Wage Theft At Sea (a friday flash 55)

Snake climbed the ratline and glassed the ocean. He wouldn't be free until his bond was paid, but asylum in Cuba awaited if he could escape the capitalists and their dangerous shortcuts. He cut the anchor rope and waited. The island’s bluff rose from out of the sea, and he silently slipped into the ocean.


The above flash fiction is 55 words for the G-Man.

TGIF and hello, Havana!

The Me In Me

This week's poetry prompt from Willow Manor is Degas' "Woman With A Towel".

Woman With A Towel, 1898, Edgar Degas

This morning she discovered herself in the mirror
and lost her religion.
She looked at me in the beveled glass of her hand mirror
with the mother-of-pearl inlay
and it was good.

Have a clean heart, said the church billboard.
Take care of yourself and love me, I say.
The preacher preached from the pulpit
with arms asunder.
The Lord said a woman shall not
take a scissors to her hair!
So she looked it up.
The tool was manufactured in 1760.

The woman in me is not a dupe.
Her vulva is a pearl and her heart is sound.
It beat under the ultrasound
like a trooper in heat.

She cut off the bracelets, but she won’t stop there.
She cut off a hank because they told her she couldn't.
She cut off the rest and readied the bath.


You can go here to find more links to the prompt. Thank you for coming here. Degas is a personal favorite. Happy Poetry Month!

The Rental (Fri.Flash 55 )

They took the house before they saw
the stones hanging from the trees,

the fire pit and the stick formations

and the window that wouldn’t open

and the one that wouldn’t shut

and the frogs that came in

and the path in the woods that led on

and on.

And the woods.

And the woods.

Just a little story for the G-Man. TGIF!

The Owl and the Compass (Flash 55)

With bloodied hands and twilight gathering, he lost himself on a road without name. Gnarled roots of ancient hemlock clogged the ditch like Gretel’s wood, and the dashboard compass spun like a weather vane. A shadow separated itself from the spinning dial and buried itself in his neck.  An owl watched from above and blinked.


The above is flash fiction in fifty-five words for the G-Man. Visit his site for more Flash 55's, and if you write one, let him know.

TGIF and Good Friday to you all.

Happy Easter.

Dust It Off and Send It In

There's a feature in Poets and Writers called "Ask An Agent" wherein they pose questions to some of the best literary agents in the business. I've seen a lot of my questions answered in this forum, especially in regards to the all-important query letter.

Do you write short stories? There's a great contest at Narrative you might want to check out, but you only have until the end of the month. Ploughshares is also taking submissions for their Emerging Writer's Contest until April 1st. Write in the winter, submit in the spring, eavesdrop in the summer (and take notes), and travel in the fall. (The kids are back in school and the tourists are gone.)

Wouldn't it be nice to stick to that routine? Well, if you have a short story you never quite finished, dust it off, wrap it up, and send it in. Listen in on the world around you and write it down.

Seems March is going out in these parts the same way she came in-like Old Man Winter with a toothache, a bad attitude, and an ingrown toenail.

The Demon Query

When you begin to query agents, it’s much like starting your own seedlings.  Some seeds sprout quickly, like kale (four days!) and some are slow and can take two weeks or more, like onions and parsley. Some are finicky and require perfect conditions, like peppers. 

I worry about my seeds almost as much as I worry about my query letter. I check them daily. There's so much to worry about. Did I use the right medium? It there enough light? Heat? Water? There are mistakes, like dropping a flat of newly planted basil seeds upside down on the floor. Will they ever recover and find their way up to the light?  When the fragile shoots first break the surface, you feel a joyous delirium. Your time and effort has been rewarded. To see the spindly stalks grow and develop their first set of true leaves is like developing your manuscript to a publishable level.

You don’t think you’re every ready to query. You wonder if you’ve done enough agent research. Does your hook hook? Will they like the premise or hate it?  Is your protagonist unlikeable? Your finger hovers over the send button.You pull it back and breathe. How could anyone not like him? Your finger finds the send button. You do it.

Then there is the glaring error you discover after you’ve sent out your first round of queries. You played with your first essential five pages, because you can't leave them alone. You fooled around with the first page and changed a phrase. Then changed it back because it was really, really stupid. But you forgot to save the correction. You sent the really, really stupid first page. You go to bed, happy, not knowing how stupid you are.

