Marian Allen's Blog, page 386

#SampleSunday “Fangs For Nothing”

Here’s a bit from the Southern Indiana Writers’ Group’s newest anthology, a collection of paranormal stories, entitled A PAIR OF NORMAL WHAT? One of my stories is “Fangs For Nothing,” a supposedly humorous vampire story. I’ve posted bits from it before, but I’m too lazy busy to look back and see if I’ve done this bit. If I have, consider this a rerun.

With apologies to Damon Runyon.

“Fangs For Nothing” – excerpt

by Marian Allen

Now, direct sunlight is no better for vampires than it is for anybody else, but most of us can tolerate a reasonable amount. I doubt a sudden burst of daylight will do more than give this Mansfield Parker a sneezing fit, but this, I do not say. I also do not say that, if he is so terrified of regular people, he needs to get a bodyguard, and the reason I do not say this is that I am afraid Vlad the Roumanian will think I am volunteering for the job which, to be perfectly honest, I am not.

“You will be thinking that what my friend needs is a Magyar.” Magyar is our word for regular people who, for various and sundry reasons, guard us with their lives. “As a matter of fact, my friend has one of these. But my friend is beginning to doubt his Magyar’s total devotion. My friend suspects his Magyar of being no Magyar at all, but just a guy in it for the cabbage. My friend suspects his maybe-not-a-Magyar is deserting him while he sleeps, leaving him vulnerable to attack by mobs of hysterical peasants armed with torches and pitchforks.”

I try to imagine the citizens of Ithaca, New York, as such a mob, and fail.

“What I wish for you to do,” says Vlad the Roumanian, “is investigate the situation.”

I open my mouth to protest that I am a simple businesswoman, not an investigator, but my brain gets a stranglehold on my tongue and shows it what Vlad the Roumanian will do to my neck if I contradict him, and I simply make a compliant noise into the telephone.

#

The next day I go to Catalpa Street and put the house under observation. Of course, if the Magyar does not leave by the front door, I will not assume he does not leave at all. You know what Vlad the Roumanian says about assumptions: “Never assume. It makes you disappear without a trace.”

Sure enough, though, the front door opens, and who should come out but Jasper Caufmann. Jasper Caufmann is the regular guy I work with the last time Vlad the Roumanian pays me the doubtful compliment of asking me to investigate something for him. Why, I wonder, does Vlad the Roumanian not tell me that Mansfield Parker’s Maygar is my old acquaintance? Does he think I will take my life in my hands and turn down the assignment, if I know this? Or does he simply not consider it important, one regular guy being pretty much the same as another in Vlad the Roumanian’s eyes?

At any rate, this is none other than Jasper Caufman, so plump and pale he could play the part of a guy drowned two days ago and not need much makeup whatsoever.

I slip up behind him as he fumbles with his car keys and say, “Boo.”

Caufmann jerks so hard, his keys fly up into the air and land, with a merry jingle, on his nearly bald head. His eyes cross, and I think he may collapse in a piddle of nerves, but this he does not do.

~*~

That was fun.

A WRITING PROMPT FOR YOU: How would your main character take it if somebody slipped up behind them and said, “Boo”?

MA

#Caturday Katya On The Case

Katya Graymalkin here.

Mom bought a new (refurbished) laptop, which I love. When she works in the office on her desktop, I have to sit in a chair or on the desk on the other side of the tower case. When she works in the front room on a laptop, I can sit next to her on the couch.

She also bought a new case to carry the laptop in. It’s a battery case, with zippers and pockets and pouches and wires and a rechargeable battery, so she can work on her laptop for a long time in the last place I want her to be — away from me!

Here’s a picture she took of me doing what cats do best: claiming your things as their own. I would like to think that, if I’m on the case, Mom can’t take her laptop and go anywhere, but I no longer have any illusions about that. She would shift me in a heartbeat.

Oh, well, she always comes back, and that’s the important thing.

