Marian Allen's Blog, page 414

Alice Friman on Poetry Part 2

First, I’m happy to announce that FORCE OF HABIT, my sf/cop/farce novel, is FREE for Kindle for another four days, 12/23-27, 2012. Go get it!

Here is (are?) the rest of my notes on Alice Friman’s Poetry presentation:

Mechanics

Rewriting–has two basic purposes:

To take these unconsious images and make them make sense

To evoke feeling–try to make the reader feel what you felt

Poems are about feelings–they are invisible–only experienced through language.

Say there is a ghost in the room; invisible. You have to throw a sheet over it in order to see it. The ghost is the POEM; the underlying emotion. The sheet is the language, the shape that shows the form beneath. The lighter the sheet, the clearer the form. Every word in a written poem must hold up a meaning or it overloads, blunts, suffocates the ghost.

The title also is working language.

Rhyme: Most people think of rhyme as end stop rhyme–where the phrase stops at the end of the line with exact rhyme.

Enjambment is when the phrase passes the end of the line and stops inside another line. The rhymes are sometimes imperfect.

Interior rhyme lends a lyric quality to the poem.

Assonance is rhyme or near-rhyme of vowel sounds.

Consonance is “rhyme” of consonants: murder/dream/drama/moored are rhymes like this.

l is lovely s is ugly d and hard th are final: death

Line length: the longer the line, the faster you read. The shorter the line, the slower and more purposefully you read.

For a philosophical, lyrical, romantic, thoughtful effect, use “ing” forms of verbs

For a strong and punchy effect, use stem of verb

Exercise: Finish these sentences:

1. The keys want

2. I wish you would

3. The sea has showers of

4. The clock hears

5. What is it that the piano loves?

Poems are made up of adjectives, nouns and verbs. Pick two of each from a thesaurus and make yourself use them in a poem.

Again, I, Marian, tell you that these exercises are as useful for prose as they are for poetry.

A WRITING PROMPT FOR YOU: Do Friman’s exercises.

MA

#SampleSunday – The Christmas Pool

This story originally appeared in the Southern Indiana Writers’ Group‘s now-out-of-print anthology, CHRISTMAS BIZARRE. It is reprinted as part of SIW’s latest anthology, HOLIDAY BIZARRE, which includes stories involving holidays throughout the year. I’m posting the entire story here as part of Alliteration Ink‘s SPEC THE HALLS celebration.

THE CHRISTMAS POOLby Marian Allen“So, are you interested? –Joy? –Ms. Crawford?”

Yes, I was interested, but the price set off alarm bells in my cynical mind. The house cost so little…. It was a small house, but it came with ten acres of woods and a pool. Well, a pond, really, but the banks were steep except for one gentle shelf. Iris and cattails surrounded the pool and three koi–fat, pink, gold-dappled carp the size of dachshunds–lived in it.

“Does the pool freeze over in the winter?” I asked Carol Pittinger, the realtor/owner.

“Most years, thank God,” she said.

Odd thing to say, I thought. I like ice skating as well as the next woman, which is why I had asked, but I didn’t invoke the Deity over it.

I had the house inspected, of course, and I even had a check run on the pool, just to make sure there was nothing noxious about it. Those koi might have been dumped in for window dressing, for all I knew; they might die and be replaced daily. I had a dog to think of, after all.

Baxter Browning (my mutt) loved the place. He thought he’d died and gone to Sunnybank. “Look, Mom, I’m Lad! Look, I’m Bruce, the collie without a flaw!” I could almost hear him shouting.

“None of the above!” I shouted back, not caring if anyone heard me and thought I was a little cracked. I had long ago stopped caring what anyone else thought of me. It had been a hard dependence to break, but now I found I had very little stress. Or company.

All the inspections came up roses, and we closed the deal in late July.

I had already unpacked everything when I found out what the catch was: The place was haunted. Not by a ghost–I could have dealt with a ghost–but with an aggressively living boy.

Baxter Browning loved to bark (what a title for a children’s book!), but he didn’t bark at Len. I went out to announce lunch, and there was Baxter, wrestling with a rumpled and smudgy four- year-old who was cackling laughter like a forty-pound hen.

