Marian Allen's Blog, page 416

Christmas Rears Its Head

So I walked into Butt Drugs the other day — Yes, THAT Butt Drugs — and they had their Christmas tree up.

It was so pretty, with muted glowing lights, I had to take a picture of it.

…Wait…. What?

I got closer and, yes, the ornaments were exactly what I thought they were.

Now, how cool is this?

This is even cooler than the time the kids argued over what ornaments to put on their tree and all got so mad they went to their rooms and I punched holes in the Christmas cards we’d gotten and tied them on the tree with gift ribbon.

I love this town!

I’m posting today at Fatal Foodies about dairy-free cornbread. Hop over and have a look.

A WRITING PROMPT FOR YOU: A character decorates (tree, house, business) with unusual but appropriate decorations for your choice of holiday.

MA

Words of Wisdom on Writing

Bad Writing: “It is not serious, and it does not tell the truth.”

– Eudora Welty

Whenever there is an easy way to do something — and do it right — by all means prefer the easy way.

– R. V. Cassill

The job of an apple tree is to bear apples. The job of a storyteller is to tell  stories.

– James A. Michener

Get black on white.

– Guy de Maupassant

You can do anything you can get away with, and you can’t get away with much.

– Flannery O’Connor

The best story is no good until it’s on paper.

– Allen Marple

Nothing is quite as easy as using words like somebody else.

– e. e. cummings

When I was young I observed that nine out of ten things I did were failures, so I did ten times more work.

– Bernard Shaw

A WRITING PROMPT FOR YOU: Put something on paper.

MA

#SampleSunday – Christmas Pool excerpt

This is not the kind of Christmas pool where you put some money in the pot and draw names or something. This is a pond with a Christmas ghost.

“The Christmas Pool” is one of my pieces in the Southern Indiana Writers’ Group’s new anthology, HOLIDAY BIZARRE. We took our old CHRISTMAS BIZARRE anthology, removed the stories by past members, and invited current members to add stories centered on other holidays. The result goes from New Year’s Day to New Year’s Eve. “Christmas Pool” is one of the old stories.

Psst! Wanna have a good time? Sometimes special days are a little TOO special. Spend a year with Southern Indiana Writers in their Holiday Bizarre.

THE CHRISTMAS POOL – excerpt
copyright 1996 by Marian Allen

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.

For the rest of the story and many more, go buy HOLIDAY BIZARRE. Only available at this time in print. Print is what all the hipsters read, you know. 12 dollah, no hollah.

#Caturday and Monthly Update

It’s the first of the month, so I have a new Hot Flash on the Hot Flash page. Does anybody read these? Should I continue this monthly feature, or drop it? Don’t say, “Do it if you enjoy it.” I’m askin’ you, “Who’s on first?”

I’m still harping on LIFE OF PI. I’ve almost finished re-reading it, and I’m wondering if I’ll turn to the beginning and re-read it again. Maybe I’ll wait until I’ve seen the movie and then re-read it again.

At any rate, in honor of the movie, here is a link to WWF’s page on tigers. That World Wildlife Fund, not World Wrestling Federation. Wrestle with a tiger, believe me, you do not want to do.

Here is a Wiki on the strange preponderance of Richard Parkers involved in shipwrecks, real and fictional.

Here is a link to the Louisville Zoo, where I took my tiger pictures.

photo copyright 2000 by Marian Allen

And here — because, after all, why not? — is a link to the text of William Blake’s “The Tyger”.

A WRITING PROMPT FOR YOU: Who would you like to be shipwrecked with?

MA

LIFE OF PI – A Novel Experience

I hate to sound all hipster, but I read LIFE OF PI before the movie came out.

I’m re-reading it, now. Unlike my mother and daughter, I’ve only read it once. Mom read it, turned the last page, opened it at the front, and read it again. #4 daughter read it through three times.

We haven’t seen the movie yet. When you love a book as much as we do this one, you hesitate to see the movie, in case it sullies the perfection in your mind. Mom and I, though, do plan to see it, and #4 daughter is awaiting our report.

If you haven’t read the book, I highly recommend it. Here’s a link to LIFE OF PI in versions both print and electronic, movie tie-in and pre-movie, illustrated, and you-name-it.

