Marian Allen's Blog, page 383
October 29, 2013
Katya Is Sad
Katya Graymalkin, my cat and fellow blogger, wanted to write this post, but she was too sad. She’s sitting across the room, staring out of the window, while I write it.
Her first crush, Mr. Nikita, The Opinionated Pussycat, talked his Daddy into taking him to the vet for the trip to the Rainbow Bridge. In case you don’t know, the Rainbow Bridge is where pets go to play while they wait for their people to join them.
Mr. Nikita had been ill for some time, and both his Daddy Kiril and his protege (Elvira, Mistress of Felinity) knew the time was coming, but it was still difficult for them and for all his internet followers and friends to say goodbye.
Katya wants me to tell you:
Love your friends, no matter how many feet they have, and try not to be too sad if they go to the Rainbow Bridge. You’ll see them again when it’s your turn, and you’ll have them in your heart and “remembery” in the meantime. And you can share them with your other friends by telling stories about them, like Mom tells me about the fur friends who came before me.
She says she feels better, now that she said that.
Goodbye, dear Mr. Nikita. We’ll remember you.
A WRITING PROMPT FOR YOU: Make a list of the fur friends you remember. Think of a story about each one that illustrates the most memorable thing about them.
MA and KG
October 28, 2013
Green Eggs and Who?
I see Katya has been at the computer again. Fortunately, she didn’t hide any of my files. If she had lost this post, I would have had a lovely new fur hat for winter wear. Yes, I would.
My guest today, you see, is none other than Cold Lake Cathy herself: Cathy Olliffe-Webster! Yes! ~fist pump~
Cathy Olliffe-Webster has been writing her whole life, much of it as a reporter and editor for community newspapers in southern Ontario. She now lives in Cold Lake, Alberta, Canada, with her infinitely patient husband, Dave and a whole lot of freezing-her-butt-off in the weather forecast. Cathy blogs at Cold Lake Cathy.
MA: Tell us about your book, GREEN EGGS AND WEEZIE, if you pleezie.
Cathy: You think you’ve got the world by the woo-hoo, don’t you? Happily married? Oh yeah. Good kids? Uh huh. That’s what Weezie Polk thought until one day the man who would never cheat on her (never, never, oh no, not him) was caught massaging bare boobies … and they weren’t hers! One thing leads to another and, before you can say Dr. Seuss, Weezie is changing her favourite ladybug underwear in the county jail. How does a respectable, middle-class woman wind up in the back of a police cruiser? How does she lose her house? Her children? And what possesses her to shack up in a dilapidated farmhouse in the middle of a harsh Canadian winter, with nothing but whispers from a long dead grandmother and a can of blueberry pie filling? Green Eggs & Weezie is a cautionary tale for all women who trust too much. There are things even the happiest married women should do to protect themselves and Mizz Weezie will lead them through the messy labyrinth that is a broken heart, with humour, passion and a recipe for the best meat loaf you’ve ever tasted.
Excerpt:
ButchBalding, middle-aged and slack around his hairy middle, lumber store manager Butch Polk was an unlikely Lothario and certainly not anybody’s idea of raging male beauty. Anybody but cashier Sharon Thompson, whose tongue was presently thrust in his cheek, burrowing thick around Butch’s back molars like the cordless drills the store had on sale that week in the Matthiasville Bugle.
Butch’s tongue was doing its own exploration, Christopher Columbusing its way in the spaces where Sharon’s molars used to be. She didn’t have many back teeth – it was one of her many charms. They hung together, mouths magnetized, glommed on like teenaged leeches during mating season.
As soon as Sharon had arrived that morning Butch ushered her into his house and out of her pants, boinking her with great enthusiasm over the kitchen sink. When he was done doing her with the dishes he hustled her into the bedroom and out of her remaining clothes, doing a mean missionary in the bed he usually shared with his wife, Weezie, who was in the city for a meeting.
When middle-aged reality took a toll on Butch’s manly parts, they drove to a trendy lunch spot in the next town for New York steak and frites. They drank house white wine, the expensive kind that didn’t come in a box, and talked smut until they were ready for round three. Forgoing tiramisu, they found a back road and did it al fresco against Sharon’s Sunfire, her bare fingers sticking to the back bumper while Butch’s bony buttocks got the precursor to frostbite, then drove back to Butch’s place, where he was to be dropped off in time to meet his kids when they got off the school bus.
