I originally imagined. Okay. Moving on, then.

Working Title: Bridge
1st Sentence: He finds himself stuck on Memorial Bridge, unable to move his car—forward, backward, out of the damn way.
Favorite Sentence: He can’t move his car because he’s forgotten how.
Word Length: 250

Photo by Steve from Washington, DC, May 2007.

Gutting It Out

27 Jul

I have felt more mentally tired lately, less horrified by the possibility that I could fail this challenge. I have been trying to lightly touch those negative thoughts, then flit away, which is my best understanding of what people say you’re supposed to do when meditating. That advice has never helped me with meditation (it’s just not going to happen for me) but the flitting away is certainly helping with neg-head. Nevertheless, today I was low-energy, and, honestly, seriously bored with the story I started this morning. So I spent the rest of the day revising yesterday’s story and working on the site. I resisted finishing today’s shorty until very late. Then I stared—hard and for a long time—at my three paragraphs, added some lines here and there, re-ordered everything, and then… tripped over a complication that led to a satisfying finish. How the hell did I do that? I swear it seemed to come from all the staring.

Working Title: A Pretty Penny
1st Sentence: They’d started with the penny thing early on, when they were still drunk on each other.
Favorite Sentence: Where he ought to be now, bitching about how his freshmen had butchered Shakespeare particularly well, today, dispatching iambs with frightening efficiency, suffocating rhythm with their flood of um’s and uh’s and the ever popular like’s.
Word Length: 759

Photo credit here.

Too many gaps!

26 Jul

Today I played that classic game of “Wait for the Plumber” or carpenter or cable guy or, in this case, the electrician. Plus given my truly extraordinary laziness when it comes to all things domestic, I had to play that even uglier game, “Clean for the Plumber.” Some of you know what I’m talking about. Because some stranger is coming by to fix the whatever, you look around and your comfy, plush, familiar nest morphs into the dusty, dish-and-crumb-strewn, “just put it somewhere,” embarrassing—no, horrifying—absolute mess that it always was. So not only are you a victim of the plumber or electrician’s mysterious and ever-changing schedule but you have to spend that time you’re trapped at home putting the place in shape for him, and although he doesn’t seem to care about appointments and deadlines, you are very much on the clock. If the plumber sees that crumpled Kleenex under the coffee table or the electrician notices all that hair stuck in your brush—well, I’m sorry to be the one to break the news if you happen to be in the dark on this, but that shit goes on your Permanent Record. All to say that I spent too little time on a shorty that I like and hope to fix in revision, and way too much time cleaning up for the electrician… who never came.

Working Title: Oh, no… Meatloaf!
1st Sentence: Mel took the test three times.
Favorite Sentence: What would enthusiasm look like on that flat face, on that wire-hanger body, in those shades of gray?
Word Length: 2,480

PS, Why “too many gaps”? Because I hand-drafted my shorty in the morning then left it to bedtime to type it in and fill in its few gaps. Except that when I went back to the story I discovered more gaps than I’d remembered and they were much bigger than I’d thought—more like crevasses. Three hours later, finally done  and falling asleep over my computer, I went to bed. And so for the first time since making this site public, I had to back-date a post. I blame the electrician.

Making the Best of It

25 Jul

Best writing advice I ever got: Never do anything half-assed, courtesy of one of my literary and teaching heroes, Michael Martone. Wrote a harmless, trifling shorty this morning, too light to please me. So I tried again. I had just enough time to make a more interesting start on another story idea before running to and from other things, nonstop, for the rest of the day. But when I came back to Effort #2 tonight, nothing more would come. So instead I spent an hour on #1, replacing general references with concrete detail, stripping out repetitive sentences, polishing every phrase. It’s still a harmless trifle that may never see another ray of sunshine but it’s a much prettier trifle, dammit.

Working Title: For His Pancakes
1st Sentence: What she wanted—what she needed—were his pancakes.
Favorite Sentence: And as time went on, as breakfasts piled up, she got used to his passive people-pleasing, his habit of leaving the kitchen looking like the aftermath of the Dresden bombing, his refusal to see movies or attend concerts.
Word Length: 389

Photo by Lazarova.p, August 2009.

