Linda Maye Adams's Blog, page 69

Writing in Public: Story 2, Scene 3

[image error] Writer’s note: In this scene, I show the cyclical writing (editing as you write) in red.  I wrote the scene, looked at, realized I need some more details, so I added them.

3

His name is Tam. I make him wait on the doorstep while I go inside and change clothes. I trust him enough that I will let him into the house, but not enough to let him in while I’m dressing. I doff the soaked uniform and hang it up over the bathtub to drip out. I put on a sundress with a confetti print that has a nice bit of flounce at the hem. I add sandals. Not much I can do with my hair so run a comb through it and band it back in a ponytail.

Before I go downstairs, I open the top drawer on my battered dresser. My fingers linger on the yellowed envelope inside. My name is written on it in faded handwriting. I’ve memorized what it says:

Michelle,

The worlds will break. You’re the only one who can fix them.

Elias

Underneath is some kind of simple drawing.  It’s right on the fold, and the paper has cracked, so I can’t make it out.  I’ve always thought it was an eye that seems to be looking forward and backward.

My fingers tremble as I slip the envelope inside a legal notepad and tuck the notepad under my arm.

Tam radiates annoyance when I let him into the living room. His eyes take in the room. He’s shocked, and I’m embarrassed. Everything’s shabby, outdated—it was in the house when I inherited it. Blank walls, though that’s not my fault. When I try to put any up, it’s like house rejects it. The paintings are on the floor the next morning. I must have very bad taste in art if the house doesn’t even like it.

I have to flee to the kitchen to hide what must be on my face. I hate the disdain everyone gives me, and that I can’t leave to find better.

To cover why I left, I fix iced tea. It looks too sparse, so I add a plate of store brand chocolate chip cookies, giving them a quick zap in the microwave so the chocolate will melt. So when I return to the living room, I end up nibbling on gooey cookies that taste like cardboard.

He fidgets as he sits on the old sofa. He doesn’t know what to say any more than I do.

“How are you related to me?” I ask.

I’ve seen a few old photos of Elias. Tam looks like him around the jaw and cheekbones. Definitely not the hair. Elias had this weird hair bump, and Tam’s is like he ran a hand through it to comb it this morning.

Tam’s eyes flick up to me. Then he snatches up a cookie, inspects it, then breaks off a piece to eat. “From one of Elias’ other children. We’re cousins. No one at all told you what this house is?”

I shake my head. When I sip my tea, my hands are shaking. Why does this frighten me so?

“Elias would have been a brilliant physicist today.” Tam shrugged. “Then? He was beyond even the greatest of the scientists around him.”

“A scientist? I thought he was a land owner, a merchant.”

“He was those, too. But he was greedy. He wanted to make himself rich, not advance the science for knowledge. He figured how to connect the time lines so he could look into future.”

I stare, my mouth open, my brain spinning. I want to think he’s crazy, but I saw the people. I talked to them.

“What I saw…” I finally manage, “that’s the other time line.”

Tam nods. “From when this town was founded. He thought he could look into the future and see what was going to happen. That’s how the town became a big port.” He lowers his head and stares at the cookie in his hand. “And how it died.”

Filed under: Writing in Public Tagged: science fiction, time travel

Writing in Public: Story 2, Scene 2

Writer’s note: Critical side kicked in with this scene and wanted to jump ahead and not let the story naturally develop.  It tends to panic if it doesn’t know where the story is going and tries to rush ahead.  I had to give it a Gibbs head slap to behave (it’s a video; might take a moment to load).

 

[image error] 2

I’m two blocks from my house when the rain stumbles in and bleeds all over me. Water runs cold under my collar. I have to pull off my glasses because I can’t see a damn thing. But I know where the house is, even if I can’t see. The house’s energy pulls at me as I get nearer, like a river current pulling along a log.

It makes me shiver. Today, the energy feels…hungry.

The house is up ahead, one of the original historical houses in the area, and the only one with the descendants of the family still in it. Georgian architecture, which Elias favored because it was about symmetry and math. Every room, measured, to be the perfect cube. Even the windows were calculated precisely. It used to be the rich section of the town. Now it just looks worn.