A good-bye smooch was turning into something more rambunctious, however. Clothing was loosened, the springs on the Sunfire started squeaking as the grappling got tighter and the windows got steamier. An old Ernest Tubb song came on the radio and his walking the floor tied in with the rhythm of their fevered yearning so neither one of them heard the bus as it approached Butch’s driveway.
~*~
MA: Mercy me! ~fans self~ That’s certainly not the sort of thing I’m accustomed to posting. Oh, dearie, dearie me! ~dumps ice water over self~ …Er … Hi, Mom….
Er… Dare I ask what your favorite books growing up were?
Cathy: My favourite book was actually a series of books – Nancy Drew! I was addicted to those black and yellow hardcovers about Nancy, George and Bess, and Christmas night was always about curling up in bed and cracking those stiff covers. Bliss, sheer bliss!
MA: Who would play you in your biopic?
Cathy: Melissa McCarthy (Bridesmaids) would definitely play me in a biopic, especially in my younger years. Kathy Bates would play “old me.” I’d like to say someone glamorous would play my part but that’s just wishful thinking. We are who we are and I wouldn’t want it any other way. Besides, Melissa McCarthy cracks me up – she’s hilarious!
MA: If you could survive on only one food, what would you want it to be?
Cathy: One food??? Just one? OK, if I could ONLY have one food for the rest of my days it would be Barbecued Chicken Feast pizza from Domino’s. With blue cheese dipping sauce and Diet Coke over tons of ice. That all counts as one thing, right? What if it hyphenate it? Barbecued-Chicken-Feast-pizza-blue-cheese-dip-Diet-Coke-ice. Yup, I think that covers it!
Thanks SO MUCH for helping me and Weezie out, Marian. Can’t tell you how much I appreciate it. I know so many women who have lost everything – their homes, their children, money, their minds – when marital break-ups went bad. My life went in the dumpster when my husband left me so I wrote Weezie to help women navigate the jungle that life becomes when divorce hits. We all make the same mistakes, over and over, and it costs us in ways we can’t even imagine when we’re at the altar saying “I Do.” Green Eggs & Weezie is funny in parts, but it’s also sadly true. I hope your readers “give her a go” and enjoy Weezie as much as I enjoyed writing her.
-C
Green Eggs & Weezie is available for Kindle.
A WRITING PROMPT FOR YOU: How would your main character answer the questions I asked Cathy?
MA
October 27, 2013
#SampleSunday They Meet Again
Katya Graymalkin here, in Mom’s continued absence.
I told you yesterday Mom is writing a Mr. Sugar story for a Mardi Gras anthology, and said I would swipe a snippet to post here. So here it is:
“Mr. Sugar v the Cake Thief” – excerpt
by Marian Allen
The door opened. I crouched, prepared to run if lying low failed to make me invisible. Mrs. DiMarco had a throwing arm that would be the envy of many a Major League pitcher, and an uncertain temper.
The screen door screeched, and the woman herself stepped onto the porch, carrying a broom and dustpan.
I won’t describe her. She was human, so who cares what she looks like? My invisibility wish didn’t work, because she saw me – she was amazingly perceptive, for a human – but she smiled.
“Weh-heh-hell, look who it ain’t! Ragmop! What brings you down to the poor folks’ end of the street?”
“To be honest,” I said, “I missed you.”
“Meow, meow, meow,” she said. “Does that mean, ‘Give me some food,’ I wonder? Does it?”
“No,” I said, “it doesn’t. But, if you’re offering, I wouldn’t turn it down.”
“Meow, meow,” she said. “If you’re still here when I get back, I’ll give you some scrippy-scraps.”
Humans. One can go through the wars with them, one can have a meeting of minds with them, one can understand every word they say, and the most one can hope for is that they’ll be able to tell the difference between distress, anger, hunger, and joy by the tone of one’s voice. True communication is beyond them.