Hello Week 13!

24 Jul

Feeling much better today, so enjoy with me my reward for yesterday closing out my 12th week of the Daily Shorty challenge! (Forgive me for tearing into my sweet potato pie before I’ve served yours. You see how delicious it is, how could I resist?) So, wow. 12 weeks. Both amazed and ho-hum. Amazed because I thought 1 week would be tough and 1 month likely impossible. Ho-hum because this challenge has become something I just have to do. Very tough day Sunday, though—I just didn’t want to write a story that day and resisted doing so until late. I’ve had a few tough days before but I was more adolescent about it Sunday. Not looking forward to worse days than that but of course they’re coming. And hopefully more days like today: The shorty came to me quickly, I wrote it with ease, and I like it. Thank you, can I have another?

Working Title: By the Numbers
1st Sentence: He’s not sure when the counting began but he knows it was while he was a child because he has a distinct memory of his mother hurling her usual fury at him in the kitchen—something about a dirty cereal bowl, a ring of milk on the counter—while he fixed his gaze to the ceiling tile.
Favorite Sentence: Their dining room floor is made up of 14 wide, wooden planks, burnished to silky blond-brown, gleaming with varnish—3 coats, he happens to know.
Word Length: 387

Photo by Ernesto Andrade, San Francisco, CA, November 2005

Tiptoeing out of the week….

23 Jul

Feeling sick as I write this so I don’t have the stomach to post a picture of a luscious dessert. If I’m feeling better, I’ll celebrate tomorrow the close of one more week—today makes TWELVE. If I felt better, I’d be amazed. As for today’s shorty, there is nothing wrong with it. Also nothing right. She’s settling into the hard drive as I finish this post. Make a soft place for yourself, my dear, because you won’t be leaving.

Working Title: Her Specialty
1st Sentence: She made a stirred crust in the pie pan, using a fork, then pressed the dough into the dish with her fingers.
Favorite Sentence: She mashed her share of sweet potatoes for granny, floured her share of chicken for the bubbling oil in that old spider skillet, chopped a bale of cabbage for slaw.
Word Length: 508

Tough Day

22 Jul

Working Title: Peasant Loaf
1st Sentence: From 3:00 to 5:00 they could take a bread-making class for couples or play Putt-Putt.
Favorite Sentence: Marion was worried that if they went for the bread—“a rustic, peasant loaf made from heritage grains”—they might be expected to co-knead.
Word Length: 781

A Happy Surprise

21 Jul

Slow in coming this morning. But then it came to me all at once and I trusted it so completely that I spent the entire day working on other things, coming back to the shorty for a more complete drafting only just before bed. So far this challenge has given me faith that I will always have another good story in me—maybe not today or tomorrow but soon. I decided to commit to a year because I really want to know if such a rigorous and disciplined practice will ultimately deplete or feed me. I suspect and hope that each story seeds another. That we can never run out in any case but that we are most full when we spend. Spoken like a woman high on a great writing session. Time will tell.

Working Title: In Tune
1st Sentence: She’d always loved to watch him tune his violin just before a performance.
Favorite Sentence: But she told him she had a feeling, a ripe, purple feeling, like the glistening center of a split plum torn from the pit.
Word Length: 1,040

Photo by Frinck51, May 2004

Back to 7!

20 Jul

I don’t know. Nothing was coming to me and the minutes were ticking away. I thought again about Michael Martone’s Four for a Quarter and how we should try arbitrary forms for stories and so again the number 7 comes flying at me and then… I’m off and running.
.

Working Title: 7 Confusions
1st Sentence: Confusion #1. The big one.
Favorite Sentence: We may never know if a Neanderthal could say, “I had pierced the mastodon with an arrow when I realized that I did not have my hacksaw.”
Word Length: 1,101

Photo by Ökologix, 2007.