“Hello,” I said, loud enough to be heard over the love-feast on the lawn.

Dog and boy sat up and grinned at me.

“Hi,” said the boy. “I’m thirsty.”

“Are you?” I said. “Lunch, Baxter.”

Baxter started for the porch. The boy stood up, tucked his t-shirt into his denim shorts, and came after him.

“Didn’t your mother ever warn you not to go into strange houses?” I let Baxter in, but blocked the boy’s way with my frowning body.

“I sure am hungry,” he said. “And hot. And I need to Go.”

“Why don’t you? Tell your mamma you’re hungry.”

“I have to Go.”

Did that stuff take the finish off treated lumber? I didn’t want to learn the hard way.

“Come in,” I sighed.

#“My name’s Len,” he said, over a glass of milk and a paper napkin of Crackin’ Good gingersnaps.

“Len What?” I asked. “And where do you live?” With a last name and a general address, I could probably track down his parents and give them a little unsolicited advice on child-rearing.

“Leonard Scott Marcus, 2342 Shepherds Pike, Shepherds, Indiana, 47112. 812-555-7384. My mamma’s name is Shirley Lynn Marcus and my daddy’s name is Leonard Paul Marcus. I got two brothers and three sisters. But I don’t have a dog.”

I got a pencil and pad and wrote down Len’s vitals.

“You got a dog,” said Len. “Do you have a little boy?”

I thought of all the boys of various ages I had declined to have over the years and said, “No, I do not have a little boy.”

“Do you wish you had a little boy?”

“No, I do not.”

That was the last either of us spoke until Len walked out of the house. “Thanks for the goodies. I’ll come back tomorrow to play with your dog, since you don’t have a little boy for him to play with.”

And he was gone before I could tell him no.

I called the number he had recited. A woman answered. I could hear Chaos shrieking in the background.

“This is Joy Crawford. I just moved in down the road from you. Did you know your little boy was at my house?”

“Which little boy? I have three–Pipe down, I’m on the phone!–Oh, it must be Len. Just send him home, if he gets to be a nuisance. –You two…” Click.

#How do you tell a four-year-old you don’t want him around, ever? “This is not a good time,” I could manage. “It’s time for you to go home now,” I could manage. “I’ll be busy tomorrow,” I could manage. But, “Go away now and never come back”? Couldn’t be done.

In late August, Len started pre-school. Every evening I drove home to find a grubby urchin on my front porch with an armful of my dog and a stream of gossip about “the kids.”

Darkness held no terror for him; the days grew short, but my headlights always picked out that figure waiting for me. I’d give him “goodies,” listen to him while I got my supper started. Now and then he’d say, “Whatcha making? That looks good,” but I had no trouble resisting the temptation. I’d just put everything on simmer and drive him home, then come back to my quiet and my solitude.

Len’s parents, I discovered, were nice people. They cared for their children, but they had half-a-dozen; and Len, rather than being over-supervised, seemed to get overlooked. He made me come in once and look at his shelf (which is what you have when there are eight people and three bedrooms): It held a bird skull, a purple-quartz geode the size of a silver dollar, a magnetic travel-version chess set missing two pawns (one of each which, Len said, made it okay), and a dozen Little Golden Books. While I was there, one of his brothers gave him a Transformer; Len showed me how to change it from a lion into a man, made room for it on his shelf, and tucked it in his pocket.

#My first Christmas Eve in the new house. We only worked half a day, and I looked forward to a Len-less afternoon. He was waiting for me when I pulled in.

“Did you have to work today? I been here all morning.”

He had made me a present at pre-school: a bouquet of paper flowers, torn and crumpled and decorated with a unique patina of finger-grunge and Elmer’s Glue.

So I didn’t feel so stupid giving him the stuffed dog I’d ordered for him from an ad in the NEW YORKER.

#I got back from Midnight Mass about 1:30, jumpy with that crystalline wakefulness that sometimes follows a victory over sleep. The sky was clear, the stars burned in quantities; more stars than I’d ever seen before. I let Baxter out of the house, and we walked.

As Carol, the former owner, had promised, the pool had frozen over. I had thrown a skating party for some of my closer acquaintances. Now, alone in the hours between Christmas Eve and Christmas morning, I had a fancy to see the sky reflected in the ice.