A man dressed in black waits on the steps, under the eaves.

For a moment, my brain goes, That’s not my house! There’s a man on the steps!

Even the newspaper carrier will not deliver to my doorstep. I haven’t had a visitor in years.

The man is hard-edged, like someone had gotten ink and drew him in a blocky style. A rack of muscles on his upper body. But the face, the hair…

I smooth down my wet hair. Not many people have the carrot hair of the Grahams.

He straightens up when he sees me. “You gonna get out of the rain?”

A tremor of fear spreads across my shoulder blades. If something happens, I doubt if the police will respond fast.

But I straighten up and try to look brave in my soppy dress. “Who are you? What do you want?”

He paces across the doorstep, jiggling with impatience. “Why haven’t you done anything?”

That’s enough to draw me to the steps. It’s a relief to have the rain let up, though I smell like a wet dog.

“About what?” I ask.

He spins, glaring, and he’s good at it with those hard eyes. He smells of sweat, and stinks of fear.

“The house.” Expectant.

“So?”

The thoughts chase across his face. He opens his mouth twice to say something, then another thought makes a trek, and he closes his mouth to listen to it.

Finally: “Who owned the house before you?”

“One of my cousins. Didn’t know him. Didn’t even know why I got the house until I saw the conditions of the trust.”

The lawyers had been impressed with the trust I’d inherited. It had be designed to keep the house within the family. No one could sell the house, or remodel it. And I had to live in it. Not that I’d complained about that. At least the trust paid for a place to live. Just not anything else.

He paces again, dragging a hand through his hair. Grumpiness rose from him like a storm cloud.

“No one told you anything about the house?”

The shiver is back. My mouth is dry. Just a letter. Written by Elias himself, two hundred years ago, dated this year, and addressed to me.

Filed under: Thoughts

Writing in Public: Story 2, Scene 1

[image error]Writer’s Note: This story was inspired by a street sign, Graham’s Road.  I see it coming back from writing group every week.  Yup, the inspiration really came from that little.

Though inspiration wasn’t always like that.  For years, I waited for something to excite me, and that didn’t come very often, so I didn’t write often.  I languished on my first novel for many years, partially because I couldn’t come up with any other ideas.  But a workshop I took, now about 4 years ago, was a big help in demystifying the scariness of coming up with ideas.

Onto the story …

Nothing Town

There’s a nothing town called Graham that stops at the river. It was named after the biggest land owner, Elias Graham, ‘most two hundred years ago. He’d been pretty important then and everyone thought the town was going to be a major port long into the future. Everything shipped out on the river: tobacco, dry goods, food. Then the world shifted away and we shivered into unimportance.

That’s when everyone started calling it Graham’s Folly.

And the people who grew up in Graham were stuck here. Like me.

Michelle Graham. That’s me. Elias Graham’s great-great-great granddaughter…think I got enough greats in there. Sometimes people look at me when the world’s not good and I can see the blame set in their faces and I wonder how being Elias’ descendant makes it my fault.

Today I came out of the restaurant with pity tips in the pocket of my waitressing uniform. Maybe, I think, not for the first time, it’s time to pack up my ten year old car and go somewhere, anywhere, a place where no one judges me by my ancestors.

The humidity hits me and my glasses instantly fog up. Three o’clock. Worse time of the day to come outside. The air is so hot it feels like it’s about to boil. But it’s the sound of horses’ hooves clopping on the street that makes me stop. Makes me stare. Makes my heart pound.

It’s not supposed to be there.

There are two horses, brown and big shouldered, pulling a wooden wagon piled high with burlap sacks of flour. The man at the reins is dressed in a homespun shirt, trousers, and suspenders. He tips his broad-brimmed hat at me with a cursory smile.

Is my mind broken? But then I catch a scent that is decidedly horse.

A rusting Toyota belching smoke crowds in behind the the wagon. The driver jams his fist on the horn in one long, angry note.