You awake and drink coffee and go to your other job, knowing you'll soon be a full time writer. You come home and open your documents, check email and drink something. You open up your sent folder and browse your amazing query and your agent-grabbing first pages and you see what you’ve done. The all-time most stupid phrase is right there on page one. You lean over your screen like a surgeon over the operating table. You can't believe what you see. Now what? Should you send a quick apology and explanation to the dream agent? Should you leave it alone and think they won’t notice the all-time most stupid phrase on a first page ever? 

You send the follow-up email. You kick yourself and go to bed. In the morning you soak parsley seeds in warm water. You turn on the computer and you wait.

The Campfire People (A Fri. Flash 55)

The buzz of the chainsaw
interrupts her bird watching.
They cut down the woods
so they’d have a meadow.
They build fires at night and
move trees by day,
plopped here and there so prettily.
Buildings she never wanted to see
emerge through the trees.
They invite her to their campfire.
They built a meadow.


The above is 55 words for the G-Man's Friday excercise.  If you write one you should let him know so we can all read it. The sun is shining, the snow is melting off the sunny side of the porch, my basil on the windowsill has germinated, and the puppy is eating my socks and chewing on my electric cords.  Life is full.

TGIF!!

Next Big Thing

Tricia O'Brien, who blogs at Talespinning has tagged me for the Next Big Thing blog hop. Tricia is currently working on a dark fairy tale, PRINCESS CHARMING: A DIFFERENT KNIGHT’S TALE and shares a snippet of the story in her interview. I was delighted she asked me to share some details of what I’m currently working on, so without further ado,  here are my answers to the Next Big Thing.

What is your working title of your next novel? BLACK RIVER

Where did the idea come from for this novel? I can’t answer that question, because I’m not sure. I was sitting on the couch one night with my laptop and started writing about this guy who sets out across a wintering field to see what the vultures circling overhead are after. And then...things started happening. I think it came to fruition partly because of a secret desire I had to write a loose sequel to my first novel.

What genre does it fall under? I see it as a crossover between literary, commercial and contemporary NA.

Which actors would you choose to play the part of your characters in a movie rendition? I hate to hitch up the horse when I don’t have a cart to sit in, but that said….my female protagonist should be played by a gutsy Girl-With-The-Dragon-Tattoo type, (minus the tattoos and the piercings) and the male protagonist would best be portrayed by Ben Affleck with Argo hair or someone like that guy who led his gang safely back to Coney Island in The Warriors.  

What is the one-sentence synopsis of your novel? The comfortable life of the son of a landed fourth-generation farmer collides with that of the daughter of an itinerant migrant worker with a troubled past.

Will your book be self-published or represented by an agency? I hope to be represented but I have not yet queried. This has actually been a good exercise for me in preparing to do so.

How long did it take you to write the first draft of the manuscript? The first draft took me five months to write.

What other books would you compare this story to within your genre? That’s hard since this novel is a crossover. I’ve been told by some that my writing reminds them of Jodi Picoult. Personally (don’t think me pretentious), I see this novel as a blend of Picoult, Scott Spencer, and Andre DuBus with a bit of the grit in All The Pretty Horses, and I hope it appeals to those readers who like those books.

Who or what inspired you to write this book? The earth under my feet, the world around me, and the climate change that threatens to overtake us and bury us.

What else about your book might pique the reader's interest? The characters wrestle with some of the most contentious social issues of our day while dealing with a small matter of murder, cover-up, and police malfeasance and then there is the forbidden love that the main character treks through the Canadian woods across thin ice in a warming world to claim.

And since Tricia shared a snippet, here’s one from BLACK RIVER: He’d never been cut with a knife before, and he wondered why his father hadn’t warned him about the aftermath of that, the crushing humiliation of having one’s mortality laid open for all to see.

As per the rules of being tagged, I hereby tag the following authors to share their next big thing.  J.B. Chicoine, Anne Gallagher, Deborah Lawrenson,  Stina Lindenblatt, and Liza Salerno.  Deborah has already done this here  but has agreed to post an update.

I can’t wait to see what these talented writers are currently working on.

A Bad Girl

Venus de Milo with Drawers, 1936, Salvador Dali

At the age of twelve
I was instructed to wash my hands
when I got up in case
I'd touched myself in my sleep.

Curious at what I should be doing
but wasn't doing
I touched myself
here, here, and here.

Nobody else knows what they did
with my arms
but I can't touch myself
anymore.



