Aging?????? Who, Me?

It was a terrifying, wake up in the middle of the night sweating conclusion that brought me back to this dusty, underused blog (and I am very sorry for my absence).

I only have one more year left to utilize this blog without being a dirty liar (and losing some of my marketing appeal). Because in a month and one day, I'll be nineteen.

NINETEEN.

I have one more year left to claim that I am in any way, shape, or form a teenager. (Although this has gotten considerably more difficult now that I am of legal age.)

I think it is typical of most young people, from this decade or from decades past, to think we have endless amounts of time ahead of us. Immortal, ageless, blah blah blah. Truthfully, I never thought I would be one of those young people. Despite being young, I generally have a pretty solid conception of time, death, and inevitable aging, which makes me the life of any party.

Somehow, probably because I associate being a teenager with being lazy, selfish, and eating things that are very bad for you, I never thought I would not be a teenager some day. I would live forever as a teenager.

I would ride as a teenager, and I would die as a teenager.

Well, that brings me flying back here, because I will not die as a teenager and more than likely, this year will be over even quicker than the last. So I better make the most of this blog while I still can.

I will be updating with my plans for my writing this summer as soon as I get out of work and my fingers thaw from the air conditioning.

(Don't expect me to ever grow out of being lazy, selfish, or addicted to junk food.)

Humbly yours,

Abby

A Problem Emerges

Guess what?

If you guessed, "Abby has officially gone off the deep end," you would be partially correct. If you guessed, "Abby has downloaded more MMORPGs than are humanely possible to play," you would be completely correct. If you guessed, "Abby is right now wearing a red Motion City t-shirt and playing Pixel People," I'm calling the police.

Anyway.

I made another blog!

Don't worry, it's not going to replace this one. This is not my midlife-crisis of blogging (I already had that, anyway). When I'm being generous, I like to think that The Litterateur's Journal is either something to put on a writing resume or at least a good way to practice writing semi-polished material on a regular basis. When I'm not being generous, it might be a midlife-crisis. But we're all allowed those, okay?

Old people these days. Sheesh. Glad I'm still 53 and young.

I digress. Anyway, this new blog is supposed to be "professional," which means I don't post pictures and instead I talk about stuff that no one really cares about and posit my opinion all over the place*. There's no cute asterisk'd asides, either. Honestly, who would want to read that?

Despite it's myriad faults, I hope that the blog will get even a fraction of success, simply because I'm going to try to commit really hard to it. We'll see what happens. Right now I have to log onto one of my many MMORPGs so I can grind dungeons on my level 28 Kali.

See ya nerds.

Warmest nerdy regards,

Abby

*That sounds dirty.

Introverts and Irish Literature

The closer college looms in the fall and the more I am forced to think about leaving this comfortable, known life, the sweeter the siren song of escape seems. And maybe that's why, instead of picking up my next-in-the-line The Exorcist, I wanted to read The Granta Book of the Irish Short Story. It's a compilation of prominent short stories by Irish authors, put together by Anne Enright, and it's the first thing I picked up when I learned I'd be living in a triple this year.

Now, in case you hadn't surmised by my gaming and writing predilections, along with the fact that I still run a regular blog in the age of Tumblr (tried it, sucked up my whole life and wasn't even as fun as gaming), I'm not an especially social person. That's not to say I'm some kind of Emily Dickinson misanthrope who actively runs away from people; in fact, I like to think that I have quite the average amount of friends and I usually love to hang out with them.

What I mean is that I get tired of people quicker than the average extrovert. To avoid making this post a really long explanation of my personality, I like this definition of an introvert (though I don't really get what the 'gifted population' is supposed to be about- ignore that).

That's why college is so scary to me. I'm going to have to be around people- not even people I already like, though I'm sure I'll make friends- 24/7. I was really hoping I would get a single, but I resigned myself to the freshman double- and now I find out it's actually a triple.

I'm sure I'll cope, my introversion has never seriously hindered my life before, and the roommate I have met seems nice enough. I've already made a few friends from orientation and the Facebook group. But it is sure to be a drastic change from my quiet, only-child life. I will likely hide in my computer or in books when I need to be alone, and I can only hope that the people I meet respect that decision (if not, I have a friend with a huge single who has offered their figurative couch).

And if I really get lonely (not usually a problem for me), I'll always have this blog to rant to, especially since I always express myself clearer and easier through the written word.

Quietly yours,

Abby

The Immature Mind

Suffice to say, I am no closer today to finishing a novel than I was the last time I posted, which was an embarrassingly long time ago.

Honestly, I've already called to attention a couple factors in my decision not to commit myself to Camp NaNo this year, and yes, they are mostly excuses. But upon thinking further about why I really was so loathe to finish this novel, there was one recurring obstruction: I had no idea where I was going with it.

You see, the whole premise that I started off with, I discarded around the second week of NaNo. That's healthy, I was told; explore! However, I never picked a replacement premise. I dabbled around in 90+ pages with several different ones. The 90+ pages I have are winding, aimless, and mostly drabble.

That's not to say that I wrote 90+ pages in November of flowery imagery. What I have for this novel is heading (meandering) in some direction, but it's not the direction I want it to go in, and because I have written myself into a very deep hole, it will be incredibly hard to guide it in the right one.

Here's where I make another excuse for not finishing this novel (at least, right now): I set about practicing the wrong thing. NaNo is all about no holds barred, quick and dirty writing without a plan (or at least it was for me). I thought my problem was getting rid of my inner editor. Wrong!

NaNo helped in a sense, when I had to get up every day and write or face consequences, and for that reason I will still endeavor to participate in the coming years*. It is still immeasurably useful in teaching the importance of carving out a chunk of time every single day and writing.

But what I don't need to practice is heedless writing. I don't need to practice writing without a plan or a purpose for the sake of getting words on a paper. I am a wholehearted advocate of that if you are new to writing, or are writing for fun, etc. I, however, plan on being a professional author. I take that plan extremely seriously, and, let's face it: writing as a hobby and writing as a profession are incredibly different worlds.

What I need to learn is technique- not writing technique, but noveling technique. NaNo is about honing the art of writing, but I need to start learning the art of putting my writing into a cohesive being. I need to learn about pacing, about planning out acts and scenes; I need to hone the skill of ratcheting up tension at just the right moment; I need to learn how to keep a theme running like an undercurrent throughout the novel, tying everything together.

How am I going to do this?

I'm going to read.

And then I am going to write.

As an exercise, and because I still do want to spend most of my summer hanging out with my friends, I will return to my previous habit of reading everything I can get my hands on. Then, when college starts in the fall**, I will apply my newly-formed skills of time management and self-reliance, and start writing every. Single. Day.

Whether that will be towards a novel or just random short stories or projects, I've yet to determine (after all, I've also got to keep a 3.8 to get into the honors college), but as long as I can teach myself the habit of writing every day without an incentive like NaNo, I'll have one more valuable skill to launch myself into the world of authordom.

Sorry for the long post***. In other news, I have finished Broken Verses, Catch-22, and Ocean at the End of the Lane. I am currently reading World War Z. As a reminder, this is all on my Goodreads.

