Marian Allen's Blog, page 384
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!
October 19, 2013
#Caturday Katya in the Kitchen
Katya Graymalkin here.
Mom made salmon patties the other day, out of the nasty, chewy scraps they pack into the can so they can skimp on the juice. It’s a little sad that Mom and Charlie eat the scraps to keep them from going to waste, while I get all the good stuff, but they’re very cheap thrifty.
As always, Mom poured all that good juice into a little bowl for me. Charlie scoffed, saying things like, “Puttin’ down a bowl for a cat to eat out of,” and, when I was eating out of it, “You scoundrel. You fat rat.” But it’s obvious from his tone of voice that he really loves me but thinks he’s too gruff to admit it. He doesn’t fool me.
Oh, by the way, he left a drop cloth spread neatly on the floor and one crumpled into a mess on the floor. Guess what I did? Even he couldn’t help but notice that I discriminated between them, sparing the neat one. He’ll thank me later.
A WRITING PROMPT FOR ANIMALS: What special treat do your humans give you?
KG
October 18, 2013
Cold, Fantasy, Slatternly Monkey
For once, I’m not talking about The Stone Monkey, Sun Wu-Kong, The Handsome Monkey King. I’m condensing my recommendations into a supposedly catchy blog title. Did it catch your attention? Then my work here is done.
No, no, no, it isn’t. I’m just getting started!
Okay, I’ve recommended this lady’s blog before, when it was Life on the Muskoka River. Now Cathy has moved to Cold Lake, and her blog is called — wait for it — Cold Lake Cathy. It’s just as funny and just as warm and just as well-worth reading.
I need to remind you about Ash Krafton’s Fall Into Fantasy Giveaway, wherein tens of writers (including me) are giving away FREE BOOKS between October 17 and 21. Come an’ get ‘em!
I’ve been having a blast playing with PicMonkey online photo editor. You can click on Make a Collage, crop and resize it to the size you want, and save it — blank — to your computer. Then, on the PicMonkey site, click on Edit Photo, upload that blank, and mess around with backgrounds, words, and fonts to make shareable quotes like the one next to this paragraph. Because I needed another time-suck, right?
Finally, a blog that’s new to me, but I’ve subscribed, because I have the same love-hate relationship with Martha Stewart that Wendie Winslow has, but I’m much, much less funny about it. The Kitchen Slattern. Yo.
If you’re in the Corydon, Indiana, area tomorrow, October 19, 2013, come on over to the library between 10am and 2pm. T. Lee Harris, Joanna Foreman, and I will be selling our books.
A WRITING PROMPT FOR YOU: How does your main character prefer to waste time?
MA
October 17, 2013
Fall Into #Fantasy #Giveaway Begins!
Over fifty authors are giving away books at Ash Krafton’s blog. That’s a lot of books, and a lot of chances to win. The giveaway runs from October 17 through October 21.
There are eBooks, print books, magazines, and swag, with entries made through Rafflecopter. You can enter bunches and bunches of times by liking people and following them, and stuff.
Here are the books:
So head on over to Ash Krafton’s and start entering! And good luck!
A WRITING PROMPT FOR YOU: A character wins a prize.
MA
October 16, 2013
A Book and a Book and a Fish
Oh, how I love the Friends of the Library book sale building, The Book Box! Apparently, there are plenty of people in Corydon as odd as I am, or they know people who are as odd as I am, because I’m always finding weird and wonderful books there.
One of my most recent is RUSS & DAUGHTERS: REFLECTIONS AND RECIPES FROM THE HOUSE THAT HERRING BUILT, by Mark Russ Federman. I might or might not have picked up this book otherwise, but, as it happens, I knew about Russ & Daughters Appetizers from another book I got from The Book Box, so I got it.
Russ & Daughters is a store that’s been open and family-run for around 100 years. It’s on the Lower East Side of New York City, and specializes in fish, salads, and candy. The book is a delight, delivering, as promised, reflections and recipes, as well as jokes, photographs, and a little history. The founder, Joel Russ, saw that other store owners changed their store names to So-and-So and Sons as their boys grew and came into the business. He didn’t have any sons, but his daughters helped out, and the customers liked them. So he changed his store’s name to Russ & Daughters, and that’s what it’s been ever since.
The other book is TEPPER ISN’T GOING OUT: A NOVEL, by Calvin Trillin. TEPPER is about the cut-throat activity of finding a parking place in New York City. Tepper finds good parking places, then sits in them, in his car, for as long as the parking meter runs. People looking for a space see him in the car, wait for him to pull into traffic, then impatiently ask him if he isn’t going out. No, he tells them, he isn’t going out.
And where do you think one of his favorite parking places is? Right in front of Russ & Daughters, that’s where. I came to feel very familiar and possessive about Russ & Daughters during the readings of this book: plural because I read it and liked it so much I read it aloud to Mom.
Now someone please talk me out of ordering a gift basket delivered to the wilds of the Midwest!
A WRITING PROMPT FOR YOU: Where would you like to have a gift basket delivered from?
MA
October 15, 2013
Balanced Blogging
I had set aside Wednesday for blogging about food. Then my lovely Sister in The Netherlands, Marion Driessen, AKA The DuTchess, asked me to meme-sit her Six-Word Wednesday Story Challenge during her vacation, and I moved Food to Tuesday. Now things are back in balance.
See, I have a semi-themed blog. Saturday is Caturday. Sunday is Sample Sunday. Monday is writerly things. Friday is recommendations. That left Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday. Well, as you can plainly see, another special day would have to be Wednesday. Otherwise … no … good….
So today I’m posting about food, as always on Tuesday, at Fatal Foodies, today on the subject of drinks that changed the world. No, not just for me. And tomorrow, I’ll be doing my regularly scheduled food post here, right in the middle of the week, right where it belongs.