“Move your damn horses!” he bellows.

The ears on the horse nearest me twitch, like a knowing smile.

Now I look around the street, at the familiar narrow houses jammed in together like stakes in the ground. They’re all brick, brought in as ballast on sailing ships, and it’s the real stuff, not the facades that go on buildings now. But some of the houses are newer, rough hewn with the mortar still lighter, and others are older, worn down by time.

Fear pounds at me. I want to run with it, run as fast as I can, as if that will leave the fear behind. Instead, I force myself to walk down the hill, toward the harbor.

I need to be sure.

People pass me. The ones in t-shirts and shorts are indifferent to me, as expected. The ones in bustle dresses and waistcoats are mannerly, greeting me with smiles and pleasant voices. They don’t think there’s anything odd about my sky blue waitressing uniform and sensible shoes. It’s like we’re all wearing the same thing and we’re not.

“Good day, madam,” a portly fellow carrying an elegant cane says, giving me a bow. “Can you tell me where the tavern is?”

I give him directions, because the damn place is still there. Only it’s not a place to drink and socialize any more. It’s a museum. What will happen when he goes inside?

My stomach flutters. I quicken my pace.

Clouds press against the sky, thickening into blackness. The wind is up and water rides it. Storm is coming soon.

The street dead ends with a guide rail separating the road from the river. To the left are the docks where the ships are moored, a ferry, sailboats, and power boats. Now though, my bones turn to ice when I see the tall ships coming in, their sails flapping in the wind.

Until I saw those ships, I’d been pretending that it was a big joke someone was playing on me. That they’d gotten reenactors in period costumes and found horses and a wagon. But those ships…they couldn’t be faked. Something terrible had happened.

And Elias Graham predicted it.

Filed under: Thoughts Tagged: science fiction, Science Fiction Short Story, Writing in Public

Adventures Around the Web July 2-8, 2017

I’m trying my hand with content curation this week in conjunction with writing in public.  Enjoy the stories!

Alessandra Codinha in Vogue Magazine

Women in the Military: The Female Soldiers on the Front Lines 

When I look for photos of women on the military websites, I can’t find much.  Those available are pretty limited, like an afterthought (I imagine someone in command is saying, “Oh, that’s right, we forgot to add a photo of a woman.”).  This article has stunning photos of military women, from all the different services.

Mary Elizabeth Pratt in We Are the Mighty

The 7 Everyday Struggles of Women in the Military

This was written recently, but even twenty-five years ago it was all true.  My most popular blog post of all time was on hair for women in the military.

K. Gitter on Do You Remember?

Julie Andrews Wiped Out While Filming the Sound of Music

I just saw the musical production of The Sound of Music at the Kennedy Center–my first live Rogers and Hammerstein production, so this caught my eye.  Behind the scenes filming of movies that we all like is fascinating.  This one talks about the hazards some of these actors went through.

Besides, it’s Julie Andrews.

Max Booth III in LitReactor

Exposure is Not Payment: Why You Should Start Respecting Yourself as a Writer

This link comes from Day Al-Mohamed, who used to belong to my writing group. A lot of magazines don’t pay writers, but instead promise to give the writer “exposure.” Unfortunately, this type of payment also means they don’t get good stories that will draw readers to read your story. Everyone else is going to try to take advantage of us.  We don’t need to jump in and help them.

Roz Marshall

DIY eBook Covers: Design Principles for Non-Designers (How to sell more books, 1)

This is an ebook, which I found this book via Angie’s Desk.   I know a lot about graphics, though I was never trained formally in it, so I almost passed it by.  But after I saw Angie’s description, I decided to buy it.  And I learned something new about building covers, which you would have seen (and probably not noticed) on the Granny Logic cover.

Filed under: Adventures Around the Web, Culture, Entertainment, Military, Writing Tagged: book cover design, fact checking, Julie Andrews, Kennedy Center, Military Women, The Sound of Music

Writing in Public: Story #1, scene 4,5,6

[image error]Writer’s note: And the final scenes to the story.  The last name of the remaining character came off a book I happened to have sitting next to me at my desk.