Carpal-tunnel-syndrome-y yours,

Abby

*Also, it's tons of fun, and I have a great dream of, one day, making it to the Night of Writing Dangerously.
** After giving myself a grace period to get used to it, because holy shit, college is terrifying.
***Not that anyone's reading. /disgruntled blog owner

Missed by a Mile

It is currently 3 AM and it is giving me a massive headache to follow the progress of words on this line because for the last hour I have been merely zoning out and waiting for the messages of my friends so I could brainlessly reply.

Productivity!

I am updating because I said I would update on Thursdays. Technically, it is now Friday, but fuck the system, etc.

It was the Fourth of July yesterday and therefore I take vacation leave and excuse my absence of posting in the last three hours.

I have not gotten past my mental block. Instead, I hung out with friends until midnight, whereupon I came back home and hung out with friends online until approximately ten minutes ago, when I felt sufficiently shamed enough to come back and post something- even if the quality of that post is appallingly sub-par.

So I apologize that the trek of my July novel-writing course is uninteresting so far, but to be fair I don't believe there is anyone around on this blog to be bored.

On the upside, though, my reading has definitely increased. Even if I get no writing done for Camp NaNo (and no, I have not given up yet and I will still try to force creative juice from my dry fingers- ew metaphor) I will at least endeavor to keep up with my 52 book promise and read a book a week, which gives me until Sunday to finish Broken Verses by Kamila Shamsie. It's entertainingly witty and well-written so far and I am enjoying myself immensely, even if it makes for poor blogging.

Next week, it's finishing off Catch-22 for the second time and then off to the library.

Thoroughly quotidian post, especially for three in the morning.

Apologetically yours,

Abby

Race Against Time?

Yes, this is Abby, reporting live from a home she has never appreciated so much with a headache that was probably caused by exhaustion but exacerbated by Skittles, and I have not written a single word for Camp NaNoWriMo yet*.

I could blame this on laziness or lack of inspiration, but it's actually due to terror. You see, I had college orientation yesterday and the day before. And I was not impressed.

I won't go into the gory details because it was mostly just a lot of presentations and icebreaking games and things like that, but I can tell you that I was nervous before the orientation about leaving for college and now I'm petrified. It is such a different atmosphere from my small, diverse high school. It was loud and full of people that weren't as openminded or easy to talk as I'd hoped and the independence they threw at you- from paying off your interest on your loans, to picking your schedule for the next FOUR YEARS, to filling out a work employment form- was difficult to take in.

Also, they don't offer Latin. And the beds were akin to mortician's slabs. And the dorms had no air conditioning. And they've refused to place me in a residence hall so far

Whining aside, I did make a few new friends and the English department actually seemed both really capable and inclusive, which gave me hope for the coming years. Mostly, though, it has sent me in a tailspin of a rather harmful variety.

Because it now seems like at the end of the summer there is a giant monster waiting to devour me with loneliness and anxiety, I can't find the heart to ignore my friends and get into a positive writing mood. Instead, I want to plan every second of the rest of my summer with my boyfriend and my best friends that I will all be leaving behind, since no one I know is attending my school with me.

I know I will have to shake this mindset for both the well-being of my writing and also myself, but it's way easier said than done.

Hopefully I will get a couple hundred words in before bed.

Anxiously yours,

Abby


*Tomorrow doesn't look great either. Hey, it's Independence Day!

Blobby Little Jellyfish

Well, I forgot already.

Turns out YESTERDAY was Thursday, and even though I spent the whole day at home playing Fallout and shortening my lifespan via Skittles intake, I didn't write a blog post like I just said I would.

Awkwaaaard.

I'm going to blame this, however, on the giant time black hole that is summer: where you think it might be sometime in the middle of June or possibly a couple weeks into July but really the only thing you know for certain is that it's the hot-time where the air is muggy and being without air conditioners makes you want to throw yourself into the middle of the raging thunderstorms that hit every afternoon.

I think we all have that sensation when our life suddenly loses structure and you go from waking up at the same time every morning before dawn to go to an institution of learning to waking up before dinner or maybe not at all*. It becomes immensely hard to keep track of days and weeks when there really isn't a reason to.

And while the part of me that is never quite caught up on sleep during the school year rejoices in the ability to sleep for sixteen hours without judgement, most of the time it's just sort of like being a blobby little jellyfish** in the ocean, adrift without meaning and powerless against the current of time spent playing mindless video games for hours on end***. Occasionally I look up through the water and realize that lazing around is really just time lost.

That's another added benefit of Camp NaNo. While I certainly won't just be writing all day (maybe I'll be productive, maybe I'll just play League), at least NaNo will give purpose to a whole chunk of time that would probably otherwise be wasted. While I will probably sleep way past a reasonable hour and stay up late enough that the owl hooting outside begins to sound like the harbinger of death, NaNo will make me keep track of the days as I frantically work to complete my 35,000 words before the clock strikes midnight on July 27th (I'm leaving on vacation).

So next Tuesday I will be coming home from my college orientation that I leave for on Sunday, and then the real fun begins. I'll probably quickly update you on the ~college experience~ before remembering that I'm already two days behind and freaking out.

Cheers!

Nervously yours,

Abby

*Just me?
**Just became the title of this blog post. Boom. That's how writing works, people.
***Do you think jellyfish play videogames?

Quick-- A Distraction

You know how time flies when you're having fun? Well, time rockets past like a first-time driver with a lead foot when you're procrastinating writing a blog post.
And procrastinating everything else.

I've started this blog post at least three times and then left and done something else. Every day, I told myself: get on ***** Blogger and write something witty and entertaining about your event-less life, you aimless leech on humanity*. Every day, it seemed more fun to shoot some mutated things in Fallout or mindlessly watch a Twitch.tv stream for a couple hours.

This post has literally been hours in the making, including all of the time I spent beating myself up for not writing it (and the three times that my computer has crashed and/or signed me out of my Gmail account in the middle of me writing).

My procrastination skills have been plaguing me for, basically, my whole existence. I've been doing homework on the bus since 4th grade. There have been few glorious reprieves when I am fully dedicated to a task, and one of those times has been somewhat sanely documented on this very blog!

That's why I want to do CampNaNo. The only time I have really felt the drive to write, like I would have been seriously amiss if I didn't sit down and bang on the keyboard until I reached a meaningless number, was when I was in glorious pursuit of 50,000 words clanging around in my mind.

I might be a horrible procrastinator now, but my resolve is strong. I am going to finish CampNaNoWriMo.

And, as a lighthearted aside, I'm going to attempt to update this blog on a regular schedule of Tuesdays and Thursdays. Every week. I'm sure when NaNo starts that schedule will be warped and broken and bent over a knee to be smacked, but I'm going to try**!

Lazily yours,

Abby

*I think I just made myself cry a little.
**At least then I will have something to write about, like the decline of my sanity and the horrors of starting a new scene when you still don't know how your stupid novel is supposed to end.

Fine Print

Ah, look, I'm back already.

My re-introductory post was listing like the Titanic towards the lengthy, so I had to cut off (dramatically) towards the end the specifics of Camp NaNo as applicable to me and make it into another post.

Indeed, Camp NaNo won't be nearly as exciting nor, hopefully, as exhausting as NaNoWriMo was. I have only set a goal of 35,000 words, mostly because I will be missing the 1st and the 2nd of July unless I can write during my college orientation, and because I am leaving for vacation on the 27th. Also, I have my 18th birthday on the 21st, but it's my party and I'll write if I want to (don't be surprised if that comes back as the title of a blog post on that day).