A WRITING PROMPT FOR ANIMALS: What do you do to try to keep your human(s) from wanting to leave you alone?

KG

Here and There and Everywhere

My plan is to be at Context Alternate Reality Convention this weekend. I hope I get to attend, because Context is my favorite convention. It’s focused primarily on the written word, where other conventions also (or mostly) feature gaming and costuming. Since writing and reading are my chief occupations, Context is for me!

Even if I don’t manage to make it to Context, I can have a virtual writing convention online by reading the Workshop archives at Beth Anderson’s HOT CLUE website. Great stuff!

Long-time readers (Hi, Mom!) know my obsession with tiny and/or odd houses, so you won’t be surprised at my sending you to this Interview With An Earthbag Architect at Wide Earth Smallholding blog. That’s an Earthbag Architect as opposed to a dirtbag architect. Nobody wants to read an interview with a dirtbag anything. Well, I suppose a dirtbag wannabe might read it to get some pointers.

ANYWAY, here’s an informative and generous post by my beloved Jo Robinson on how to read and access Kindle books if you don’t have a Kindle or an Amazon account. She’s lovely!

Katya will be handling the blog tomorrow, as usual on Caturday Saturday, and I’ll set up an excerpt to post on Sunday.

A WRITING PROMPT FOR YOU: Does your main character prefer a big house or a small house? Why?

MA

Happiness Has A Tail

I’ve probably said it before, but MomGoth (that’s me) loves blue-tailed skinks. When I was in counselling for depression, my therapist advised me to pay attention to the little things that made me happy instead of the global things that made me suicidal. When I left her office, the first thing I saw was a blue-tailed skink.

They always made me happy, and now they’re sort of a symbol of all the small, intense joys that make life worth living.

I took this picture Tuesday, outside Harrison Health and Rehab facility, where a bunch of us go to sing hymns and old songs with the residents one day a month. We sing everything from “Abide With Me” to “Take Me Out To The Ball Game.” We call our group Joyful Noise.

Look at that beautiful critter! He was in the shade, but he kindly skriggled into the sunlight so I could get a good snappie of him.

How could I not be happy?

A WRITING PROMPT FOR YOU: How does your main character feel about reptiles?

MA

p.s. Happy birthday to me!

There’s a DEER Loose in the Wood

I told Charlie we needed a dog. When Joe started to get old, I said to him (Charlie, not the dog), “We’d better get another dog.”

“No more dogs,” he says. “They bark all the time. They dig holes everywhere. If the riding mower hits a hole on one of these hills, it could tump* over on me and kill me. If you’d rather have a dog, I guess I can’t stop you.”

Well, when he put it like that….

So now we have no dog, and our next-door-daughter’s dog has to do all the barking and digging for no extra pay. And the wildlife is closing in.

The other day, Bambi’s uncle was up in the front yard.

I went to take a picture of his white tail as he bounded away — and he didn’t bound away. He just stood there looking at me. After a while, he got tired of the paparazzi and strolled back into the woods, probably shedding ticks like a stripper sheds sequins.

I told our #4 Daughter we’ll probably have Thumper kicking the door in, demanding carrots with menaces.

Deer and rabbits are vegetarians, right?

*tump: (verb) colloq. A combination of turn and dump. Ex. The dang wheelbarra tumped over and all the turnips fell out!

A WRITING PROMPT FOR YOU: A character is forced to live in closer proximity to wildlife than is really comfortable. Yes, I’ve both read and seen LIFE OF PI.

MA

Another Thing About Okra

As I’ve said before, I’ve come around about okra. Used to hate it. Love it. This is partly due to intensive lobbying by Dani Greer and Leslea Tash, but also because I was assured that baking okra would turn it good.

It did.

I’ve since come to love it all kinds of ways, even slimy. Isn’t that strange?

And here’s another thing: Okra blossoms are GORGEOUS! Okra is in the hollyhock/rose-o-sharon family, and it shows. Here are some snappies I took of an okra blossom.