4

Granny and I regrouped over lunch to discuss our plan of action. I’d researched on the woman living behind Harrington–it was why I’d and the other PI dismissed the idea that the actor was going over the fence. Ms. Collett was retired, so she was there all the time. Be hard to sneak by. If it were me and I saw a man hopping the fence every day, I’d call 911.

Granny got real quiet at that, fiddling with a table trifold advertising chocolate cake. I knew better than to interrupt her and dug into my salad (yes, she was converting me! She did pick it though).

“Can you see when her husband passed away?” she asked abruptly. “Would that be available?”

Even when I was growing up, I would see Granny make these leaps in logic that defied gravity. Hadn’t been too popular in the family, because it was always different than what everyone else was thinking. Sometimes it was downright crazy. Now my gut trusted it.

“Everything is available,” I told her. “You just have to know where to look.”

As I retreated to my iPhone to start searching, I thought about how he might have come in contact with Mrs. Collett. He was handsome, and his face familiar. Chat with her over the top of the fence for a few days. Make friends. Maybe offer to help her out with something that was hard for her.

Then I had the information, in the obits for the newspaper. “Nine months ago.”

“Rat,” Granny said.

“Let’s catch the rat.”

5

This time when we returned to the neighborhood, we parked in view of Mrs. Collett’s house. The Auto-Driver pulled right up and parallel parked in a tight spot, no problem. It was one the reasons California had adapted the Auto-Drivers first. Now we would wait.

Mrs. Collett’s house was one of those cute cottages. She’d painted it bright white with royal blue trim. Had fake shutters and even a picket fence to keep the dog in. The yard was like Granny’s: Mowed, trimmed, perfected.

But her husband had died after a “long illness.” That sounded like cancer, which would have eaten a lot of money. I knew what Granny paid for her gardener. Wasn’t cheap. With my broken foot, it would have been too much for me to manage, and I wasn’t sure I could have managed it that well under normal circumstances.

“I want to talk to her,” Granny said abruptly.

“You sure?” I asked.

She’d been in a stony silence since we’d headed back here. Even the Auto-Driver computer had asked her if anything was wrong.

She nodded.

“Don’t tell her Harrington might be conning her. She’ll clam up fast and we’ll never get anything useful.”

“I know.”

Admittedly, as Granny got out and walked to the house, I thought she might blow it anyway. But she was the best person to talk to Mrs. Collett. She’d probably get the widow to talk better than I could.

Mrs. Collett was out in the front yard, weeding the flower bed by the fence line. She wore elastic band Bermuda shorts and a paisley tunic. The noisy dog bounced around her, stubby tail wagging at top speed. Granny came up to the fence, and Mrs. Collett brightened and stood. They chatted for so long that I started to fidget. I hated being stuck in the car like this, unable to do the basics of my own job.

At last, Granny said goodbye and returned to the car.

“What did you tell her?” I asked.

“That I’d moved in with my granddaughter and heard there was an actor in the neighborhood.”

She lowered her head, pressing her lips together. If there’d been smoke, I would have seen it rising off her. I’d never seen Granny this mad.

Her voice took a hard wobble when she spoke again. “He told her he has a crazy fan stalking him so he has to go out through the back so he can go to the studio. He helps her with the yard, inside the house, grocery shopping. She’s been writing him checks.”

My heart plummeted.

“Is there anything we can do?” Granny asked.

“Catch the guy.”

I wished we had better.

6

Once we knew where to look, we caught Harrington pretty fast. He did heavy lifting of grocery bags and climbed over the backyard fence like an action hero–all things he wasn’t supposed to be able to do because of his back. The insurance company was happy, but it left a bad taste in my mouth. What would happen to Mrs. Collett? All Granny and I could do was stop off at a local church and speak with the minister about the widow.

“So, after your first investigation, what are you going to tell the family?” I asked Granny later.

We were back at her house in Morro Bay and I was trying to ignore how sore my body was, even though I hadn’t done anything except sit. We were in the bedroom she’d converted to a weight room. She was doing pushups.  I was trying not to stare.