And*, since ROW80 failed to spur me on towards finishing the first draft of this novel, I shall not pick up a new project for Camp NaNo and instead I will endeavor to finish off the first, craptastic and incredibly messy, draft of A Modern Housewife. I am, however, considering making drastic changes to the plot already. Possibly out of boredom**.

Just to make things exciting, though, I am going to try to finish as quickly as possible, so don't be surprised if there are still posts of complete insanity. In addition, I'm making a concerted effort both to post more consistently here and review more often on Goodreads, even though I am starting to feel the strain of constantly asserting my opinion all over the Internet.

At some point, even I find it hard to care about my own opinions.

If that's not enough working-my-ass-off for you, feel free to suggest anything else writing or art related. I promise to consider it, attempt it with great gusto, and give up on it within a few days.

I'm starting to feel like I'm making a concerted effort not to allow myself to go outside at all this summer.

Anti-socially yours,

Abby

*I firmly defend my right to start off sentences with prepositions, conjunctions, and nonsense.
** Also, fragments.

Crawling Back and Packing a Tent

It's hard to come back to a blog you've abandoned.

It is almost like reaching out to stroke a pet you have inadvertently kicked. I know it is the right thing to do and the best way to make amends, but it seems to flinch away from my attempts.

Hard, of course, does not convey the nuances of the argument I've had with myself for the last week about whether or not I should try to continue this blog or just let it gather dust and focus on other writing. Shame played a factor, especially when my last post, so embarrassingly visual to the whole world, betrays such hope and touts such gross promises. Laziness dragged at my fingers. It was all too easy to make excuses for myself.

To be fair, I had several that seem to hold some weight- choosing a college ended up being a more stressful endeavor than previously thought (I am now a Northeastern Husky, but more on that later); I procured, somehow, a boyfriend; the senioritis that spread like mono throughout my class didn't stop at schoolwork, but engulfed nearly everything productive I could have done; and, of course, I have been out of school for about a month with, actually, a bad case of mono.

Regardless, I refuse to devote this post to excuses. I'd like to apologize, too, for not posting and for giving up spectacularly on ROW80, but this post won't be devoted to that, either.

Indeed, it's time for a new beginning.

But this beginning comes with a touch of deja-vu.

Since the less-structured ROW80 simply was not dire enough to force my lazy fingers (I will, however, continue to blame my fingers) to write more than a couple thousand words of my novel, none of which was documented, and since the mono has canceled many of my summer vacation and/or work plans, I have discovered a familiar community.

Camp NaNoWrimo is starting in July. And for the first time since I got my period and had to run down a grassy hill several times during the night with a pissed-off and sleepy counselor to use an outhouse in the summer of 7th grade, I'm going camping.

Pack yer bags, folks. It's going to be another wild ride.

Shame-and-gamefacedly yours,

Abby

(P.S. Still on Goodreads. Now also on Pinterest- and there's a writing inspiration board, too. My list of distractions is only growing, but I can only redeem myself by distracting others with them.)

Shady's Back

"Hello!" I call into the abyss of my blog, hearing a thousand faint impressions of my voice echo mockingly back at me.

I know it's empty in here. I know there's been a void where witty blog posts should have been. I know that my promises to myself of blogging regularly and writing regularly now seem like traps I set up for myself, knowing that I would fail. I know these things, and I'm sorry.

But I'm back, returning triumphantly from the absolute avalanche of college preparations that I put off for that wild month of November. Turns out that finishing NaNo allowed a bunch of deadlines to pile up and, because I am the best procrastinator ever, I am just now finished slogging through them (seriously, I just applied to my last college YESTERDAY).

Now that that's all over with, guess what I'm back to doing in the new year? Writing. I bet none of you saw that coming.

Of course, it was a lot of fun to throw myself wholeheartedly into my writing and forget about all other worries for most of NaNo. I felt important, I felt intelligent, I felt like I was a true writer. But, of course, I am not a true writer yet; I can't sustain myself on my writing (the idea is laughable); I have a great myriad of other things to take care of. And because I need some kind of incentive to write regularly (as the past month has demonstrated), ROW80 seems to be the best fit for challenging myself to finish my novel while passing the rest of senior year.

ROW80 stands for A Round of Words in 80 Days; as its website espouses, ROW80 is "the writing challenge that knows you have a life." It allows you to pick a goal for the next 80 days (this round runs from January 7th to March 28th) and then merely suggests that you check in every couple days or so on the website with a link to a blog post, such as this, to keep you on track.

In addition to allowing more flexibility, the other upside of this challenge is that it forces me to, in addition to straight-up writing, craft a blog post about each check in at least once a week. Looks like you'll be seeing more of me this year!

My goal for ROW80 is to finish the first draft of my novel. That will put me right on track for finishing my capstone in time, and since it is probably going to be another 50K or so, it appears manageable without being too much of a burden.

So off I go, astronauts!

With much guilty love,

Abby

(In other news, I'm also back on Goodreads. You should check out my impeccable reading taste.)

Different Forms of Writing

Nighthawk

Set Notes:
                As this is a monologue and takes place in a vague space that changes with Jeanie’s mental space, there are no props or set pieces. The lighting should be sparse, mostly dark with a spot on Jeanie as she walks, except where noted otherwise. If desired, however, a screen could be placed upstage center behind Jeanie as she talks, and I have noted ideas for images that might play on the screen to add visual dynamic. It is noted as optional because it is merely added effect and is easily removed.

Jeanie Brosnan

(Jeanie, a 44 year old single woman with an aversion to people and a habit of sarcasm, is standing upstage, looking at her hands. There is a spotlight on her. She addresses the audience as if talking to a new friend.)

I’ve got this throbbing in my fingertips and I’m not sure what it means.

It started in only one finger, I think it was my pinky
on my left hand
but now I don’t know how to make it stop.

It started in my sketching hand, which was bad enough
because it made holding a pencil difficult
and I don’t have time to wait for it to subside because images are fleeting,
you know? Birds fly away.

But then it spread to my bird-watching hand and that’s more annoying
because the throbbing is distracting and
when you’re holding binoculars for hours on end it can get painful.
And if you drop the binoculars at that crucial moment
when you’ve got the beautiful plumage in crisp
Technicolor focus
it’s a moment that slips and breaks away and is lost forever.

I don’t know what this means for my birding life
if I can even call myself that yet.
I feel like I am on the cusp,
the tween of the birding world:
more serious than a bird-watcher but not quite accepted into that society, you know?

The society of birders, of avid avian fanatics;
the community invested in the winged and the feathery,
who gather in the dense woods and
line up at the edge of the sounding sea .

I’m not exactly there yet.
Not that it matters much to me,
Lately I haven’t been one for societies.

I’ll let you in on this secret, since you’ve been so kindly
listening to me whine
(that’s the nature of the hypochondriac, and I’ve been one all my life):
People as a whole tend to have this horrible habit
of just letting you down.

(She turns on her heels and paces stage left, then stops and puts her finger in the air with the air of a storyteller)

Elnora Brown first taught me this valuable lesson in the 7^th grade
and I would thank her for it
if she hadn’t punched my nose in,
“doing me a favor because it was too Jewish before,”
outside the girls’ locker room,
which I remember because my blood got on the lockers
and I had to clean it up.