The writing prompt comes to us from Magpie Tales,

A blog dedicated to writers and poets for the purpose of honing their craft. I hope you enjoyed my Magpie Tale. The Venus de Milo has always mystified me.

Better Than Jumping Off A Bridge (FF55)

Her albums are arranged
in alphabetical order facing left.
The silver is polished
with serrated edges pointing right.
Bottles in the rack are arranged
with the labels facing up.
Her life is a pattern pinned to the fabric
so as not to waste an inch,
edges cut with a pinking shears
so they won’t unravel.


It's fictional Friday and time to tell a story in 55 words. Check out the G-Man for links to more of the same, or better yet... post one of your own and let Mr. Knowitall alias G-Man know.

TGIF

Magpie Dreams

Wind of History by Jacek Yerka

My recurring dream of water
sloshing in the wheel wells
on a drive along the crumbling beach
forested wtih trees which would never be
to swim without a suit like a hedonist
in waves crashing over the breakwater
 
gave way to a fork in the road
and a house of many rooms
waiting to be refurbished,
like an antique in need of buffing,
a loving hand to awaken the patina of wood
harvested from the property
and you under the covers in a room with a dormer.

If dreams are to be minded,
I will die of drowning and you and I
will never lie under the covers in the bedroom
on the property of a dream.

The image comes to us from Magpie Tales.  Follow the link to join the Mag Creative Writing Group and read other poems and vignettes using the Wind Of History for inspiration.
 

How To Make Mary Stay

Mary will stay
for days and days

if we pour boiling water
on her head

and strip her naked
like a dead thing with no privacy
in the cemetery of the living.

Mary comes but never stays

breezes in and bakes brie soufflé,
polishes the floor then off she goes

because Mary can never stay.

This is fifty-five words for the G-Man's Friday Flash 55. He prefers it be fiction, but it doesn't have to be, but he will rap your knuckles if you don't have exactly fifty-five. If you have a story you can tell in such a succinct fashion, you'd best let the big guy know. Enter his fold; he won't let you go.

TGIF!!

Arrest Me! New Agent On A Rampage & Eros Sleeping

It seems that some notable authors are willing to be arrested for a cause. Citizen involvment is alive and well, and who better to lead the charge than poets and writers?  There are more causes to stand up for these days than books to be read.

In other news, Ethan Vaughan, who did a reader's report for me some time ago and has recently been promoted from intern to agent at Kimberly Cameron and Associates has made himself available for private editing, a task for which he comes highly recommended. Check out his blog here to see testimonials and get further information.

This morning there is a warning here from Jessica Bell in regards to CreateSpace. It appears there is no end to the trouble we face. Can one never let their guard down?

I leave you with this image from the Metropolitan Museum of Art. There is something very moving and sensual about the sleeping Eros who has been out all day shooting arrows and now rests.

Happy Valentine's Day.

A Novel Should Break Your Heart

The only story that seems worth writing is a cry, a shot, a scream. A story should break the reader’s heart. – Susan Sontag 1933-2004

I’ve often wondered if I could write such a story. I have a hate/love relationship with sad endings. Should I challenge myself to write one? Would it make a masterpiece out of a cheesy, happily-ever-after? Have you written a story that Sontag would approve of? One that breaks your heart?

 As writers, should we be purveyors of escape at the end of the day?  Dealing out lighthearted romps, whodonits with neat endings, and happily-ever-afters, floating comfortably above controversy and reality? Or should we be shining a light into the dark corners of human existence and misfortune? There is no harder profession than writing and no higher calling than to tell the truth as we see it. But what is truth and do people want to read it? I don't want or even expect a happy ending, but I want a satisfying one.

Atonement (remember that one?) broke my heart. (I hated it!) Cormac McCarthy breaks my heart every time, yet I return to his stories again and again. I’m a glutton for tragedy, so why can’t I write one?  I fear it’s a flaw, the sign of an immature writer. And while it’s true, that I hate novels with sad endings, those are the ones that stick with me, the ones I can’t forget. So I wonder…do I have it in me to write the only story that seems worth writing? I fear it would break my heart.

The Dance (Fri.Flash 55)

Daddy taught me how to dance

how to step and how to follow

how to twirl like a top,

knowing he would find me. 

I collect the scattered coin

from off the floor and search

for the hearing aid remote

that gets lost

like the cane and the thoughts

and the steps for the dance.