She finished her reps and stood, using her hand on her thigh to rise. “Oh, they won’t be happy at all. I wished I had known I could have done this years ago instead of answering phones and typing.”

I stared at her, startled. It sounded like I was going to get a new partner and it was going to be my granny.

I could deal. I might even enjoy it.

Filed under: Writing in Public Tagged: California, Granny PI, Morro Bay, Mystery

Writing in Public: Story 1, Scene 3

Writer’s Note:  More cyclical additions in the first scene, highlighted in red text.  As I put this up, my head’s going “No, this isn’t ready.  There’s something wrong with it!”  But it doesn’t tell me what’s wrong, so I’m ignoring it, since that’s a sign of mid-story fears.

[image error]3

We were back out to Harrington’s house for the next three days. This time, no podiatrist appointment, so we sat there most of the day, taking lunch and potty breaks. Rain wandered in, deposited a few test drops, decided it wanted nothing to do with Pismo Beach, and left the clouds behind. The yappy miniature pinscher was back out, barking furiously … probably at a leaf falling. I think a dog like that would make me crazy.

I wanted to say that the Tiger Balm was giving me a headache, but Harrington was behind my pain. Usually these guys got cocky and careless.

Especially after so long.

But no, Harrington never left that house. He came out in the morning to pick up his newspaper and in the late afternoon to check his mail. He had a grocery delivery service show up, and the driver went inside to deposit groceries.

I noshed on some almonds—California-grown—that Granny had brought along for snacks. It was hard ignoring the amount of calories I was consuming, though Granny insisted the good fat in the almonds would help my foot heal.

The mail carrier pulled up in his white truck and left mail in the box. I checked the time. It was only an hour after Harrington had picked up the paper. Why did he wait until the evening to get the mail? What was he doing inside? Writing a novel? Playing video games?

Granny had my iPhone and was keeping herself occupied by reading the notes that had come from the last private investigator. Wouldn’t do much good. I’d reviewed them myself to see what they’d already done. They’d been much like what we were experiencing now. The PI had concluded that the actor wasn’t faking it. The insurance company disagreed.

“He’s been like this for a year?” Granny asked.

“Yup,” I said. “He’s been out to run errands, but nothing that would help us.”

“You broke your foot only two weeks ago now, and you’re already going stir crazy. He can’t be sitting in there doing nothing.” Granny pressed her lips together, which was her thinking face. “How is the insurance company sure he’s faking it?”

“Bragged about socking it to Hollywood on a message board. He blames Hollywood for not giving him better roles and feels this is owed to him.”

Truth was he was probably making more on worker’s comp than he had an as actor.

“What’s on the other side of the house?” she asked. “Maybe we could see in the back windows? He’s got some muscles on him, so he’s been doing weight lifting somewhere.”

I liked how Granny thought. “First thing I checked out. There’s a house on the other side with a tall wooden fence on the property line. That’s the house with the dog, as a matter of fact.”

Just saying that out loud clicked something in my brain. I heard that dog bark when the mail carrier came by and the grocery delivery as well. But I’d heard that dog other times, too. I’d assumed it was visitors on the other side. Could Harrington be cutting out the back? But then he would have had to go through the yard with the dog and I couldn’t believe that the neighbor wouldn’t complain.

Granny got out of the car. “Be back in a minute.”

She slammed the door shut before I could answer or even react. I certainly couldn’t go after her hopping on one foot. She circled around the front of the car and cut across the street, pausing to wave at the runner with the nice legs. I knew what she was going to do and wanted to call her back, but she was on a mission.

So I filmed her as she walked up to Harrington’s door and rang the bell.

Waited.

…And nothing.

No one opened the door. No one looked out a window.

He was gone.

Filed under: Books, Writing in Public Tagged: Granny PI, Morro Bay, Mystery, Pismo Beach, Private Detective

Writing in Public: Story #1, Scene 2

Writer’s note: Since this is a live story, I’m moving around in it, or called cyclical writing, which I do as the story evolves. One of the character descriptions above changed (marked in bold), and I added the main character’s name.  I’m also expecting Martin Harrington’s name to change.  At least one of the characters in my stories always ends up with a name ends up being changed.