When just the day before
she had smiled at me in the hallway,
said “Hello, Jeanie,”
under the watchful gaze of the hallway monitor;
but that’s how people are. Just when
you think you’ve reached solid ground
they shove your little dingy off into
the crashing waves again.

(She sighs and casts her gaze out above the audience, as if recollecting from a far-off memory. The stage lighting assumes a bluer cast, as if night, with silvery undertones like the glow of the moon.)

That night after my mom had patched it up she wanted to sit by me
as I slept
and make sure that I could breathe properly,
make sure that the white bandage and purple swelling
didn’t constrict my breathing.

But I told her that I wanted to be alone.
That night I first looked out of my window
at the deceptively calm night
and guess what I saw?

A nighthawk!
For a fleeting second, I saw it flit past,
dive to the ground, out of view, in chase of some bug.
Such a little bird, but such incredible speed.

Then I heard the characteristic boom,

(The boom of a nighthawk’s wings is heard- it is less like a concussive boom and more melodic in nature, almost a whistling of wind past something heavy. Optional: on the screen behind Jeanie, a nighthawk plunges from a great height only to pull itself out of the dive at the last second.)

the sound of its wings pulling it out of that dive
and I had no idea what it was, so I looked it up
in an anthology we had lying around, luckily for me.

There’s still a spot of blood in that book,
but in my excitement I don’t think I even knew I was bleeding.

I like to think of that night as the beginning of my bird-watching,
though it took me many more years to return to that calling
because as a young child I hadn’t lost that adorable innocence.

(Her gaze is fixed back on the audience, harsh, and her voice is bitter, edged with poison. The nighthawk footage fades away but the lights remain darker and blue.)

But oh, that innocence had to chip away sometime.
Todd Woolsey saw to that. Todd Woolsey, with the beautiful blue eyes,
and the winsome smile, and the toned arms,
and the deep tan, and the meaty hands
that wrapped around my wrists,
and the slightly crooked Cupid’s bow
that turned up in a sneer when he called me ‘bitch’.

I was twenty- three then. I hadn’t been called a bitch since
the petty days of high school. I thought all that
was behind me but the word still stung,
smarted in my embarrassed cheeks.
 I don’t think I cried that night
after he allowed me to leave his car
after stealing a kiss I didn’t want to give.

I think I was busy breaking down all of the stupid columns
that supported my faith in people. I was deconstructing
the logic I used to continue deluding myself into trusting
these people that only tried to hurt me.

I don’t remember any tears on my face when
I looked out my window again,
at the cloudy moon, obscured by the leafy branches of an oak tree,
and stared right into the lunar gaze of a Great Gray Owl.

(Optional: On the screen displayed behind Jeanie a pair of great yellow eyes open slowly and stare out at the audience, or perhaps a Great Gray Owl’s head swivels around to stare)

They’re not common in Colorado, you know.
Sightings do happen, but I think I was meant to see him that night.
He gave a hoo, the most beautiful, haunting sound you ever heard;
it’s true, I remember it.

(She pauses and looks straight out at the audience with a small smile on her face. A Great Gray Owl’s call is heard, maybe once, twice, and then fades away- with it, the image of the eyes. Jeanie smiles broader.)

And then he flew away, and his wings were massive.

I was astonished. Astounded. I went out the next day and
bought a pair of cheap binoculars and a book on birds.
It was just a hobby then,
a weekend thing when I didn’t feel like reading.

(The convivial, friendly atmosphere returns. The blue lights fade back into the simple spotlight on Jeanie. She is enthusiastic, eyes aglow)

But now, after so many years of stories and getting so angry,
the strangers who stare at me on the street
because of the binoculars swinging from my hips
and my frizzy hair
I know what I really want! I’m going to be the best
birder you’ve ever heard of.
If you can’t impress them, beat them.

This weekend I’m going to get a camera,
just a little digital thing, but I can’t always get the birds
on paper quickly enough.
I’m going to learn all of the birdcalls. Just listen;

(She composes herself, closes her eyes, takes a deep breath, and clasps her hands together. She then brings them to her mouth and lets out a low, throaty whistle, modulated by opening and closing her hand on top of the other. It is obviously amateurish but she is enthralled. As her birdcall is ending the call of several other common barn owls is played over the sound system, further away, distant.)

Did you catch that?
It was the common barn owl! I bet you’d have recognized it if you lived in the country.
I’m going to learn how to do even more,
and then when I flip through my sketchbook and
see all the beautiful birds I’ve seen,
I’ll also be able to remember how they sounded. 

(She begins to lose herself in a daydream, strolling slowly through imaginary forests, her right arm tucked at her side as if carrying an imaginary sketchbook. Dappled golden spotlights fade on, the briefest suggestion of a forest, and she is smiling. Optional: on the screen behind Jeanie, the trunks of many trees as if seen from regular height while walking through a forest.)

I’ll get out into the wilderness
all by myself, just me and my sketchbook, and my binoculars,
and of course, all of the avian wonders that await me.
I’ll sit by a tree in a folding chair-
or maybe just on the ground! Who cares?

And I’ll stare up and up with my magnified vision,
catch the sound of flapping wings and low whistles.
And I’ll fill up my sketchbook with those birds,
flying and perching and swooping and calling;
it’ll be bliss.

 (She stops her gentle stroll, dropping her arm to her side. Her expression is once again somber. The dappled lights begin to fade away, as does the image on the screen if present, leaving only her spotlight, as she talks.)

And the best thing is,
I don’t need people to do it.
I’ll be on my own, independent,
happy in my own right.

I’ll never again have to deal with people and
their lies and
their petty grievances and
grudges. Always begrudging me for one thing,
if not another.

Always smiling when what they want to do is strangle you.
I’m done with that.

There’s something freeing in being happy without them.
It seems daunting now,
that dark forest and the seclusion.
But I know when I get there I’ll feel different.
I know the magic will come back
and the birds will take me under their wings.

I can escape into the trees and the birdcalls,
watch the misty mornings turn to golden afternoons,
and even the night will be no obstacle
because I’ll have friends in the wise gaze of the owls
and the plunging nighthawks. We’ll dance.

(As the daydream fully leaves her, she is returned, frustrated, to the ‘real world space’.  She tries, forcefully and with a touch of the earlier bitterness, to convince herself that her dream is attainable.)

I’ll never have to return to people again.
No one will miss me. And I won’t miss anyone either.
My parents, shriveling away in that
cage of a retirement community;
they won’t even notice I’m gone.

What did they say when I told them
I wanted to go to Colorado Springs
and stake out a spot on the central flyway?

“You’re an adult now,” they said,
“Do something useful with your life.”

What, like sitting around
whining about the temperature?
The highlight of their week is when
they venture outside and take an assisted
dip in the pool.

My friends? What friends?
I don’t have friends. I don’t need them, either.
I like to think that the woman at the bookstore,
Ellen, I think her name was,
will miss me a little bit. I think she knew me
as the crazy bird lady. Better birds than cats.
But that’s no friend.

Significant other?
Don’t make me laugh. That ship sailed long ago.
But I’m not bitter.

I have the birds,
and my graphite,
and the feel of binoculars banging on my thigh,
and my sun-dappled forest.