As we neared the pond, Baxter stopped, lowered his head, and whined.

“What is it, boy? Come on.” I walked ahead, patting the side of my leg by way of encouragement.

Then I heard what Baxter must have heard: A weak, faded scream.

With one yelp, Baxter tucked his tail between his legs and scuttered for the porch.

I stood there, chilled inside my coat, and listened. Another scream, and another–pale and unreal, but undismissable.

“It…must be the ice breaking up,” I said, and followed Baxter back to the house.

Sure enough, the next day there were cracks in the ice and the weather lady said a thaw had set in the night before.

#The next year, the pond didn’t freeze. I had a Winter Solstice party that included our all trooping out to the pond to throw feed pellets to the koi, each pellet to be accompanied by a wish.

I went out after Christmas Eve Mass with a packet of freeze- dried grubs. Baxter refused to leave the house. Coward, I thought.

But, as I neared the pool, I heard them: the screams. They seemed louder this year and I ran to the pool, convinced that, this time, they came from human lungs. In the water, two fat pink arms reached up; a round face, too small for the arms, between them… mottled… gaping…

The panic passed, my vision cleared, and I saw the koi, lined up for feeding. I shook the grubs out in one grand spray and staggered home.

#Len was in Kindergarten that year, and took upon himself the task of making sure I knew my letters, numbers, and colors. The next year, first grade: I heard about the girl he was going to marry, then the one he was really going to marry, then the one who was going to marry him.

The years passed, and every year brought a present: A cigar box pasted over with old Christmas cards (I supplied the cards). A brooch made of buttons (my buttons) stuck onto a flat wooden heart with a mass of craft cement. A dusty bottle of perfume with a yard sale sticker still on the bottom. A bird feeder made out of Popsicle sticks.

Winters were properly cold, and the pool was frozen over every Christmas Eve. I ventured just close enough to hear those muffled, icy screams; having heard them, I went back to the house with Baxter and cranked up Johnny Mathis.

I called Carol Pittinger, informing her that it was actionable to sell a haunted house without informing the buyer. She protested that the house wasn’t haunted, just the pool, and only on Christmas Eve, and only by a sound, and you couldn’t call a sound a ghost, could you? She said the screams hadn’t been there, so far as she knew, when she had bought the house. She first heard them two years after she moved in (and she named the year, as if I cared), and she had only heard them on Christmas Eve. She said she hadn’t sold out because of “a little auricle illusion,” as she called it, and one that only happened one night a year…

“Yeah, yeah.”

“Just don’t go out there Christmas Eve. I didn’t, the last year. Christmas is supposed to be nice and fun.”

“Yeah, nice. Fun.”

Not go out? Not listen? Not even check to see if the screams were there? Somebody was making those sounds–some person was making them–or had, at some time past, maybe. I owed that screamer a listen, one human being to another.

#That year, the weather turned freakishly warm around the solstice, and it was in the upper 60′s on Christmas Eve. That year, Len didn’t meet me with a present when I got home from work. He called to say he had a party (big 10-year-old–who needs a middle-aged grump, eh?) and that he would see me during the holidays.

The strange weather had me out-of-sorts and lazy. I usually took myself out for dinner and a movie before church, but this year I just boiled an egg and looked at the illustrations in a volume of Dickens.

A Christmas Carol, The Haunted Man, “The Trial for Murder”… So many of Dickens’ Christmas stories had ghosts in them. Someone had told me once that ghost stories were a Christmas tradition in Victorian England. Bizarre tradition.

Then again, maybe not. Christmas is a sort of ghost story: The Baby is born with his death and resurrection already a done deal. I thought of a painting I’d seen of the Annunciation: Gabriel telling Mary about the coming Child while, on a beam of light, a tiny spirit descends carrying a cross.

Baxter and I sat alone by the gas fire while I tried to work up some enthusiasm for Mass, thinking I might not even go this year. My feelings were hardly celebratory.

Baxter jumped up with a yelp.

“What is it? Christmas present from a flea?”

Another yelp.

“It’s started. Okay, let’s listen. It’s the least we can do, right?”

Baxter started to bark. He ran to the back door and scratched the panels, which is something he never does.