I also did spot research for this scene, and the watermelon I got at the grocery store this morning lives forever in the story.

[image error]

2

The fog had burned off by the time I escaped from the podiatrist, leaving the sky clotted with gray clouds. The sun didn’t like to come out much out here. The rain debated about it a bit, then deposited messy splatters on the windshield with little patters. The Auto-Driver’s programming turned on the windshield wipers for us, though the car certainly didn’t need it.

Annoyance tugged at me the entire trip as I listened to the hum of the engine. There wasn’t much in the way of specialized medicine out here, so it was nearly a fifty mile drive one way. I could technically drive, especially with the Auto-Driver, but I’d have to be out of the boot in case anything happens. But it wasn’t legal.

And I hated asking Granny to help me out. But she kept insisting she was fine and I was trying to figure out if that was a grandmother thing or something else.

We returned to her house in Morro Bay, which was one of the many small towns that dotted Central California. Morro Bay was particularly memorable—aside being the place where my grandparents lived—for the dome-shaped Morro Rock. The town sat on the hillside, so all the streets were roly-poly—sometimes in two directions at once. I’d thought the streets fun as a child, but as a woman on crutches, they were a curse.

Three balance checks later, I managed to get up the hill to Granny’s house without falling down. The house was bigger than most of the houses in Morro Bay, painted Easter egg purple (her favorite color) and with big picture windows. The grass was all perfectly mowed, with a line of perky white marigolds under each of the front windows. The garden perfection was not Granny’s doing. Black thumb came from that side of the family. We touched a plant, it died. So she’d hired a gardener. It was much safer that way. The plants had a fighting chance of survival.

I got in through the entrance without the door trying to eat me. Cool air hung in the living room like we’d left the house abandoned.

I shed the crutches for the last few steps and got one-footed to the sofa like I was playing hopscotch. Managed to bang my good knee on the coffee table. The crutches—I could never figure out what the hell to do with them—went on the golden hardwood floors under my legs. I dragged off my small backpack and deposited it next to the crutches..

Granny set her purse on the entrance table, her gaze flicking up to a melting clock on the wall. “I’ll fix lunch.”

What I wanted to say was, “I can do it.” And I knew I couldn’t. The first three days of my crutch captivity, I’d tried cooking for myself by balancing on one leg and leaning against the counter while the crutches fell to the floor. If it was liquid, I knocked it over. Using knives was outright scary. I’d ended up eating eggs three times a day because they were easy to make.

The refrigerator door opened, followed by the sound of chopping on a wooden cutting board.

I stretched out on the sofa, wincing as pain shot through my right foot to remind me it was broken. I wanted to take off the boot because my foot was all sweaty, but it was to much effort. I’d only worked half a day and I was exhausted.

Granny stuck her head out of the kitchen opening. “Do you need a Tylenol, Erin?”

“No, I’m good.”

“You sure?”

I wanted to bark out, “Yes, I’m sure.” But getting angry wasn’t going to help either one of us.

Instead, I said, “I’m fine really. It’s not too bad. The boot’s helped a lot.”

While I waited for lunch, I took my iPhone out of the backpack and checked my email messages. There was an email from the insurance company asking for a status that I didn’t want to answer.

Heels on hardwood made me look up. Granny entered the living room carrying a tray with a pitcher of iced tea and a large bowl of salad. On a paper napkin were six vitamins, including one that was an elephant pill.

Seeing my expression, she grinned. “Trust your body-building grandmother, Erin. It’s not going to hurt to provide extra nutrients to your body. Vitamins first.”

Honestly, I did not need to be told to take my vitamins. But she was standing there, waiting. I took the whole handful and swallowed them with a gulp water and a tilt down of my head. Even the elephant pill went down. She continued to watch me until I turned to the salad.