~sigh~ What a relief.
A WRITING PROMPT FOR YOU: A character is off balance, in any sense you like.
MA
October 14, 2013
Fall #Fantasy and #Paranormal #Giveaway
Have you heard? Everybody’s talking about it all over the web! They aren’t? Not EVERYBODY? Well, why not?
Ash Krafton, Speculative Fiction Author, whose blog has the Best. Tagline. Ever. is hosting a Fall Into Fantasy Giveaway of fantasy and paranormal books. Oh, the tagline? “Taunted by demons…driven by deadlines.”
The Giveaway runs from October 17-21, 2013, so mark your calendar. Over 50 of us maniacs authors are giving away electronic and/or print copies of our books. I signed up to give away a print copy of The Fall of Onagros, Book 1 of SAGE.
There are many other books by many other authors, and SWAG BAGS! Fun!
In other news, my desktop computer is dead again. I think it’s the power source. I’m going to see if it heals itself overnight; if not, a power source is an easy fix. I hope that’s the problem.
A WRITING PROMPT FOR YOU: Write a fantasy that could only happen in the autumn.
MA
October 13, 2013
#SampleSunday Off-Planet Introspection
SIDESHOW IN THE CENTER RING is what I call a comedy of bad manners. Connie Phelan, an insult-humor comedy star, won’t feel like she’s overcome her lower-class roots until she’s a leader of the most exclusive social group on Earth. When she accompanies the group to a planet where slavery is legal, she’s forced to face her ambition and evaluate her own character.
This scene is bit of down time she allows herself with the slave who has forced her to claim him in order to keep him away from the social group’s resident sociopath.
Off-Planet Introspection
SIDESHOW IN THE CENTER RING – Excerpt
by Marian Allen
Tosun and I spent the afternoon poling a reed boat through a backwater. Tosun pointed out plants and critters and various items of nature, and I wondered why I never did this back home.
We tied up under a shade tree and Tosun played me to sleep on his clawharp.
When I woke up, the shadows were long, and there was a scent of spicy herbs in the air.
Tosun was chewing on something, a green stem sticking out of the side of his mouth.
“Peasants’ Pleasure,” he said, holding up a handful of stalks. “Can you smell it?”
“Yes. Smells good. I wonder if it’s safe for Terrans.”
“Sure. It isn’t a stimulant or anything. Want some?”
It tasted bright and rich, like raw gingersnap dough.
“Nice here,” Tosun said.
“Sure is. I can almost understand why people would want to live in the country.”
I dabbled my hand in the water and wished I could stay here, like this, for a long, long time. I was almost forty, I’d been fighting to get out of the Alley all my life, and I was tired of it. Maybe Jackie was right. Maybe fighting to get out was what was keeping me in.
So what was I going to do, give up? When I was this close? Darryl was being such a pain in the rear it was a wonder any of us could sit down, but other than that everything was going great. I was going to go home one of The Precious Few, the tenth member of the Inner Circle of the Good Society.
True, that would mean moving in the same circle as Darryl and Marissa, but that was a price I was willing to pay.
If that happened–and it would–maybe I wouldn’t sign up for another season of CLUB CALIBAN.
Maybe I’d get TerraNet to do it as a mini-series, instead, or a set of movie-length specials.
Maybe I’d retire altogether, join the leisure class, and run with the Society all year round.
Suddenly, I hurt so much inside I grunted.
“What’s wrong?” Tosun asked.
I spit out the herb I’d been chewing. “This stuff’s giving me gas. Let’s go back.”
~*~
SIDESHOW IN THE CENTER RING is now available in paperback, and also for Kindle.
A WRITING PROMPT FOR YOU: A character is surprised to find himself or herself repelled by the nearness of a goal.
MA
October 12, 2013
#Caturday An Unhealthy Obsession
Katya Graymalkin here.
Yes, I’m talking about my Mom and Hello Kitty again. Mom had a birthday recently and a bunch of enablers gave her Hello Kitty gifts. Here’s a picture of them, plus some things she bought for herself since the last picture posted:
That big black and pink blob at the top is a purse! Mom carries it everywhere, just as if it were normal for an old lady to carry a child’s purse! I’m glad she never takes me anywhere; I’d be so embarrassed!
Then there are the cork board, the pencils and erasers and pencil sharpener, the ruler, the magnetic dress-the-kitty toy, and the watch. Mom bought herself the hair bow. Her friend Andrea Gilbey in England sent her the metal box of Hello Kitty sticking plasters (British for adhesive bandages). So you could say she’s internationally known as a goof!
I still think I look better than that silly white cat:
I mean, really. Don’t you agree?
A WRITING PROMPT FOR ANIMALS: Your human does something that embarrasses you.
MA
October 11, 2013
A Movie That Makes Me Happy
Let It Ride
My mother loves Richard Dreyfuss. I’m always like, “Ugh! That guy! I can’t stand that guy.” Then we watch one of his movies and I love it, and I love him in it. I’ve finally managed to form the habit of reminding myself that, no, I do not dislike Richard Dreyfuss, I love Richard Dreyfuss. Why I have this visceral reaction against him, I do not know, since I love everything I’ve ever seen him in.
Let It Ride is totally one of my favorite movies. It’s one of those “sad sack” movies, where a little nothing of a guy, kind of a screw-up, is the lead character. You identify with him because he’s just a guy. You know he’s riding for a fall, because that’s what happens to guys like him. But there’ll be kind of a bittersweet thing, you expect, that’ll help him deal with the fact that Fate kicked him in the can again, just like it always does.
Lemme tell you sumpin: Watch this movie.
You’re welcome.
A WRITING PROMPT FOR YOU: A character grudgingly changes his or her opinion about something or someone.
MA