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An Easy Short One

19 Jul

I was a child in the 1970’s so I remember very little of it—much more influenced by the 1980’s. But I do carry little snippets—more sense-memories than anything else and an overall feeling about the time. For some reason I woke up this morning with various bits and pieces from the 70’s  running through my mind. Macramé, bell bottoms, paisley. And the sentence, “I can’t argue that the 1970’s was a pretty decade,” a line that I included in the nicely short piece I wrote.

Working Title: He’ll Remember
1st Sentence: We get just one shot so we have to be right.
Favorite Sentence: You leaned into me, buried your head in my neck, and when I bent to kiss you my hair fell over us both like a silk scarf, that long, long hair, almost to my knees.
Word Length: 443

Photo by Saltmiser, November 2007.

Janeites!

18 Jul

Who said that if you make it to the age of 16 you have all the material you’ll ever need? Or was it if you make it to adulthood? Eudora Welty? Flannery O’Connor? I hope she was right. In today’s longish shorty I used detail from a visit to Maine’s Jane Austen Society last fall with my friend LaVerne. We had recently finished reading all Austen novels with our book group and thought it would be a lark. I LOVED it—all the wonderful ladies who talked about Austen’s characters as though they were old girlfriends, the amazing homemade cookies, the group’s mobile library spread out on a huge table so members could freely borrow biographies and studies of the novels, the passionate argument about whether Mansfield Park’s Fanny Price is milquetoast or true heroine. I have been dying to go back but haven’t been able to make any of the (infrequent) events. (It should go without saying that the “favorite sentence” below describes a fictional person being fictionally unpleasant.)

Working Title: Ready To Win
1st Sentence: “Are you ready to win?!”
Favorite Sentence: Pagewright cleared his throat and lowered his glasses to look around the room, then began a ponderous line of fluff about why he particularly appreciated Mansfield Park, one of Jane’s—he called her Jane, his buddy Jane, his good friend Jane, Jane his pal—lesser novels.
Word Length: 2,578

Photo of a watercolor of Jane Austen by sister Cassandra.

One Long Session

17 Jul

I talked about my usual practice yesterday so naturally today I did something completely different. Found myself unusually appointment-free for the day and I knew I wanted to do some site work this evening, so I started on the shorty first thing and worked on it all day, taking occasional short breaks. Done (just) before 5:00 PM! But my every nerve is loaded with today’s shorty and my eyes are completely blurred over from screen-fatigue. It’ll be nice to relax with the husband tonight and maybe that site work can wait….

Working Title: Rent-a-Bot
1st Sentence: Based on your personality profile, the head shot you provided, and the needs articulated for this outing, we have selected three possible companions.
Favorite Sentence: Alexander smiles through it, swallows, wipes his mouth with the napkin, then says, “Take care of this, will you?” and shoves it into Robert’s breast pocket, while leaning over him in a vaguely threatening, did-you-notice-how-tall-I-am way.
Word Length: 2,093

Writing Practice

16 Jul

First things first: A pecan cinnamon roll for me as a congrats for completing Week 11! Yahoo! And now a word to friends who have been asking how I manage my daily writing practice: It’s ideal if I can hit my story 3 times each day. When I first wake up (I write while I’m still in bed), after lunch, and before I go to sleep (again, writing in bed). Often I get only two of those and if I can only have two, I want first thing in the morning and then just before I go to bed. I get ideas best when I first wake up, and I need the distance of a good 14 or 15 hours, if I can have it, to find the entire story. Of course my daily practice would look different if I didn’t have to complete a story each day. But should it? I couldn’t establish a consistent practice before, so how would I know what works?

Working Title: Mr. & Mrs. Potato Head, Innkeepers
1st Sentence: When she was nine, Nita married Mr. and Miss Potato Head, then made them a house.
Favorite Sentence: The Potato Heads met occasionally in the kitchen, by accident—Mr. standing over the sink as he shoveled a bowl of shredded wheat into his mouth, staring out the kitchen window; Mrs. pushing eggs around in a pan, letting them get hard and crumbly while she slipped into a couple of minutes of relative peace that felt something like sleep.
Word Length: 1,578

Photo by Flickr user Lara, March 2009.