I’d expected just limp iceberg lettuce, since that’s what my family always served. But the lettuce was deep green, with watermelon slivers and walnuts. She’d also added bits of leftover chicken and feta cheese. Sweet, salty, and peppery all rolled into one place. I found myself trying to get a little bit of everything onto the fork.

Granny went back into the kitchen for her salad bowl and returned to sit across the coffee table from me.

“So tell me about Martin Harrington,” she said. “He looked familiar to me. Could I have met him?”

That had me raising my eyebrows. I took a sip of the iced tea she had brought me. Unsweetened, with a wedge of lime, and seltzer water for bubbles. Granny was going to spoil me at this rate.

“You’ve probably seen him,” I said. “He’s an actor.”

I pulled over my iPhone and hunted down my folder in Evernote. The photo I showed her was the classic head shot all actors took, name printed at the bottom and his agent’s name. He hadn’t gone cheap with it, spending money on a color photo. He had on a sports coat and a white button down shirt with the collar open, no tie. He stared at the camera as if he were calling to it.

Granny pushed her glasses further up on her nose to see the image better, stretching her arms out. I wondered if my eyes would be like that when I got older.

“He’s nice to look at,” she said. “But unremarkable.”

Impressive. I’d had to research his history on-line in detail before I came to that opinion.

“What makes you think that?” I asked.

“Seeing a lot of movies. The ones who stick are more distinctive. He probably had everyone growing up tell him that he was so good-looking that he should get into Hollywood or be a model.”

“He started out as a model, but wanted to be in film.” A lot of models did that.

“What kind of roles has he had?”

I took back my iPhone and consulted my notes. “Police detectives, businessmen, serial killers. He’s worked on a lot of TV shows, but nothing breakthrough. He was filming on the set of a new show about the FBI when he fell and injured his back.”

“Did it get written up in the news?”

“Didn’t rate. The insurance company is suspicious because no one saw the accident. He said he fell over a cable and can’t work. That was a year and one other private investigator ago.”

Granny blinked. “He’s a good actor.”

Unfortunately, that was true. I’d been on him for two weeks, and he hadn’t let up the act. Not for one moment. I hoped I wasn’t running out of time.

Filed under: Writing in Public Tagged: Futuristic, Morro Bay, Mystery, Writing in Public

Writing in Public – Story #1, Scene 1

My ideas usually come as scattered bits and pieces.  This one started with the following:

The foot I broke in February (might as well put the time I spent to good use in a story)
Morro Bay, California.  Take a moment to check out the rock on the link.
A grandmother.

This story will be up until July 15.  Onto the story …

[image error]

Granny Logic

1

Nothing like having Granny on stakeout.

I slouched in my seat and watched the fog drift outside Granny’s Ford Auto-Driver car. It was like a cat that came in and sat on your face. Didn’t care, didn’t deign to care. The Pismo Beach morning was thick with it, all damp and prickly, a chill riding under. What I liked about the fog was that it had a way of quieting the world, bringing everything back to order.

Especially with everything so upside-down. I’d never expected that I would be tracking a worker’s comp fraud with my grandmother, Patty King.

My nose itched. The car smelled of Hawaiian Tropic and Tiger Balm. The sunblock was all mine, since all the sun needed to do was look at me and I was overcooked toast. Even with fog blotting out the early-morning, there was already enough sun to do that. The Tiger Balm was all Granny. She sat comfortably in the driver’s seat, checking out a buff guy in white board shorts running past. Jingle, jangle, jingle went his keys.

I looked, too. Mighty fine legs.

Granny was my father’s mother, and the last surviving grandparent I had. Everyone forgot how old she was most of the time because she never stopped moving. She volunteered for everything … a play at a stage in San Luis Obispo, writing a column for the Tribune, and lately, chauffeuring me. She even worked out at the gym. Weight lifting. No kidding. Granny had biceps.

Me? I had to do ‘Take Your Granny to Work Day’ because I’d broken my right foot. I rested my bare foot on the medical boot that looked more space age than the car was. The foot was still swollen and distressingly bruised–how did breaking the side end up with the entire foot bruised?