~*~
I wonder if she’ll ever put a beautiful short-hair Russian Blue in a story? She ought to, don’t you think?
A WRITING PROMPT FOR ANIMALS: How do you get along with the neighbors?
KG
October 26, 2013
#Caturday Katya Gets a Crush
Katya Graymalkin here.
Mom has been writing another Mr. Sugar story. She’s away at Magna cum Murder today and tomorrow, so I read what she has so far. It’s very rough, but not bad. The first and only other Mr. Sugar story is in LONNIE, ME AND THE HOUND OF HELL, and I thought it was pretty funny. So I went to morgueFile and looked at pictures of white Persian cats and found this one.
What a handsome cat! This is what I imagine Mr. Sugar looks like. I do have a bit of a crush on Mr. Sugar, but only as a character, not as a boyfriend. For one thing, I’ve been fixed, so I’m not interested in that stuff. For another thing, I don’t like other cats in real life. And, finally, Mr. Sugar is not only neutered, he’s gay, so he wouldn’t be interested in me that way, either. It’s much better to have character crushes than to have real ones. Less wear and tear on the emotions and so on.
Tomorrow, I’ll sneak and put a little piece of the story up for Sample Sunday. If Mom didn’t want me to, she should have set something up herself before she left! ha!
A WRITING PROMPT FOR ANIMALS: What animal character do you have a crush on?
KG
October 25, 2013
Deadly Divinities
Today, I’m off to Magna cum Murder Mystery Festival for a weekend of good food and good company. It would be better if Mom came with us, but she decided to sit this one out. Maybe in 2014. Everybody misses her when she doesn’t attend!
I’ll be going this year for the first time as a publisher AND an author, in my capacity as part of the Three Fates / Line By Lion publishing house. Our funding campaign is still underway; no contribution too small — or too large! ~grin~
Speaking of murder and stuff, have you been to morgueFile? Masses and masses of free photos, with the only limitation is that you must fiddle with them, not use them exactly as they are, and not claim you took the photos. No pay, no license, no attribution necessary.
And then there is the wonderful GODCHECKER.COM, which makes me happy. “Poking deities with a pointy stick since 1999.” Most deities could use a good poke or two. Hop on over and check out the Deity Of The Day, or browse by religion or geography. What profiteth it a man that he should gain his soul yet lose an hour or two of his precious time? Or something like that.
A WRITING PROMPT FOR YOU: Pick a photo at random from morgueFile and a deity at random from Godchecker, and put them together in a story.
MA
October 24, 2013
Bringing the Pockle
I’m gearing up to go to Magna cum Murder Mystery Festival, and that means new fingernail polish.
Hey, it can’t all be about food.
I got this bee-youtiful stuff called Spoiled by Wet N Wild, which sounds like a lot more fun than nail polish has any business sounding. It was only a buck-ninety-nine, so that was a plus. Please, don’t anybody tell me what they put in it to make it so glittery, ’cause I don’t wanna know. 
It is, as our next-door grandson would have said when he was wee, very pockly. He had trouble with his s’s and his r’s.
It’s odd, but my nails are longer now than when they were painted blue, but the brown polish makes them look shorter than the blue polish did. Don’t you think that’s odd? Well, I think that’s odd.
So I will wear my pockly nail polish and my pockly fascinator and my pockly scarf and dazzle my fellow Magnets. Gentlemen, don your goggles.
A WRITING PROMPT FOR YOU: What is your main character’s favorite fashion accent?
MA
October 23, 2013
Really? Eww? Or Mmmm?
You know what I haven’t had for about a bazillion years? Pringles. Because why? Because they have 150 calories in 16 chips. That’s … lemme see, now … around 9 1/2 calories per chip (original flavor). Would it be worth it? It just might be. Especially if what the Wall Street Journal reports is true, and the calorie count is roughly the same.
http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/201...
Check out the new seasonal offering: Okay, nasty or nice? At first, you go, Ewwwww — potatoes and sugar! But potato candy is deLISH! And I love sweet-and-salty combinations. So…. Right?
If I can find these babies at JayC, you just KNOW Imma check ‘em out! How about you?
A WRITING PROMPT FOR YOU: What is your character’s favorite snack?