That’s all I want. That’s all I need,
complete separation from that noisy,
abrasive, grueling company
of people.

(There is a pause. She is spent, her rambling leaving her at a loss. After a beat, she looks back down at her hands, wonderingly.)

That’s why I’m so worried about this
damn throbbing.

It’s like a heartbeat,
ba-dum, ba-dum
tying me here to society. I can’t get away from it.

What is causing it? I looked it up on the internet
but I only got hits for arthritis.
I’m not that old, yet.

What if it doesn’t go away?
There’s no room in the forest
for my birds and my binoculars
and this throbbing.

(The light in her eyes, whatever was left, dies. She drops her head and holds her hands, palms up, a foot or so from her face. Then she stares helplessly at the audience.)

I’ll have to go to a doctor.
He’ll have to fix this. Or I’m finished.
He has to save me.
And then set me free,
let me grow wings and fly to
the one thing I want:
to be alone in the forest
with the booming nighthawks.

(A nighthawk call, buzzy and harsh, fills the air as the lights go down. It echoes, and then is joined by the sweeter calls of other birds; sparrows, thrushes, accompanied by the rustling of leaves. Jeanie’s last expression is one of loss.)

Endings Before Beginnings

This blog post is, wait for it...

NOT about my novel. Gasp. No, instead, it is dedicated to a flash fiction challenge posed by Chuck Wendig of the fantastic blog Terribleminds. He swears a lot so he's right up my alley and I highly recommend his internet diary. 

The challenge was to write the ending to a novel that doesn't exist in around 1000 words. I was excited about this because I've had an ending line stuck in my head for awhile, but NaNo made me focus on other things and I never had the time to figure out it could be built around. But now that I'm free of NaNo's clutches, this was a fun way to get in my writing exercise. Enjoy and let me know what you think! 

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What A Strange Cat

                There was a quietness in the snow drifting down from the sky outside, visible only in the glow of the streetlamps, so Hazel decided to play the Christmas music softly. Her mother looked up questioningly when she entered the living room, dominated by the tree standing bare and verdant by the back windows. She was sitting on an ottoman with her elbows on her knees, draped over the skirt of her dress, and the rims of her eyes were slightly reddened.

                “Well, we still have a Christmas tree to decorate,” Hazel said, dropping a box of ornaments by the couch. Her brother, his deep brown eyes tired and sad, looked out of the window.

                “It’s snowing out.”

                “I know.”

                “Maybe he found a place to sleep,” her mother piped up.

                “He probably did. He’s a smart cat.”

                Hazel allowed their words to wash over her, to comfort her like they were meant to. She knew that even though odds were she would never see Raphael again, at least in the meantime she had her family. At least now they were talking to each other, even if it was awkward. Still, the absence of a furry ball rushing around the house and rubbing against her legs was an almost physical pain. Hazel could imagine Raphael skirting around the tree, sniffing at the strange intrusion before stretching his ginger claws up to the first branch and tearing at it, and she felt tears well up in her eyes.

                “There’s more boxes in the kitchen,” she sniffed, nonchalantly wiping at her eyes as if dabbing at stray makeup. Allan got up instantly and her mother glanced at Hazel, at a loss for what to say.

                “I’m sorry about Raphael.”

                “It’s okay, mom. Thank you for helping me look for him, anyway.”

                “Of course.”

                The beginning strains of “O Holy Night” could be heard wafting from the speakers on the floor, and Hazel sighed.

                “You know, Hazel,” her mother began, and she was looking at her maroon velvet heels as she spoke. “It’s not like I’m clueless to my behavior over the last couple of years.”

                Hazel stared at her mother, seeming small and meek now on her little ottoman, adrift on an island in the sea. It was a side of Grace she hadn’t seen before, so used was she to the flinty glares and barked orders, the professional suits, the hard set mouth. Her dress made her look softer.

                “I know I haven’t been the best mother. I should have been there for you during the divorce instead of judging you. I know it’s been hard on you. I’m just sorry I didn’t see that until a little while ago.” Her mother’s voice was dangerously close to cracking, but she stood up and grasped Hazel’s hand in hers. The snow fell gently outside and coated the hard ground.

                “It’s okay, mom, you've already apologized.” Hazel said hesitantly, not sure how to react to this woman, the mother she’d hardly known as an adult, as an equal, breaking down in her arms.

                “No, it isn’t,” and tears began to slip from Grace’s eyes and course down her lined cheeks. “I should have been impartial, nonjudgmental, but I turned on my only daughter and I can’t ever forgive myself for that.”

                “But I can,” said Hazel, and she put her other hand on top of her mother’s. “You messed up, but that’s what parents do. Don’t worry about it, mom. I’m okay.”

                “Are you sure?”

                “I am. I love you, mom.”

                “I love you too, Hazel. Merry Christmas.” The hug was unexpected and warm. Hazel could feel her mother’s bony shoulder blades through her dress, could feel the weight on her shoulders.

                “Let’s do this,” Allan said, reentering the living room with another box in his hands and grinning broadly. “For Raphael.”

                “For Raphael,” echoed Hazel, and a wan smile made its way to her face. She took the top off of the box and shifted around its glittery contents. After a moment she pulled out from the bottom a fragile glass ornament, dangling from a gold ribbon looped around her fingers. The glass cat sparkled in the bright lights and twirled slowly.

                “This has to go on first,” she said, holding the ornament high and getting to her feet.

                “Wait, wait. I believe there’s a tradition we’ve been neglecting for couple years now.” Allan placed his box on the ground and disappeared into the kitchen, returning with a bottle of Bailey’s and three shot glasses clinking between his fingers. He passed them out and his mother began to laugh.

                “We started doing this when you two were young and you were always so mad we gave you chocolate milk instead.”

                “Well now I can participate like a real adult,” he said mischievously, filling up each glass with the thick cream. “I was ticked off we were all too busy fighting when I turned twenty-one to have a family Christmas because I was looking forward to it.” Though he meant it playfully, his comment sobered up the room. Hazel glanced around at her family.

                “I’m sorry. About everything.”

                “I’m just glad we’re all together now, like a real family,” said Grace with a smile.

                “To family,” said Hazel, lifting her glass and watching the cream swish around.

                “To family.” Glasses were tipped and everyone let out a tiny sigh as they were plinked back onto the coffee table. Hazel, with a warm buzz building in her stomach, slipped the glass cat onto one of the highest branches of the majestic tree. The cat was frozen mid pounce, and as it twisted back and forth for a little while it looked to Hazel like it was readying itself to jump from branch to branch with the fluidity of a lithe hunter.

                Then it steadied itself, a glittering drop of ice-like glass in the middle of the dense branches. Hazel stared out of the window, not quite ready to delve back into the box of ornaments and memories, tracking the progress of individual flakes of snow as they fell in and out of the light. Her family bustled around behind her and the Christmas music drifted underneath it all, made the room feel pleasantly busy, especially when compared to the stark and lonely Christmases of the past. The Irish cream warmed her chest and she smiled out at the powdery night, glowing even in the darkness because of the reflective snow.

                There was a rustling in the bushes below the window, and to her surprise a gray squirrel shot out and bolted across her backyard, disappearing up a barren and snow-covered tree. She laughed as it zig-zagged around the branches, its bushy tail waving about wildly to help it balance. And then a furry little face was staring at hers and meowing in the chilly air.

