100 Words: This Morning

This morning, I finished the last stall and propped my rake against the wall. I was dusting my hands off on the front of one of my favorite old grungy t-shirts when I glanced up and saw a doe standing in the paddock with us (well, me, really, but I’m counting the minis too). She stood, tawny and lanky and wet-nosed and as graceful as a deer can be beneath the dew-glazed leaves of a pecan tree. My brother’s mini gelding, Spoof, trotted to me and plastered himself against the fronts of my legs, his little nostrils flared, startled. She stared at us and we stared at her, and then she was gone, leaping over the fence in one bound from a standstill, cantering off through the forest.

A Scene

Prompt: Describe the first scene that comes to mind.

A cracked window – paint peeling on its sill – that breathes summer air into a room. The world smells of the peak of a suburban summer: grass and gardenias, oil on hot pavement, algae, dust, and weed killer. The humidity is a balm, time a breath that’s held, the line between adolescent dreams and sparkling future reality so joyously blurred she can taste the hope on her tongue. Behind her, she hears his fingers on the guitar strings and thinks he can taste hope too, even if he won’t admit it.

Love This

I feel like such a doofus because when I included this author's name in a list of favorites as part of a query letter I sent yesterday, I left the A off her first name. Such a doofus. But her name is Marisa (don't forget the A) de los Santos and her books Love Walked In and Belong to Me became instant favorites.

The prose reads like a friend's sometimes rambling, always entertaining personal stories, and because of this, the main character, Cornelia, feels like someone I've known for years.

A Poem

I am NOT a poet. Not by any stretch. I never could figure out how to adhere to any sort of real prescribed structure. So the end of this is formatted nothing like the beginning. Or maybe I should have just pretended I meant it that way? Yeah, we'll go with that. I meant for it to be this way!

Just the place my uncooperative mind took me in an effort to shake off my writing funk.

Love is Cool Water

May 19, 2012

The fire’s all burned out now,
The candles’ melted down to bone
And in these dying embers,
Nothing looks like home.
Passion brought us to this place,
And passion laid us low.
For in the dancing flames,
Not a thing was wont to grow.

The flowers are all dried up now,
Dust and dirt and death,
They taste of sour promises,
And choke with every breath.
Every wish has turned to wind,
And done what truth could not,
Cracked a heart in two,
And filled a vase with rot.

The gems have fallen out now,
They fell from melted gold,
The diamonds cut like razors,
Because affection can be sold.
We cry when we should laugh,
And laugh when we should not,
Because nothing really matters,
When this love was bought.

Love is cool water
and deep, thick mud.
It is earth and roots and all that is constant and keeps us whole.
Love that is bought or traded is not love at all,
but a glamour.

Love does not burn,
Love does not smell,
Love does not sparkle,
It has no secrets to tell.
Love is cool water.

Lightning: 15

Fifteen

The windows were down, but despite the shade of the Sonic drive-under and the breeze blowing crosswise through the truck, Mel felt as if she were melting in her seat. Just looking at the burger in her lap made her queasy, so she folded it back up in its wrapper and set it on the CD console. She’d agreed to tell the story, and she was going to, because she wasn’t a liar, but she was suddenly overcome with an anxiety that was almost crippling. People tended to react one of two ways about this sort of thing – with shocked sympathy, or the assertion that she was being dramatic. Dan, she had a feeling, would be the latter.

Still, she took a deep breath and stared through the windshield, watching little brown sparrows peck at French fries in the gutter, and began.

I have no idea what I'm doing

100 Words or thereabouts. A scene I keep seeing thanks to my current musical obsession. May add to it later in the week.

Happy Mothers' Day

You know what they say about it...

“TV will rot your brain.”

This is not always true. Or, maybe it is true and that’s what’s wrong with me. But at least in my own little mind, TV has some serious merit when it comes to my creative process.

Favorites

The prose reads like poetry. The detail is astounding. Love this one.

Beautiful

I've become quite addicted to these flash fiction drabbles or whatever you can call them. They're all connected, by the way.

Beautiful

He was far more tired than she was, but he insisted on walking. Lainey wrapped her fingers in the chestnut gelding’s mane and swayed along with the animal’s gait, her eyes trained on the tattered brown cloak that swirled around Caleb’s ankles as he walked. His hair, the same red-brown as that of his horse’s, was beaded with crystal drops of mist. When he half-turned his head to ask if she was hungry, his breath was a plume of smoke. His cheeks were patched with stubble and smudged with dirt. She had not thought him handsome that first day, back in the village, but now, when she stared into his eyes that were the same color as a forest pond at twilight, she wanted nothing more than to drown.