MA
October 22, 2013
Fascination
You know what I love? Fascinator hats. And beer. But I don’t know how to make beer.
Here are two fascinators I made today.
The net on the black one has sparkles in it. I like sparkles. That’s probably why I like so much beer. I mean why I like beer so much. That’s what I meant. The feathery one is not — repeat, NOT — a critter. It’s a fascinator. Really.
I’m posting today at Fatal Foodies about Mrs. Bridges’ Upstairs, Downstairs Cookery Book.
A WRITING PROMPT FOR YOU: What kind of hat does your character wear, or what kind would he/she wear if forced to wear one?
MA
October 21, 2013
Diesel! Electric! Elephant!
Yes, chaps and chapettes, my guest today is none other than that quintessential Englishperson, Ian Hutson, who is so very, very, veddy, veddy British, he makes P. G. Wodehouse sound like Ernest Hemingway.
Here are two of his pictures. Isn’t he handsome? (Hint: The answer is YES.)
The future Sir Ian runs (and sometimes hides in the shadows) the blog of all blogs, The Diesel-Electric Elephant Company. He has agreed to join us today for a live radio interview on the subject of his new short story collection. But, since I’m too cheap to buy a microphone, and neither of us wanted to get up in the other one’s morning, the live radio interview will be a pre-posted text non-live non-radio interview.
MA: Future Sir Ian, are you there, sir? Tell us something about your background. How did you come to be who you are, sir?
The Future Sir Ian: My father was a deep-sea fisherman turned Cold War spy, an electronic-warfare expert turned naval historian. My mother was a factory-worker, home-maker, socialite and lady. When I was born we immediately moved to Hong Kong for the tail-end of the colonial era and the worst cholera epidemic, drought and typhoon of the century. As a rug-rat and child I spoke only Cantonese and a very little pidgin English. I finally learned to read and write at age nine, on the Isle of Lewis in the Outer Hebrides, Scotland in the era when the tawse (a leather strap) was still used for the encouragement of schoolchildren. There we lived on a croft that had only one room with the mains electrickery, my father fetched water with him in carriers from work (jamming and monitoring Soviet signals), my sister and I kept two pet sheep and we all cut peat to burn in winter.
When I was aged ten we lived in a friend’s public zoo in Norfolk (and I skipped school for the year). We had a shack between the bear pit and the monkey house, I used to go to sleep at night to the sound of the howler monkeys and gibbons hooting. Aged fourteen and back in Lincolnshire I enjoyed the part-time job of driving my Aunt around to lay off her semi-pro bets at bookmakers. She just assumed that I could drive, gave me the keys to her shiny new Audi and sat in the back seat. Later, I studied a BA in Operation Research Systems Analysis and a Masters in Industrial Relations (left-wing insurrection by any other name).
My first job was in the Civil Service and then for corporations such as EDS, ITSA and AVIVA. I got shot at only once, and that while off-duty and when my car was stopped at traffic signals, but they missed me and I have to say that those few seconds of tyre squeal, smoke and acceleration were the only interesting ones of my entire three decades of the corporate career ladder. I took the hint and left to run my own businesses, slowly went quite literally bankrupt when the world folded and the banks went belly-up, and lost my home, car and household valuables to the Official Receivers. I’m now a peacenik vegan hippie living in a hedgerow in Lincolnshire, England, and my hobbies are starving, patching my underwear and being happy. My motto is “Remember you’re a Womble” and, if all else fails, try to have a hot curry and a cold G&T.
MA: Excellent, sir. Very good. Now, what’s this we hear about a new short story collection?
TFSI: Nglnd Xpx is ten stories of robots carrying teddy bears, dirty great steam trains, polite English zombies, old-age pensioner wars, rogue comets and Queen Elizabeth doing dishes. It is one hundred thousand words where half of that would really have done and from quite serious beginnings to blathering nonsense, no caricature is forgotten and the science in the fiction is quite splendidly silly.
MA: Not to put too fine a point on it, what the frack is Nglnd Xpx supposed to mean?
TFSI: Not too terribly bright, is one? Oh, I’m so sorry, did I say that out loud? Nglnd Xpx is text-speak for England Expects.