                “Oh my God!” Hazel scrambled for the latches of the window and hoisted it so quickly it dislodged from its old, worn tracks. A ginger paw stepped delicately onto the windowsill, followed by twitching ears and whiskers with flakes of snow clinging desperately before they melted in the heat of the room.

                “Raphael?”

                He jumped lightly to the floor, landing with a thump, and looked up at Hazel with his amber eyes before parading right over to the tree and giving the bottom branches an experimental bat. Everyone stared at him, dumbfounded.

                “Where was he? All this time?”

                “We’ll never know,” replied Hazel, laughing and putting a hand to her mouth. The cat, the little furry source of so much stress and worry over the last week, the cat who had inadvertently brought together a family for the holidays for the first time in years,  began a trip around the room, rubbing against legs; whether from affection or in order to dry himself off, Hazel couldn’t tell. Then everyone was laughing and bending down to pet him, to listen to his purrs and grateful meows.

                “What a strange cat,” said Allan eventually, with a gentle smile.

                And he was.

                

Sad Dollars

In philosophy class, as we struggled to stay awake and keep our drooping heads from wilting to our desks like winter flowers, my... eccentric teacher (let's call him Russ*) paced around the room explaining monism. I can't tell you what monism is, because all I wrote in my notes was "monism: livin' in a material world, and I AM A MATERIAL GIRL do do dododo do do".

The face of monism.

But despite my apparent delirium during that lesson I can still remember a question posed rhetorically in tones that belied a further point in mind (which, I confess, I probably tuned out): "If I were to offer you a pill that would basically turn you into a robot, sapping you of all emotions good and bad, would you take it?"
Now, I'm not going to debate the merit of this question because the obvious answer is no. But I am willing to bet that each one of us has different reasons for denying that opportunity.

I'm sure most of you are thinking of some pansy reasons like love or family or 'positive emotions are worth the negative emotions' or some other bullshit.  That's bullshit. I already said that.

Well, it's not bullshit. Those are valid reasons and I agree with them. But as I briefly ran the question through my mind before falling back asleep on the comfortable metal top of my desk, I realized that there was a secondary motivation lurking beneath the obvious. I found myself wondering what having no emotions would do to my writing, and felt appalled when I realized it would basically erase my ability to write creative prose.

Writers deal in emotional currency, dollars of ecstasy and sorrow and the tiny coins of loss, jealousy, subplots. Without emotions I would have to way to play with the emotions of my readers. In my opinion, being an empathetic person is the best path towards writing successfully; to understand the emotional pain and joy of others is to be able to recreate it and use it for the advancement of your theme, to be able to create characters that feel and bleed and evoke emotions in their readers as well.

There is a place in writing for technical skill, for an immense vocabulary and grammatical constructs and knowing when to use "as if" instead of "like" ("as if" if the next clause contains a verb). But there is also a place in writing for using the death of your character's mother to tug at the heartstrings of your reader for the purpose of advancing an agenda or an end (I firmly believe a novel without a theme is just fanfiction full of OC characters- and that's the worst kind of fanfiction).

So, friends, I would never give up my emotions. Partly because I love you (yes you), but partly because giving up my emotions would force me to give up on writing, and, if there's anything I've learned from this crazy month, it's that I can't give up on that.

Introspectively yours,

Abby

*Russ is his name.

Winner Winner Chicken Dinner

That's right, ya'll.
It's the 27th day of November, a full three days ahead of schedule, and I've finished NaNoWriMo. I've written 50,052 words in 27 days, give or take a couple days where I wrote nothing at all and then made up for it with 3K sprints (and, today, a 5K sprint).

It's been a crazy whirlwind of a month- some days. I'd love to get introspective, but I'm saving that for later (I have a post written out already, don't you worry). Right now I just want to brag and maybe do a little dance. Or, I would, if I wasn't so tired.

Here's my month, boiled down to some fancy stats provided by the NaNoWriMo website. I've been looking at that motherfucking bar graph all month, wishing it was a line graph because the little stunted bars that failed to reach the goal line pissed me off so much.

I guess the bars that rise majestically above it, though, make up for that.

As you can see I wrote the bare minimum for awhile as I got back in the swing of writing. The first day I struggled insanely, barely met the goal, allowed fleeting thoughts of giving up to swirl around. But then around day 10 I hit my groove, and suddenly writing 1,667 words a day seemed ridiculously easy. Indeed, the only problems that arose were the days when I was absolutely too busy to write a word- happened more often than I remember- and then I was in a hole for the next day.

The last week, fittingly, was the most hectic, because of the two days I mentioned before that I skipped. I wrote about 2K a day on average to catch up, and over the past few days I've been a maniac; 3K, 3K, 5K, finish. And what a finish.

The 50,000th word was "I'm", which is super lame, but before I added some more words to beef up a confusing sentence it was "like" which was terrible. That means nothing, though, because I edit as I go and I am very likely to go back and add a scene or two if I think I missed something, even before I'm finished writing the plot.

So where do I go from here? Well, I'm going to take a well-deserved break for a couple of days to finish my college essays, and then I'm getting right back on that Word document, which has been open perennially. I don't think I'll close it. I still have probably another 50K to go before the book is finished; to be honest, I haven't got a definitive middle picked out yet, so I could spool it out for hundreds of pages if I wish. I just might, if only to make the editing process even more hellish.

And then there's editing, and then there's a finished product, hopefully, eventually. There's still a long road to travel and then retrace my steps and cut down the weeds that grow along the way, but I've got nice-ass hiking boots and a stick and everything so I'm all set and rearing to go, and also ready to retire this hiking metaphor because seriously, who hikes? Ew, nature.

I'll see you all in a day probably because now I'm addicted to writing.

SUCCESSFULLY YOURS,

ABBY
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I Am the Hipster

~43,000 words into NaNo with four more days to go, I've officially morphed into the hipster. It has happened; I am the hipster, they are the hipsters, I am the girl sitting on a couch writing a novel to Belle & Sebastian Radio on Pandora with a bit of French influence and a stuffed owl sitting next to me.

The only bit of non-hipsterness I have clung to is my thorough rejection of most tea. To be fair, I tried very, very hard to like it, simply for the hipster factor (well, more the artsy writer factor), but I have trained my taste buds to despise any flavor besides sweet, so nearby is a steaming cup of hot chocolate provided to me by one of my NaNoSwap partners and Oreo pie from Thanksgiving.

I'm trying to be very chill about the next week, because I am caught up on my word count for now and the endgoal seems almost laughably within reach.

But that would be too easy! Indeed, the world chuckled at the suggestion of an easy finish and instead decided to throw back in the stress of college. For, by next Friday, I need to turn in all of my college applications (I might not turn in Tufts or George Washington until later because I'm not dead set on those colleges and I'll be damned if I let them get in the way of my novel).

Oh, God. Zooey Deschanel has made a wild appearance on this radio, and worse, I recognized her voice before I even saw that it was her. Ready for the kicker? I'M NOT SKIPPING IT. It's calming and cutesy and twee and whatever, okay? I'm writing a novel, don't judge me.

Zooey would never judge me because she is a carefree manic pixie girl with no emotions except love and sparkles.