 

 

This is 55 words for the G-Man's Friday Flash 55.

 

TGIF and may you always have someone to dance with.

Mud Angels

"I was twenty-nine years old when the Arno flooded its banks on Friday 4 November 1966." Thus begins the novel, "Sixteen Pleasures" by Robert Hellenga. It takes place in flood-ravaged Florence and sweeps you through frescoed chapels, museums, bookstores, and, finally, to the waterlogged library of a  Carmelite convent where the heroine discovers a priceless Renaissance volume of sixteen erotic poems and drawings, and we are immersed in the painstakingly delicate work of a book conservator.

They say that there are no new subjects to write about, only different ways to tell the story. Hellangra proves this to be untrue. At least I have never read anything like this before, a story that centers around the craft of book restoration while giving us a glimpse of the Renaissance and taking us on a delightful foray into the pleasure of erotica and human sexuality (our conservator is inspired to sample each of the sixteen) with an intriguing look at monastic life, all the while holding forth the recurring theme of home. "Home is the place where when you have to go there, they have to take you in."

I adored this novel and highly recommend it. It's one of those exquisite books that will stay with you long after you've closed the cover and turned off the light, satisfied.

One final thing: Robert Frost died fifty years ago yesterday. Master of the metaphor, he was admired then and now for his depictions of rural life. He was ambiguous in his writing and didn't answer the questions for you. "A poet lays out a metaphor and let you wrestle with it." That was Robert Frost.  He deserves his own post, but because of time constraints (I really am trying to ready my manuscript at long last for querying), I'll leave you with a few lines from my favorite Frost poem.

The woods are lovely, dark, and deep,
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.

The First Time (Friday Flash 55)

She bent over him, and her breath was warm and sweet as summer. He bit down on the back of his hand to stifle a moan.

It was late when he left. The moon had set and the sky pulsed with stars. The Big Dipper lined the edge of the world and the world was still. 

 

This is 55 words for the G-Man's Friday Flash 55.

Keep warm and TGIF!

The Mole - Magpie Tales

 

In training for the veil,

she nails the claustrophobia

but mourns the loss of her peripheral

vision, the dance classes and the wind

in her hair. She sips life through a straw

like one trapped under ice and practices

the art of being servile. They say she is lucky

to be one of but three to share his house.

She should have married Jesus

while she had the chance and slept alone.

She peers through her nose hole

and imagines life in a bell jar, contained.

 

 

 

Image comes to us from Tess at Magpie Tales, a blog to nourish the muse, one dedicated to the enjoyment of poets and writers, but I take responsibility for the rest. Tess's poem can be found here.

 

The Gun - (friday flash 55)

He rages against the government

and hits himself in the face

with his nervous tick.

He teaches a class for concealed weapons

and lobbies hard for open carry.

Broken capillary nose of an alcoholic

with the wide-set eyes of a madman,

he smacks himself in the face,

ogles the girls

and fears for his guns.

These days it seems the madmen are closing in. Thank goodness for an online community of writers that is healthy and diverse. Tell us a story in fifty-five words, and let the G-Man know, or just visit him for links to lots of little fifty-fivers by some very talented players.

In the meantime...

TGIF

Friday Flash 55 - The Knife Sharpening Man

was comin’ around,

so we hid in the closet

and shuttered the lights.

But he rapped-a-tat-tat

with his knives all-a-silver

and peered over the sill

with a smile like a sword.

It wasn’t a dream,

wasn’t a trance.

Next morning a trail

from the club foot he favored

dirtied the snow round windows and doors.

 

Let's start the New Year off right. Tell us a story in exactly 55  words and then let the G-Man know.  He also has your horoscope for 2013, so check it out. You can click here if you want a little history behind the Flash 55.

And now for a little history behind my flash 55. As stories go around these parts, along with the Watkins Man who delivered extracts and liniments there was a knife sharpening man who came around every few weeks in an old truck with a bell. He had a wheel in the back of his truck he pedaled with his foot, much like a sewing machine, and he would sharpen knives and scissors in a flash for a pittance.
 

As children are wont to do, my older sisters contrived stories around the knife sharpening man, all of them sinister and disturbing to the young child’s mind. Hence the seed for my Flash 55, much embellished, of course. I’m sure that the poor man was only delivering a much appreciated service and not peering in windows.

TGIF