“You want out? But you never…” I opened the door. He raced out and away, toward the pool. I was right behind him.

I could hear the screams louder this year than ever–less faded…. –They were real!

The full moon cast shadows that picked out detail instead of obscuring it. As I ran, I could see the bank of the pool, with its rim of dead vegetation. In the tangle lay a “vase”: a jar covered with adhesive tape and colored with shoe polish. I had made one, myself, when I was about ten. Some wilted carnations tumbled out of it–had he stopped to get water for them? In too much of a hurry to walk around to the shelf, thought he’d just lean over, lost his balance, scrabbled for a hold and went in?

I hesitated only long enough to see Len come up–I wouldn’t do him any good if I landed on top of him–and jumped in feet first.

Len was heavy in his sodden jacket, and he thrashed with terror. Holding him up, I went under. Baxter danced on the shore–scared of water, the worthless mutt. I kicked toward the shelving bank. I went under again, and got a lungful of water. Dumb kid. I started to see flashes of red. One more heft. One more…

Len left my arms as my foot slipped off the shelf. I pushed him toward shore and felt myself slide backwards. My chest was tight. I couldn’t pull in enough air. I kicked feebly once again, slipped beneath the surface, and flickered into blackness.

After the blackness came the light: light that shone through me, illuminating me inside and out. I heard familiar voices, but couldn’t make out the words. I smelled roses, and fresh-baked bread… then it all faded back to black…

#I woke lying in the grass. Alive? I drew a deep breath. Alive.

Len sat next to me, water running from his jacket in rivers and from his eyes in streams. He was holding Baxter off me with one hand and clutching the vase of carnations in the other.

When he saw my eyes open, he let the dog go; I had to sit up to save myself from a spit-bath.

“Len…You pulled me out?”

“No, you got me out. You walked out by yourself.”

“I did?”

“You went under. I couldn’t reach you. I thought you were gone….” Len’s voice was still thin with fright. He shuddered and said, “Then your head lifted up and you opened your mouth and all this water p-poured out, but you wouldn’t open your eyes. And you walked out as light as a feather, just so light…almost like you were floating… And you just sort of laid yourself down. But you wouldn’t open your eyes, and I was scared…. I made this for you.”

Ten-year-old Len held out his holy gift, and I took it with more gratitude than he would have understood.

Ten years ago, Len had been born. Ten years ago, screams had begun haunting the pool. Now, ten years later, I had followed those screams to the aid of my young friend.

He had given me his love, with no hope of return, and I had given him my life. And, in the true spirit of Christmas, both gifts had been blessed and reciprocated.

#The pool is no longer haunted, on Christmas Eve or any other night, and the koi live there in peace.

~   ~   ~   *   ~   ~   ~

A WRITING PROMPT FOR YOU: How would your main character deal with a pesky child?

MA

#Caturday – A Greeting From Katya

Katya wanted me to take these pictures of her helping me with my web site maintenance and my writing tasks. She also helps me knit by biting those pesky needles if they start going too fast. I can’t take a picture while I’m knitting, though, so you’ll just have to imagine how helpful she is.

I helpz wif teh wurdz an picshez.

U no I kidz, rite?

Thank you so much, Katya. What would I ever do without you?

A WRITING PROMPT FOR YOU: A character tries to interest his cat in his hobbies.

MA

 

Book, Better, and The Band

First, Echelon Press, publisher of my comic/sf/cop novel FORCE OF HABIT, is pulling it from everywhere but the Amazon Kindle store. That’s so it can be enrolled in the Kindle Select program and have a run of FIVE FREE DAYS! It’s turning out to be more difficult than anticipated to scrub it from all databases. Meanwhile, Echelon is endeavoring to return it to it’s original price of $2.99, but Amazon is still stubbornly pricing it at $0.99.

That’s less than ONE THIN DOLLAR! Makes a great gift, too!! Yeah, you could check Amazon every day to see if it’s free yet but — ONE DOLLAR? For a whole entire book? Which will make you laugh, maybe?

Okay, so much for readers. Now, for all you writers out there, go to EditMinion. It is awesome! Just copy and paste some of your text into the box, click on the button, and EditMinion will give you a free instant Rainbow Edit and a score. Too cool.