Jeez, the song just used the word "ephemeral". I don't even care. And now we're into Italian folk music. I highly recommend this station.

Anyway, I'm refusing to get this stress get to me. The only acquiescence (+110 word nerd points for guessing that was a real word) I have allowed myself to make is giving up League for the week, which is really hard because all my friends and I are talking about now is a ranked team. This is the proverbial fork in the road where I choose between pursuing a career in writing or being a professional League player. (Notice how neither requires a college education? WHY AM I GOING TO COLLEGE.)

Aaaand, the buzzer attached to the metal collar around my neck is going off. If I don't get back to writing soon it will fatally electrocute me. That, I swear, is the only other way I've shown weakness. Other than that I am a productivity machine.

Bzzzzzt'dly yours,

Abby

here it comes

Here comes the dispensal of grammar and words that are actually words, dispensal is a word thank you Blogger spell check. I am officially 3,000ish words behind schedule because of a series of really busy days even though right now I can't remember what I did over any of them and I also can't remember where my legs are because long ago they were either replaced by or fused with this blanket. God I wish these words could count towards my NaNo words.

Anyway I wanted to finish earlier, by November 28th, because I bring HOLY CRAP COMMERCIAL OW. Pandora commercials are the worst; you shouldn't be allowed to interrupt the soothing tones of Simon and Garfunkel with your enthusiastic ad for Dance Central. I want to throttle that voice actress. Because I leave for Northeast festival the 28th and I'm not sure I'll have time to write, let alone catch up if I'm behind. But if I'm to finish in five days I'd need to almost write 5,000 words a day, which is totally made up and a blind guess because my brain is a giant hole of suck right now, but it's probably in that ballpark. You can imagine how my prose is going.

You know what, no, even Hall & Oates are not allowed to have a commercial on Pandora. Can I get an injunction going? What the hell is an injunction? I'd google it if I had the motor skills to work a mouse right now.

My brain is mush; why? Well, suspiciously structured sentence, I decided for some ungodly reason that going out not only at midnight on Black Friday but then staying up until 5 AM (oh yes, sleep is for the weak) and going out to a different mall for five hours. So I was up for about 26 hours straight, came home to take a nap, went through a dream black hole vortex that ate my brain function and made me wake up in three hours to a pounding head and phlegm all up in my throat tube, you're welcome for the image. All I wanted to do was go back to sleep, but I was forced to get up by the presiding anxiety that I didn't have a body and that three days had passed. Also, I was 5,000 words behind.

So now I'm sitting here with an aching head and owlish eyes and a father looking at me rather concernedly. In case you were wondering, I did shop fairly well at Black Friday and it was a lot of fun going with my friends, but holy balls, what was I thinking.

This seems to be a common trend.

What am I doing-ly yours,

Abby

Rocky VI: Balboa Writes a Novel

It seems like November is flying by.

It's almost alarming, the rate at which December is swiftly approaching. I have so much writing on my plate it's difficult to think about anything else; the date in my mind has hovered around the 7th or the 10th for awhile now, refusing to note the march, or rather quick-step, of time.

Let me list for you the writing I need to finish by December:

• 19,397 more words of my novel
• An essay on rationalism (this is due on Tuesday)
• Two essays for Boston University
• Two essays for George Washington University
• Various installments of the research paper due for my capstone (which is also this novel- why I have to write a research paper on writing a novel is beyond me)
• Two short essays for Tufts University
• An essay for University of Southern California

I'm beginning to feel like Rocky, an underdog up against all of the work life is throwing my way. That's how Rocky was, right? He was a writer? I haven't seen the movies but I know the gist.

This list is more for me than for you; I'm sure none of you care about my workload. But if I don't get more organized soon, I'm bound to drop the ball somewhere, and I'm absolutely determined to keep all of my balls.

Don't pretend you weren't thinking it.

One unexpected boon, however, is that after writing massive amount of words every day (I've skipped at least two days that I remember, of course, but they were usually followed by 3K+ marathons the day after- like today) the piddling 250 word essays seem almost comically short.

Doesn't mean I want to do them. Right now, my novel eclipses everything in my eyes, which is dangerous because it is a total fantasy that this will turn out to anything good or remotely publishable. I would never expect my first-ever novel to be anything good. But since writing is what I want to do with my life this seems like the most important first step, way ahead of college.

Of course, since writing is what I want to do with my life, it follows logically that I should get used to writing all kinds of things, including college essays. The conundrum.

I'd like to post an excerpt for you all, but since my character still has not gotten her lazy ass out of her house and on the road, nothing jumps out as especially important.

Exposition-heavily yours,

Abby

Halfway There and Post Offices

WELL, WRIMOS!

It's that time of the month again- no, I don't mean that time of the month where I curl up into a sobbing ball on the floor and curse all of the men in the world- it's November 15th.

This is the day where, in the paranoid, dark landscape of my mind, hopeful Wrimos are judged on their novel's progress, for it is exactly halfway through the month. And, following obvious logic, I should be halfway through the 50,000 wordcount goal.

And guess what? I TOTALLY AM.

Shutterstock really captures my life perfectly. 

I am not halfway through my novel; it's actually only getting started. But I have officially reached 25,000 words- 25,072 to be exact.

 My 25,000th word was "Thank" and, fittingly, that's what I want to do right now: thank all of you. I want to thank my friends for understanding (most of the time) when I tell them that I would love to hang out, or interact with them during a free period, or talk, but I really must write. I'd like to thank my teachers for sort of begrudgingly accepting, if not understanding, that I would love to participate in class but I really must write.

And though I'm still not sure that there are any of you, but for the invisible masses reading my blog, I'd like to thank you for reading even though, while I would love to update more consistently or with funnier posts, I really must write.

And though I really must be writing (lies, I'm going to play several victory games of League because that is how professional authors work, trust me, I've asked around), I'm going to share with you a fun story about my day yesterday. It is a story that involves social anxiety (as does almost any story involving me), sassy Postal workers, and car tricks. Have I hooked you successfully? I am such a good writer.

If there's anything you should know about me, it's that I am an incredible procrastinator and possess an almost sloth-like level of laziness. It was a combination of these two things that led to me swinging a screeching car around the corner of my best friend's street with an untaped and unaddressed package hurtling around the floor. I had five minutes to get to the bank, pick up money, and then book it to the post office to mail a package already a couple weeks late to my NaNo Swap partner. In typical fashion, even though I bought the items days ago and I had about four hours to simply throw them in a box and mail it, I waited until it was do-or-die to do or die.

And die I might have, from the way I was speeding down the road. I was going first to pick up my friend because, as I texted her desperately, I was scared and I needed moral support to mail a package. After she jumped in the car and I sped like a demon through the ATM, actually achieving squealing tires status, we arrived at the post office, conveniently situated only about half a mile from my house, with one minute to spare. The manager was ominously closing the blinds on the doors as we dashed inside, me somehow clutching my car keys, my wallet, and the package to my chest, looking every inch the pesky teenagers we were.

There were a few other people in line and two tellers waiting upon them. I watched uncomfortably as one of them gathered their things and left, leaving only a kindly looking man with blue eyes to deal with the last three people.

I was, of course, the last person in line, and it was past five, but I approached the man with what I hoped was a beguiling look and placed the box on the counter.