Home!

15 Jul

Had to set out early for home, today, so I couldn’t stick with my usual first-thing-in-the-morning shorty session. When I did get home, my air conditioner-free apartment clocked in at 87 degrees, so the husband and I decamped for a very long popcorn movie. When I got home, exhaustion struck and I went down. But then I struck back! And won!

Working Title: Fritos and Fluff Night
1st Sentence: If you are what you eat, she is a bag of Fritos and a jar of Marshmallow Fluff.
Favorite Sentence: She must have bought the shirt at least sixteen years ago, because the right side of the bottom was stretched out long, where Tessa had gripped the fabric in her toddler days, a drooling, laughing, tugging pink accessory with a ribbon in her hair.
Word Length: 642

Photo by Jot Powers, July 2006

Traveling and Daily Shorty Don’t Mix

14 Jul

I left Thursday morning to pick up a friend from the airport so we could head to gorgeous Ogunquit, Maine, for a retreat. So I should have had all the time in the world for my shorties, right? Sadly (and wonderfully)… no. The purpose of the trip was to tackle and subdue a project we have been talking about for some time. We were wildly successful, which should tell you how much time I had to devote to my shorties. The view in the photo here is where my gaze mostly fell in my morning Daily Shorty writing sessions. Fortunately for all, I didn’t take a photo of anything related to my late-night writing sessions, when I hunched into a stack of pillows on the bed, stared at the computer screen, pulled hard at the threads I’d spun that morning…. But here we are, last night of the retreat and another shorty in the bag.

Working Title: Menu Bingo
1st Sentence: “The first day is always really tough,” she said, then popped her gum.
Favorite Sentence: Parents who encouraged the endless I-wants of their picky brats but who couldn’t be bothered to leave a tip; women who tell you to hold the mayo, ask if you have soy cheese, order extra avocado on the side; and the coffee hounds with bladders the size of basketballs and the patience of Henry the VIIIth I am.
Word Length: 779

Photo of Perkins Cove, Ogunquit, Maine, July 2012.

Writing What I Don’t Know

13 Jul

Broke the oft-cited rule to “write what you know.” Better rule: Don’t dismiss what you know. Even better rule: Break rules.

Working Title: Hooligans
1st Sentence: The twins hovered at the lake edge, their hands scrabbling in the grass.
Favorite Sentence: The little fingers opened and in her lap landed a pulpy frog, a tiny thing, its breath pushed from the broken belly by an oblivious Terrible Two.
Word Length: 924

An ancient, oft-told tale… told once again.

12 Jul

Working Title: Wishcraft
1st Sentence: Just like in all the stories, I wasted the first wish.
Favorite Sentence: Weeks and weeks of that best-boy shit, plus all the extra hours I can take and old Hank couldn’t hump it right now if it crawled right up under him and wrapped its legs around his waist.
Word Length: 1,285

Photo by Vicki Nunn, November 2010.

Today an Easy One

11 Jul

I love it when I can answer a frustrating, pulling-teeth day with a purely joyful writing session the next day. It’s like following a bogey with a birdie without all that walking around in cleats and Johnny Miller analyzing every yip, every tremble. He’s a pro, Johnny, he knows why he missed the putt. Today a gift from the writing gods. Not at all sure about the ending but that’s a concern for revision. Until tomorrow!

Working Title: Old Polish Saying
1st Sentence: At least your foot’s not a banana.
Favorite Sentence: Now he stares at his lovely wife, his ripe, sexy wife, with her pouty mouth and nervous energy, she of the delicate hands—hands so light they could be made of lace, hands so soft they whispered, hands like white butterflies, fingers like whiskers, like fine threads—and the incongruous, barrel-chested, cigarette-cured, stevedore laugh.
Word Length: 583

Photo here.

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