The ants like ‘em, too.

I’m posting today at Fatal Foodies on the topic of food presentation. Please note that I do not “plate” the food. Neither do I mug the coffee nor bowl the soup.

One is also being interviewed today at The Diesel-Electric Elephant. Toddle over and have a dekko.

A WRITING PROMPT FOR YOU: A character changes their mind about something surprising.

MA

A Bloody Good Buddy Cop Book

I’m talking about CHICAGO BLUES, the new book out by T. Lee Harris. T is a long-time friend and fellow member of The Southern Indiana Writers. She’s the SIW artistic director and production manager, meaning she’s responsible for the good looks of SIW’s annual anthologies.

Besides being an artist and a computer whiz, T is a first-class fictioneer. Ever-modest, this is her official biography:

[image error]T Lee Harris is a writer and illustrator. A graduate of Indiana University, T has put her degree to good use when designing and publishing the Indian Creek Anthology series for the Southern Indiana Writers’ Group–using it to fan bacon smoke away from the smoke detector was merely an unexpected plus. T’s writing and artwork have appeared both in print and in various online venues including mystericale.com, Wildside Press’ Cat Tales 2 anthology and UntreedReads.com.

Let’s hear more about CHICAGO BLUES:

It started off as a routine night for jazz pianist BC Peale: hop on the Harley, hit a local bar and grab a quick bite before heading over to the Inferno Jazz Club. Unfortunately, the plans of even a 200+ year-old vampire can go seriously awry. Things go even farther wrong when retired football star turned undercover agent, Galen Miller, enters the picture, drawing Peale into a web of intrigue. Together, Miller and Peale must confront the modern day evils of the black market arms trade, organized crime and murder. It seems that every clue they follow leads them back to the mysterious crime boss known as Borgia and an ancient evil that threatens the city of Chicago itself and throws everything Peale thought he knew about himself into doubt.

~*~

Sounds good, eh? Well, I’ve read it, and I’m here to tell you: IT IS GOOD!

Hop on over to Amazon and pick it up:

Chicago Blues for Kindle

Chicago Blues in paper

You can thank me later.

A WRITING PROMPT FOR YOU: If there were vampires in the city where you live, where would they hang out?

MA

#SampleSunday More of the Horror I #amwriting

Here’s a bit from the second scene of the horror story I’m working on. It’s kinda creepy, I think, but I don’t know if it qualifies as horror. I’ll just have to finish it, edit it, polish it, and submit it, and see if it gets accepted.

~*~

He stood as the older boy, named Tanner after Tom’s lost cousin, shrieked and vanished into the water. Barb stood with him and hugged him as Tanner surfaced, laughing and splashing his younger brother, Nolan.

Tom’s voice was harsh as he said, “I wish they wouldn’t do that. I’ve told them not to do that.”

Barb stroked his back. “That’s it,” she said. “That’s what’s wrong.”

“What’s what’s wrong?”

“How old was your cousin when he drowned saving you?”

“Ten.”

“And how old is Nolan?”

“Ten.”

“You were the same way the summer Tanner turned ten.”

“I was?”

“Worse.”

“I was? Worse?”

“You had nightmares. Remember? You slept on the couch for a week because you were thrashing around.” She demonstrated, drawing a tiny chuckle, before his eyes went back to the boys.

“Maybe that’s it.”

“Speaking of nightmares: Look at that poor child. Bless her heart, Laura’s making friends with him.”

“I’m watching the boys. Point him out to me later.”

“I won’t have to. You can’t miss him. He must have some kind of condition or something. His skin is all blotchy, and he’s wearing a hat in the swimming pool, and – you hate to say it of a child, but – oh, my, the poor thing is ugly.”

The muscle memory of lungs filling with creek water doubled Tom over. He gagged. Cold and hot, he swivelled toward his four-year-old daughter.