MA: Of course it is. Of course it is. I was only fooling. I knew it all the time. And where can this masterpiece be found, other than on my electronic reading device, since I snapped it up like an alligator at a synchronized swimming convention?
TFSI: It can be found at Smashwords and Amazon, old thing.
MA: And one’s blog?
TFSI: Which one?
MA: …Your one.
TFSI: Ah. Quite. My blog is at http://dieselelectricelephant.wordpress.com/blog/
MA: Now, sir, a few questions:
1) Why?
TFSI: Y is one of my favourite letters of the human alphabet, although if pressed I will also confess to a certain fondness for the C, coming as I do from a fishing family. Bs upset me rather if they buzz, but my favourite letter for calming myself down is undoubtedly the T. T is a curious letter, since it is a drink with jam and bread. One of my pet hates is having to Q for a P, thus proving that L is indeed what other people R. Perhaps one of the greatest mysteries of life is the Y Knot, which is often tied around mountains just because they are there, and around books just because the author can. This is a serendipitous coincidence since in the matter of why I write, I do because I can, regardless of whether I should or even ought. I think we all should, where possible, don’t you? We all apparently have a book within us and, while removing it can make a dreadful mess of the library rugs and of one’s status as a free man, the extra space does come in very handy for pudding.
2) Who?
TFSI: Who eh? There’s the what of it indeed. Tom Sharpe, Robert Heinlein, Enid Blyton, W E Johns, Pournelle and Niven, Aldiss, Huxley et al – the what in those particular cases of whom being “everything” and “anything”. An unholy mix of Biggles, the Famous Five, Pierson’s Puppeteers and Constable Els roam around in my head, quite unfettered, and my life is all the better for it.
3) How?
TFSI: More accustomed as I am to Hello, I’ll see your How and raise you a G’day. An alternative how may be “as often as possible and by torchlight if necessary” (in re the reading of the aforementioned who and what, for reasons mentioned in the why).
4) DID the chicken cross the road?
TFSI: I prefer to think that the road moved under the chicken. The hen is a simple creature and as such highly unlikely to engage in complicated spontaneous manoeuvres with motor traffic. That which is not the chicken, being of such demonstrably larger size and being more inclined to reasoned thinking, almost certainly just shifted to the left or the right by the width of a carriageway. This is why chickens at the side of the road often look surprised, for a moment hitherto they were elsewhere, minding their own business. As a sentient part of the universe we humans really ought to stop playing these tricks on hens.
Best wishes,
Ian Hutson
MA: I thank you, sir, and, if I may say so, God bless Nglnd.
A WRITING PROMPT FOR YOU: Where was that motor vehicle going when it passed the hen?
MA
October 20, 2013
#SampleSunday Demon Ozone
The Southern Indiana Writers’ Group has a new anthology out with a paranormal theme. The title is (because it’s us) PAIR OF NORMAL WHAT?
I have some stories in it, and this poem. It originally appeared in Buck Coulson’s great fanzine, Yandro.
DEMON OZONE
by
Marian Allen
A little girl with ringlets blue
And eyes of deepest gold
Approached the noisesome space canteen
And shivered with the cold.
She pulled a rag of green lamé
About her shoulders thin.
She pushed aside the swinging door
And then the child went in.
What sights are these to greet the eyes
Of one of tender years!
What sounds are these, from ev’ry side,
To fall on tender ears!
The worthless of a hundred worlds
Were crowding ’round the taps
Or seated at the tables dim
With girls upon their laps.
So, in amongst the revelers,
The gold-eyed urchin came
Until she reached a drunken man
Intent upon a game.
His hair had faded to pastel,
His eyes were shot with black.
The infant raised her tiny hand
And touched him on the back.
“Oh, father, dear,” the child then said,
In accents mild and sweet,
“Please come back home. Mamma is ill,
And nothing’s there to eat.”
His eyes filled with repentant tears,
He fell upon his knees.
“And would you have me back?” he cried.
His daughter answered, “Please.”
Oh, keeper of the space canteen,
Dispensing potions wild,
Pray God for grace, and think upon
The little Spaceman’s Child!