Finally, and seriously, I’m happy to announce that Becky Sherrick Harks’ Band Back Together is now a federal non-profit organization. If you don’t know The Band, but you have an emotional and/or medical difficulty you want to learn about, vent about, or share support for, head on over and Choose Your Own Adventure. Yay, The Band!

Oh, okay, just one more: Medical Scene Writer says it’s for people who want to write realistic medical scenes, but it’s packed with really cool junk for anybody who thinks really cool junk is … really cool. Like this one, about people with two sets of DNA.

Oh, and HAPPY SOLSTICE!

A WRITING PROMPT FOR YOU: Find something really cool at Medical Scene Writer and write a scene or story treatment using it.

MA

Winter Is The Reason For The Season

People keep telling me, “Jesus is the reason for the season,” but you know what? He isn’t. I mean, I’m a practicing Christian (might get it right someday, if I practice enough), so I’m a fan, but you might as well say the Indianapolis Colts football team are the reason for fall.

Okay, bad analogy. They are.

But the reason for the season is, to start with, the tilt of the earth on its axis as it orbits the sun. Says so, right on Wikipedia. WINTER

So there comes a time when the days are very short and the nights are very long. When you get far enough north, there’s a day when the sun doesn’t rise AT ALL. Then the sun comes up again, and stays longer every day until Winter is over. People celebrated that return WAY before Jesus was born.

Not knowing the date of Jesus’ actual birth (yes, Jesus did actually exist), the Roman Catholic church placed the celebration of it during the Solar New Year celebrations.

First, people were already celebrating. It was easier to redefine the meaning of the celebration than it would be to squash it.

Second, The Festival of the Unconquered Sun? The return of light to a dark world? A new promise of life to come? The birth of a new time? It’s a natural fit.

So the church I go to, Corydon Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) is having a Winter Solstice service at 7:00 pm on December 21. Everyone is always welcome. We’ll also have Christmas Eve and Christmas services, of course, but I love it that we’re honoring the Solstice, and our connection to the Earth and the past. After all, as the hymn “O Little Town of Bethlehem” puts it, “The hopes and fears of all the years are met in thee tonight.”

A WRITING PROMPT FOR YOU: Have a character mark the Winter Solstice in some way.

MA

A Good Dish For Christmas

I like festive dishes, don’t you? Not just delicious, not just delicious and bad for you, but also pretty. Yeah, it’s trite to have red and green food for Christmas, but bite me — I like it. Better yet, bite this food. I made it the other night, and I’m going to try to make a vegan version for the family Christmas gathering, since our vegan daughter will be limited in what she can eat there.

Here’s what I made. As you see, it is NOT even vegetarian. My proposed changes follow.

CORN AND PEPPER CASSEROLE

about 2 cups frozen mixed red and green peppers and onionsabout 2 cups frozen corn1 can cream of chicken soup1 box cornbread stuffing mix, cooked according to directions

Defrost and drain well the frozen veg. Mix with the soup. Put into greased square casserole dish or, if you prefer, spread it thinner in a rectangular dish. Top with stuffing. Bake until hot through, between 30 and 60 minutes, covering the top, if necessary, to prevent scorching. Sprinkle the top with cheese, if you like. I like.

I’m thinking that I’ll get a bag of cornbread crumbs, if I can find some without chicken fat or milk in it, and work from there. If I can’t, I’ll make a pan of cornbread using our vegan daughter’s hens’ eggs and water and add my own herbs. I’ll use some Not Chick’n to flavor it. Not sure what I’ll do for the soup texture. I can do real mushrooms, but it might take silken tofu to make the creaminess.

And yes, I know that vegans don’t eat eggs, but she makes an exception in the case of her own hens, since she knows how well they’re treated.

A WRITING PROMPT FOR YOU: Two characters disagree over the ingredients of a dish they have to make together.

MA

As Martha As It Gets

Anyone who knows me knows I adore Martha Stewart, but I do not emulate her. I am to Martha Stewart as rocks are to lemon meringue pie.