“Get the boys,” he croaked. “Get them away from the water.”

He was four. He was terrified. He wanted to get away. But he ran toward his horror, toward his child.

The boy standing next to her, in baggy trunks, baggy shirt, and a brimless cap, was just as he remembered, just as he dreamed. Tanner – his cousin, Tanner – kicking and pushing, inadvertently freeing him from the boy’s grip – that had been real. It had been real.

Tom scooped his daughter up and away. She whooped a laugh and waved her doll, sprinkling crystal drops from its chlorinated hair.

The boy was gone.

Tom clutched Laura tightly.

“Ouch, Daddy Bear! Too tight!”

“Sorry, baby. Sorry. That was a bad boy.”

“You know that boy?”

“A little.” He sloshed up the steps out of the pool.

“He’s crazy. I said, ‘There’s my daddy,’ and he said, ‘He’s mine.’ You’re not his daddy!”

“No. He is crazy. And he’s not really a boy. If you ever see him again, run away.”

“Stranger danger,” said Laura.

“Good girl.”

~*~

I’m almost finished with this story. It looks like it’ll be around 5,000 words. This has been hard to write, for some reason. Oh, who am I kidding? Writing is almost always hard for me. ‘Cause I’m lazy, that’s why.

By the way, there are excerpts of all my novels and lots of my short stories here on the blog. Just click up there on the links, or over there on the sidebar. There are links to free stories, too, on the Free Reads page. You’re welcome.

A WRITING PROMPT FOR YOU: Write a story in a genre you don’t much like. Go on. It’ll be good for you. Builds character.

MA

#Caturday Katya On Her Own

Katya Graymalkin here.

Mom is away again, this time at BucCornEar in Helmsburg, Indiana. She expects to come home with all her books sold, and herself stuffed with popcorn and pirate grub.

Meanwhile, I’ve been browsing the web, and I found this article about a cat in Russia, a handsome boy who wears a bow tie and works as a librarian. His name is Kuzya. Did you know I’m what’s known as a Russian Blue? Kuzya and Katya sound like they belong together, don’t you think? Mom would be sorry for leaving me alone all day, if I ran off to Russia to be a librarian.

And, poking around on Mom’s computer, I found this. I can’t decide if she did it to make me feel a part of today’s experience in Helmsburg, or if she just thinks she’s funny.

She’s going to be gone ALL NEXT WEEKEND, to Context Alternate Reality Convention, which is a pretty good place for her, actually. But I love her. Silly thing.

A WRITING PROMPT FOR ANIMALS: What’s the silliest thing your human ever did with you?

MA

 

Food and Fur OR Confit and Critters

My internet pal Cairn Rodrigues posted one of those pictures non-Facebookers make fun of on Facebook: a picture of some food she prepared. I love those pictures, because I find yummy new recipes that way.

Not this time. I asked her for the recipe, and she sent me to this website called Tasty Kitchen, where, instead of her recipe for onion, garlic, and red pepper confit, I found a recipe for Maple and Onion Jam. Not, you may agree, the same. Bad, Cairn! No biscuit! If you don’t know what confit is, you can read this post from The Food Lab, or you can read the next sentence here: Confit is slowly cooking something in fat or highly sugary syrup and/or preserving food by storing it, hot, in such a bacteria-hostile medium.

So I’m just gonna hafta do what Cairn did, take some random recipe, and make it the way I want to make it. That’s what I usually end up doing, anyway.

Now, about the critters. Here is possibly a most useful post about what to do if you find a lost pet — even your own — and it won’t come to you. It’s called Why your lost dog may not run back to you from the wonderful No Dog About It blog. While you’re there, check out the posts on Assumptions Can Hurt. It’s right on the mark, for our relationships with animals, children, and other grownups. Aliens and mythical beings, too, I have no doubt.

A WRITING PROMPT FOR YOU: A character makes an assumption that turns out to be wrong.

MA