"I'd like to ship this to California?"

I saw the older gentleman's blue eyes turn icy as he looked down at the open box.

"Did you want to tape it first?"

An accurate representation.

I was unprepared for the amount of sassiness that smacked me across the face like a white glove. Clearly, the gauntlet had been thrown down, but I was still hoping to cling to the innocent young lady guise.

"Oh yes-"

"There's scotch tape on the counter, but I can't guarantee it'll work." Now, before you ask why I didn't just tape it at home- and yes, we had packaging tape- let it be known that I had never mailed a package before. Letters, yes, but for some reason I figured they might need to inspect the contents to make sure it wasn't, you know, a set of razors or depleted uranium or anything. This is what I mean by being socially anxious, and that was exactly why I'd brought Kylie along. You know, moral support.

I bound up the box as best as I could, imbuing the scotch tape with belief and faith and hoping it would make it stronger, and then brought it back to the man, who was doing his best facial impression of someone tapping their foot in irritation.

"Where's the address?"

I'd thought they needed a special address form to fill out.

"I-I thought you needed to write it on there."

"Just stick a piece of paper on it. Write fast." The manager was standing by the closed doors, looking on. "You know, it's five after five, and I'd like to get out of here. And you walk in at five with a package and nothing is ready. I would really like to go home, but you are completely unprepared."

Here is where my espoused fiestiness (not a word? should be a word) set in. I completely understood that I was late and it was costing him a few precious minutes of his life, but I was not okay with his needling comments about my preparation. After all, I was only trying to make things easier for them; if they had indeed needed to go through the contents I was trying to save them the trouble of ripping off the tape and reapplying it. How was I supposed to know that mailing dangerous objects was an acceptable and ignored practice? This man clearly expected too much of me.

"Would you rather I come back tomorrow?" I asked, I imagine, politely but forcefully.

"Well I would rather-"

"Should I come back later?"

We had an epic staredown.

Exactly this.

"What kind of shipping do you want to buy?"

Fuck your rules, and your paperwork, and your SASSINESS.

Successfully yours,

Abby

Too Tired to Write a Real Post

I bring you this excerpt for two reasons: I like the direction it's taking my novel, and I'm not sure if it makes sense.
That's where you come in! Please let me know if the flashback is too abrupt or terrible. I usually hate flashbacks but in a novel where her upbringing is so important to the way she acts, I have to keep going back and explaining my main character's childhood. Gah.
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“Thank you, Laurel,” Elsie said seriously, holding her little green bowl of mac and cheese in her hands, staring into my eyes with all the sincerity she could muster. She believed strongly, almost dogmatically, in politeness; except, of course, when she and Fernando got into fights.

I had seen this systematic politeness before, in the children of stay-at-home, upper class mothers. It was an affliction of the higher classes, little girls in sweet dresses with innocent eyes kowtowing to powers greater than themselves in social status and money without any real knowledge of what they were doing or why. It was a habit best preserved in children, when it was still a positive and desirable trait; it was when the guileless children blossomed into women trapped in a community cultivated by their parents that the unending politeness mutated into something more dangerous.

Elsie with her great brown eyes, like a cow’s before the slaughterhouse, would grow up into a young woman with a sweet disposition and a quiet voice. As she puttered around the kitchen, eating her mac and cheese with a fork and twirling every couple steps, I saw it laid out before me like a cosmic dare, an oracle of Southern women and their future. I saw politeness morph into passivity, humility into meekness, a desire to please dominated by a quest to quench every other personal dream that did not fit with her predestined future and the demands of her friends and family.

I felt a crushing sorrow as I watched her, so free in her youth, not yet fully expected to conform to her parents’ expectations. For now, they could blame any unorthodox behavior on her age; brush off her tantrums as a phase, explain away her tendency to talk to inanimate objects by mentioning her overactive imagination. But it would only last for just a couple more years; her introduction into the society, walking down a marble staircase in the Leaf and Burrow Country Club in a glimmering dress and a charismatic smile would be the end of it. From then on, the expectations would pile up and begin to smother her. I saw this as clear as the daylight streaming through the bay windows in the kitchen, flowing across the floor and over the expensive trappings of her home; I could feel it in my Southern woman’s bones. I knew her future because it had been my past.

A breezy Virginia day, one of those days that reminded you of Virginia’s proximity to the North; a borderline state that had the searing Southern sun but the occasional gust of crisp, clean Northern wind. The breeze moved through my dress with the ease of a lover, airing out the heavy fabric that clung to my skin as I clomped in my heels towards the car with my mom in tow.

“Laurel, dear, please don’t get your dress dirty. Remember to lift it off of the floor; it looks sloppy if you let it drag.”

“Yes, mom,” I replied rather breathlessly. Staring at the empty, cloudless sky granted me a sense of weightlessness, as if the white lace straps of the dress would soon morph into feathery wings and carry me off into the boundless heavens.

“Watch where you’re going!” my mother admonished me as I stumbled on a crack in the driveway , the spiky heel of my gold strap shoes forcing my ankle sideways. Pain spread out from my joint in a fiery pulse, shooting up my leg and back down again, but I straightened myself with some difficulty and took a couple limping steps to the door of the car. Folding my bare legs into the car and leaning back on the leather seats was bliss, feeling the weight taken off of the pain in my ankle, and I sighed in relief. Mother got in the passenger seat, looking towards the door in anticipation of my dad.

“Do you feel ready?”

“Yes, mom,” I replied. In truth, I felt nothing but a vague annoyance at being dragged away from my plans to spend the day lazing in front of the TV. Underneath my apathy was a strange nervousness, too, but it manifested not in my conscious but in the automatic tapping of my fingers on my thighs. I refused to acknowledge its existence.

“Where is your father?”

“I don’t know.”

There was a silence. My mother and I never talked much, had no time for heart-to-hearts when we were constantly interrupted and sought after by my brothers or my father, any of the men in the house. Because of this, we were at odds with each other when we were alone; there was pressure to say something, to bond, but neither of us knew how. My mother, being the socialite and expert on small talk, eventually struck up conversation.

“I remember when I was introduced at the club,” she said offhandedly, staring out the dashboard at the towering dogwood tree casting a slight shadow onto the house, attenuated by the sun nearing its noontime peak. The dogwood was rustling gaily in the wind, shaking off the heat with glossy green leaves, and the remnants of its beautiful and tragically short-lived blossoms littered the vibrant grass.  She seemed lost in the world of the dogwood for a couple moments. I attempted to join her there, losing myself in the chattering branches, but I found myself distracted by the buzzing of a lonesome fly against the far window. I watched its doomed path instead.

“It was one of the most stressful days of my life,” my mother resumed, and I started, so drawn in was I by the peripatetic fly and its journey around the interior of our car. I felt a kinship to the nomad. I joined in her tiny laugh. “There was so much to do and so little time to get prepared. I felt such pressure to be perfect for this; it was nearly suffocating. Or maybe that was just the dress.”

My attention was diverted by this. I never felt like my mother understood the way the subtle hand of society put pressure on your shoulders and dragged you downward to your knees like a disobedient dog learning to sit, but maybe there was more to the perfect matron than I had suspected all my life. 

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There's more, but I don't want to overwhelm you. So ta-ta for now!

Finally caught up and tiredly yours,

Abby