Nevertheless, I do have my little moments. There was my cat-proof yarn holder, for example. There was my hand-made miniature pickle ornament for my tiny little tree. And now I give you this:

We have these louvered closet doors in the front room, right? So, when we get a Christmas card, I slip the back of the card through a slat to display it. To display the card, I mean, not the slat.

You’re welcome.

It’s Tuesday, so I’m posting today at Fatal Foodies about a cookbook I enjoy and the dish I made from it. I MEAN I FOLLOWED A RECIPE IN IT TO MAKE SOME FOOD, NOT THAT I USED THE COOKBOOK AS A PLATE! Stop being so silly!

A WRITING PROMPT FOR YOU: Describe a door in your house. Describe it as if there were something wonderful behind it. Describe it as if there were something dreadful behind it.

MA

Alice Friman On Poetry Part One

No, alas, I haven’t persuaded Alice Friman, one of the best poets on the planet, to post on my blog. I haven’t even had the unmitigated gall to ask her. What I did do is have the fantabulous good fortune to go to a poetry workshop she presented once, at which I took notes.

In case you don’t already know this, let me tell you: If you’re a writer, anything you can learn can help your writing. If you write urban noir zombie erotica and you think poetry has nothing to teach you, think again.

Here beginneth my noteth. I mean notes.

POETRY
Alice Friman
Midwest Writers Workshop
July 28-29, 1994

Art, according to Emily Dickinson, is “when I feel the top of my head come off.”

Art = Beauty. Beauty does not mean “pretty.” Beauty stuns. The poety Rillke says, “Beauty is terror that decides it isn’t going to destroy us.”

Art = Truth. YOUR truth. You must write from the center of your universe.

Artist
- somebody who sees; spends life looking at life, and the world, then write what YOU see.
- knows how to HEAR

Exercises:
- Stand in front of something with a blank mind. Make believe your eyes are film and just look. Don’t try to interpret or get inspired and start constructing a poem, just look.
- Shut your eyes and listen. What do you hear? Really hear? Again, don’t poeticize it, just hear it.

The window:
- The first window is the “you” that everyone sees.
- The second window is the “secret stuff” that only you see, or that you share with intimates.
- The third window is the “you” that everyone BUT you sees, and you deny. “I’m not like that!”
- The Fourth Window is the you that no one knows, not even you–”least of all, you.” This is where Art/Poetry come from.

How do you write from the Fourth Window, when it only comes unbidden? The subconscious is a fountain connected to the sea of our experience. Consciousness is a fence that blocks that fountain. The fence collapses at night; during the day it keeps us on task. The dream state goes on all the time, sleeping or waking, but “the fence loves to work.” But sometimes the fence goes on automatic and leaves you free: Driving a familiar route, you suddenly look up, and don’t remember getting where you are–the fence went on automatic, and you were awake, but in a dream state. This is the purpose of repetitive prayers.

Ways to make the fence lie down:
- Tell it you’re only playing. “You don’t need to monitor this, I’m not working, I’m playing.”
- Take an “image walk” – ramble, with pen and pencil. Write what you see. When you come home, look at the paper. Play with the items you wrote down. Each thing you noticed is attached to something underneath within you; that’s why you noticed it. This play pulls the string that attaches the thing to the stuff underneath.
- Pick up any three things on impulse. Bring them in and look at them, using as many senses as possible). Write about one.
- Go to a public/private place (airport, museum, church, library) where you are surrounded by people who will leave you alone. The fence will be too busy monitoring the activity to bother you.
- Take any book and open at random and point to a word. Pull out 15 words. Write 10 lines using all those words.
- Get old photographs, such as one of your mother younger than you are now, or when she was pregnant with you. Take it to a strange place (cemetery, junk store, the post office). Write about it–not poetry, just stuff. Make it a poem later.

Great stuff, isn’t it? Well, if you think that’s great, you should read her poetry!

A WRITING PROMPT FOR YOU: Are you kidding? Do Alice Friman’s exercises!

MA

#SampleSunday – Novel Excerpt – Conning the Cons

I’ve been telling you about LET IT SNOW! SEASON’S READINGS FOR A SUPER-COOL YULE, which contains my humorous sf story, “The Pratty Who Saved Chrissmuss”. I also have news about FORCE OF HABIT, the novel that spawned … er, I mean inspired that story.

