Rubik

I have a confession to make.  I've been largely avoiding my novel since I finished the first draft two months ago.  I've been hiding from one particular monster of a writing challenge.  I call this monster Rubik.

It's like this.  In the first draft, I managed to introduce a beautifully complex problem.  Unfortunately, I couldn't figure out how to satisfactorily solve the problem I invented.

Novels are like Rubik's Cubes.  You don't get points for mixing up the colors.

The ending I did write is utterly lame and tantamount to peeling the colored stickers off and trying to restick them on the right sides.  It won't fool anyone, and it has to be scrapped.

So this is my goal for February: Find a good solution to the problem, or revise the problem into one I can solve.

The Space Between

This is my entry into The Clarity of Night "Silhouette" Short Fiction Contest.  Entries were to be based on this photo, and there was a 250 word limit.  I'm reposting it here simply to have it handy for my own reference.

The Space Between

Two of us were lunching at a sidewalk cafe, just bitching about our boss, when a pigeon fell from the clouds. Plop, right next to our laptop bags.


Plop. Plop plop plop-plop-ploploplop.

Now we could see the sky was a wrong-colored pall, settling.

Millions shrieked and scattered. Every being above ground succumbed within minutes, but hundreds of thousands poured into the cavities below. To escape the gas, we gushed through the subways and sewers. To escape the crowds, we flowed through unmarked doors, down unlit stairwells, and seeped through hatches into yet more secret places.

Finally there was only a crawlspace, a black horizontal crevice between the concrete city and the damp earth, wider than we could perceive but barely two feet high. Perhaps a few hundred of us oozed quietly through it, distributing like cells smeared on a microscope slide. No one spoke or cried here; there were only grunts and stifled squeaks as bloodied fingers and knees met the dry crunch of former tenants.

When I collapsed onto my back at last, his hand groped my arm. He whispered my name. “How long do you think we have?”

I felt for his hair, and said into his ear, “less than an hour.”

I’d never touched him before.

“Does your phone work?”
“No. Yours?”
“No.”

We’d never be with our own families again. That life was already over. These minutes were something else.

I held his face against mine as he reached under my shirt.

Working

Not much to say.  Working furiously to get a few more Koala Points.

The Cure

I'm no longer broken.  The day after I complained about not having finished reading a novel in ages, I started one, and just finished it, and will start reading the sequel shortly.

The Hunger Games
by Suzanne Collins

If you haven't read it, go do so now.  Yes, it's YA.  Yes, the narrator is a sixteen-year-old girl.  But I don't care who you are, this is a great book.

Rabbit Hole Day

I had the most fantastic day!

My husband sat down with me this morning while I was painting my toenails.

"Honey," he said, "I'm sorry, but I just don't believe you.  You're an established night owl.  You oversleep every morning and you're always late.  Right now you should be sprinting through the place throwing on mismatched clothes and taking off without your phone."

“Awww,” I intoned.  “You’re just the bestest husband ever!” I exclaimed.  “I can’t wait to go to bed tonight...”  I breathed.

He grimaced and shook his head.  “Honey, that is really distracting.  Just say it, OK, dear?”

At my usual lunch place I ordered a heavenly soft, buttery cloud of an orange muffin stuffed with bursting juice-jewel cranberries.

Stu-the-Cashier smiled down at me and said, "Dial it back, kid.

“Also,” he said, “you know your hair doesn't need to be so tediously shiny and thick and silky and flowing.  Lustrous would be just fine."

I thanked him until he shooed me on my way.

At work my boss called me in to his office.  He asked me to close the door behind him.

"So Kate, we need to discuss a few items.  For starters, I understand you're expecting a promotion."

"Yes sir, I believe we'd all be best served if you make me the surprise choice to head up the MacGuffin Project.  It would inspire my friends to rally 'round me, and my rivals to hatch insidious plans to humiliate me.  They would go a little too far and inadvertently create a massive crisis that would require me to set aside my personal demons and save the world."

"I see,” he said.  “The problem is that you started here as the plucky temp who caused a brown-out attempting to operate the coffee maker.  According to my records, that was... Monday."  He pressed his fingertips together and frowned.  "You see the problem, Kate.”

Then he cleared his throat.  "And that brings me to the second item," he continued.  "For four hours yesterday your name was Stephanie."

I tell you, I’m just so lucky to have these people!

Tomorrow is Rabbit Hole Day

Look for a special fiction post here tomorrow in honor of Rabbit Hole Day.

I'll post links to other writers' Rabbit Hole posts as I come across them.  I invite you to link to your own in the comments.

I Seem to be Broken

Something very odd is happening -- disturbing, even.

I haven't finished a novel in three or four months.

Even worse, the last one I did finish was... Twilight.

I was reading it as a break from Gravity's Rainbow, which I never did finish.

I used to average a novel or two per week, and now I can't seem to relax into a novel at all.  Believe me, I've tried.  I have a stack of great books by authors I love, all with bookmarks less than fifty pages in.

I really don't know what happened.  I suppose it *might* have something to do with negligible free/alone time and that being interrupted every three seconds.  Or it might have something to do with taking up writing seriously and the way I feel guilty when I'm not working on it.

But now I think I'm starting to feel some negative effects of novellessness.  I'm having trouble single-tasking on anything except writing, as if my brain is rewiring.  Maybe reading novels is actually a useful mental practice after all, like yoga.

Well, I hereby give myself permission to read one novel per month even at the expense of other chores.  Let's see if that helps.

Is it Sping Yet?

It's been positively springy here in North Texas this week, but then Texas does like to tease me.  Nonetheless, the calendar says it's almost my favorite time of year: gardening time!  Here's a peek at the entrance to my back garden taken last spring on my iPhone.

Is it Just Me?

So, I told you a while back that I got myself a new desk.  One I'm not sharing with anyone.  One that's always ready for me and whatever I want to do.  I'm pleased to report I'm enjoying the heck out of it.

However, it has not made me thinner, taller, more beautiful, or a best-selling author.  Clearly, I didn't spend enough money on it.

But I digress.  The great thing about my desk is that it is in the corner, facing the room.  As a matter of fact, this is a requirement for me.  I cannot work at a desk facing a wall.  I have never been able to sit with my back to a door either.  I never once did homework at the desk in my bedroom growing up, and although I didn't realize it at the time, it's because that desk was always in the only place it would fit: against the wall opposite the door.

I could go on and on about atavistic/paranoid psychologies involved here, but let's just take them as self-evident.  I simply want to know: anybody else?

Of Pins, Needles, and Porcelain

Sorry for the relative quiet, folks.  As mentioned, I entered that Clarity of Night contest.  Well, with privilege comes responsibility - I felt obligated to read every entry and vote in the Reader's Choice Poll.  This took a wee bit more time than expected.  Commenting on every entry was simply not possible.  Results are to be announced tomorrow.  Best of luck to all the entrants!

Also, we've had some kind of vomit plague roll through our house.  It's mostly passed now, and I'll spare you the details.  I just mention it because I HATE HATE HATE puking.  Seriously.  Seriously.