I glanced at the house we were watching. We’d parked across the street, three doors down. The house was one of those clapboards, painted a shade of blue that aged dingy, and surrounded by wild hair bushes. A bagged newspaper lay on the grass in front of the door.

The occupant was Martin Harrington. The insurance company I was working for suspected a fraudulent worker’s compensation claim for a back injury. So I was out here with my camera, hoping for video footage of Harrington doing the illegal.

So far, he wasn’t cooperating. I’d hoped I’d get a good surveillance session out of the way before my podiatrist appointment.

“Is it always this…this…dull?” Granny asked.

People always though P.I.ing was far more exciting than the reality. Granny had liked James Garner and The Rockford Files, so she was probably picturing gun fights and car chases. She hadn’t come with me thinking she was going to get into a car chase, did she?

Of course, it was harder to do now with the auto-drive cars. Even tailing another car was more challenging.

“Surveillance is probably the most boring part of being a P.I,” I said. “It’s like you’re out in the woods hunting a unicorn, and there’s only one. You have to wait and wait until you see the gleam on his horn, then try not to let him see you. I like digging around in the research better.”

I knew why she’d volunteered to help me out: She wanted to see what attracted me to being a private investigator.. I wasn’t even sure I could explain it myself. The rest of the family either kept asking me when I was going to get a real job or pretending like I did a ‘normal job.’

Whatever that was.

“So are you briefing the rest of the family on what I do?” I asked.

A flush colored her pale cheeks. “Some of them asked.”

“You know, they could listen to what I said. Instead, they just gossip.”

My tone was more clipped than I intended. It was like they didn’t like what I told them so they made weird shit up. And I do mean weird. But Granny hadn’t been part of that. She normally stayed out of the family squalls.

“Sorry,” I said. “My foot is making me cranky.”

She grinned at me crookedly. “Blame the foot.”

“Sure why not? Makes more sense than trying to figure out why everyone is nuts.”

“Believe me I’ve been asking that question for years. You won’t get any answers that make sense.” Granny leaned forward, peering out through the windshield. “That him?”

The screen door banged shut, and Harrington emerged from the house. I raised my video camera and turned it on, speaking the date and time so it would record. The film also carried a date stamp, but you could never been too careful when it came to going to court.

Harrington stared out at the fog like it annoyed him. He’d thrown on a ratty striped bathrobe over shorts and a white t-shirt, leaving the robe to flap open. He hadn’t shaved yet this morning, which made him look slovenly. He was what I called ‘almost handsome’—all the parts were there, but arranged in a way that made him unmemorable. He’d tried acting in Hollywood for a few years, but hadn’t been able to get work beyond ‘ guy in a business suit.’ Been equally unmemorable in the corporate world.

He came down the three steps to the grass. A languid movement, like he didn’t have the energy to care. He reached the newspaper and squatted, picking it up.

“He knows someone might be watching,” Granny said.

“Sooner or later, he’ll forget.”

Filed under: Writing in Public Tagged: California, First Person, Morro Bay, Mystery, pantsing, Private Detective, Writing in Public, Writing in the Dark

Neither rain nor snow keeps the librarian away

Can you imagine a librarian taking off with a load of books, mounted on a horse, like a Pony Express rider?  Braving the snow or rain to get those books to the person who wants to read them?

Horse-riding librarians from the Smithsonian.

Filed under: Books, History Tagged: Books, Horses, Librarians

5 Futuristic Women (Story Collection)

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Five stories of futuristic women, from an artist who makes a first contact in “Sky Hair,” to the private who finds herself in hot water after aliens eat her officer in “Rejected by Aliens.”  In “New Robot Smell,” a female soldier has to choose between the military and her life.  In “The Scientist’s Widow,” a detective tracks a woman she thinks murdered her husband, and in “Theater Ship,” actors defend a planet from an alien invasion.

Available from your favorite bookseller.

Filed under: Books Tagged: Aliens, First Contact, Invasion, Military, Robots, science fiction, Science Fiction Short Stories, Scientist, space travel