In FORCE OF HABIT, a teacher on a starship goes out of bounds on shore leave and is mistaken for two different people by two different groups of criminals. She is neither of the people any of them think she is. In this scene, Bel (the teacher) has been caught in one of many lies she’s told in her efforts to talk herself out of trouble.

~   *   ~

“Boys, boys,” said Bel. “Calm down. You’re both wrong.”

The “boys” turned on her with equally malignant snarls. Utrop Ligniss didn’t snarl, though. He just crossed his arms over his chest and smiled. Maybe somebody would have to get smashed, maybe not. Either way, he got paid the same. That was the beauty part of being a strongarm man; you got paid either way.

“I told you,” said Morgan, “what would happen to you, if you lied to me.”

“No, no,” said Bel, spinning another thread, and praying it was strong enough to hold her for awhile. “Only if I weren’t valuable to you, not if I lied. I admit, I did lie, but only to keep down the price of my freedom. You can’t blame me, can you?”

Morgan knew his limits. He knew when he’d been blindfolded and twirled until he didn’t know a donkey’s tail from a doorway, and he knew when it was time to stop being a good sport if he wanted to cop a prize. “Gag her,” he said to Ligniss. “Please, before it’s too late.”

“Shut up,” said Pron. “What are you talking about, woman?”

“I am an agent,” said Bel, “of the Galactic Union Security Caucus.”

“The Security Caucus doesn’t have agents,” said Morgan.

“I’m a secret agent. Naturally, you didn’t know they had secret agents, because if everybody knew about us…”

“You wouldn’t be secret anymore,” said Pron.

“Naturally.”

“I told you to gag her,” said Morgan. “I warned you, but you wouldn’t listen; oh, no, you wouldn’t listen.”

“Someone on the Grand Council suspects a traitor in their midst and appealed to the Caucus for help. They sent me. Before I came here, I knew nothing of any of you gentlemen, nor the powers behind you, nor the horses you rode in on.”

“The what?”

“Horses,” said Morgan. “They produce what she’s shoveling.”

“Shut up,” said Pron.

~   *   ~

FORCE OF HABIT is (or soon will be) available only through Amazon for Kindle. If you don’t have a Kindle, here is a link to a page where you can get FREE apps to read Kindle books on a computer, iPad, or any electronic device. Not your shaver, though. At least, I don’t think there’s an app for your shaver. Go look, though; you never know.

If 99 cents is too expensive to suit you, wait until December 20-24, when it will be a free download. Just in time for Christmas!!! Makes a great gift, too!!!!

A WRITING PROMPT FOR YOU: Have a character attempt to talk himself or herself out of trouble.

MA

#Caturday – 10 Best Christmas Presents For Cats

I’ve put some thought into this (about five seconds), so I hope you appreciate it. I know your cat will.

10. Cover as many surfaces as possible with cloth, so your cat can sit on the furniture and not get fussed at. If the cloth doesn’t match so it’s obviously utilitarian, your cat will like it even more.

9.  Make fun of the dog. The dog won’t mind.

8.  Leave some tuna or salmon in the can for her.

7.  Wash out the food and water bowls. I mean, seriously, that’s disgusting! Would you want to eat or drink out of that?

6.  Tie jingle bells onto a piece of string. Actually play with the cat with it for more than, like, two minutes. If the cat is as bored as you are, give it up. At least you tried.

5.  Drop bits of butter on the floor.

4.  Once a day, pet her as long as she wants you to.

3. Good: Sing her a song about cats. Better: Sing her a song about a cat just like her. Best: Sing her a song you made up about her. Extra points if it’s not about how bad she is.

2.  DO NOT grasp her in any way and bounce or flop her about and pretend she’s dancing to your song.

And the best cat present ever is the prize I saw a woman “win” on Let’s Make A Deal yesterday morning while I was waiting for Mom to finish her swallowing therapy:

1. HALF A TON OF FISH! The winner didn’t seem very pleased, but I would have been bouncing up and down and squealing. I would definitely have shared my half a ton of fish with Katya, you may be sure.

Happy holidays, because that sounds so much better than “whatever”.

A WRITING PROMPT FOR YOU: A character has to choose a present for somebody else’s pet.

MA