Here’s a link to a Wikipedia article about LIFE OF PI, which is quite good, and has links at the bottom to reading group and global read-along stuff.

What is so compelling about the book? I’m always a sucker for survival stories, but PI is more than that. It’s true strength, like the strength of its narrator, comes from what lies within it. It’s when the reader thinks about the book in between one bit of reading and the next that the real story of the story happens. It happens within the reader, not within the book.

picture copyright 2000 by Marian Allen

Whether you’ve seen the movie or you haven’t, whether you saw the movie and loved it or hated it or thought it was meh, I heartily recommend you read the book. Then come back and tell me what you think.

A WRITING PROMPT FOR YOU: A character reads a book which speaks to his or her heart and mind.

MA

Making The Dog’s Dinner With Yarn

Mom is teaching me how to knit. Yes, at my age. So far, I’ve done and unraveled enough to knit a battleship. Not very good, me. But I’m improving. Why, on this last attempt, I’ve even GAINED two stitches since I cast on. I’m just that good.

Here is a picture of my project thus far. It wants to be a scarf when it grows up. I think I’m more pleased with the yarn holder I made than with the project itself. This is a plastic container which formerly held peanut-butter-filled pretzels. I cut a hole in one corner, dropped the yarn in through the top, fed the end of the yarn through the hole, and screwed on the top.

The cat hasn’t got a chance, and I can stick the needles through the hole when I’m not actively knitting, so I probably won’t poke my eye out.

If you don’t knit, and you’d like to learn, you could read this Knitting For Dummies post and laugh yourself silly at their indecipherable illustrations. Then you could watch this most excellent video which is actually followable and usable.

Good luck! Enjoy!

A WRITING POST FOR YOU: A character decides to learn a new craft or skill.

MA

Free Deliciousness

Klout is one of the social networks I’m on. The main reason for being on Klout is: Sometimes you get free stuff. That isn’t why you’re supposed to want to be on Klout. You’re supposed to want to be on there to measure your social media presence against other social media junkies and get all competitive and stuff and drop Klout’s name all over the place so Klout gets all important. But I’m in it for the freebies.

So Zatarain’s, the New Orleans food packet people, offered me three boxes of their food packets, and I jumped on it like a duck on a June bug. They sent me: Jambalaya pasta, Gumbo pasta, and … Alfredo? Since when has pasta Alfredo been a New Orleans tradition? Oh, well.

The bad news is: I like rice better than I like pasta, so these were less than exciting to begin with (although: FREE!).

The box recommended adding some flavorful sausage to the mix, but we’re practically vegetarian, so that was a non-starter. I did add some chicken.

When I tasted the finished product, I was disappointed because I was expecting some zing, and the spice mix was quite mild.

The good news is: Charlie doesn’t like zingy spice, so he really likes this. He scooped some into his soup, and declared it “real good”. From him, this is an encomium.

So, if you:

like mild spicelike pastawant to make your soup even better

I can highly recommend Zatarain’s Jambalaya With Pasta. I haven’t tried the other boxes yet.

TRUTH IN BLOGGING: In case you missed it, I WAS GIVEN THIS PRODUCT FREE BY THE MANUFACTURER THROUGH KLOUT.

A WRITING PROMPT FOR YOU: A character gets a free product to try.

MA

My New Fave

I have a new favorite website: Curious Places. It’s a photoblog of oddly wonderful structures or decorative schemes.

Here are a few I particularly like.

Chaplin Court – a Storybook court commissioned by Charlie Chaplin. I want one just like it in my back yard.

Casina delle Civette – very nice. I especially like the rounded arches.

Wat Sampran Dragon Temple – Dragon! Temple! Temple with all dragons on it!

Meanwhile today, I’m posting at Fatal Foodies about tuna noodle casserole, which is almost as wonderful as dragons, plus you can eat it.

A WRITING PROMPT FOR YOU: What architectural detail particularly charms your main character?

MA

The Which Who Saved What?

I’ve been telling you about my short story, “The Pratty Who Saved Chrissmuss”, in LET IT SNOW! SEASON’S READINGS FOR A SUPER-COOL YULE. Now I’ll tell you how it came to be.

Long, long ago, as I’ve told you before, children, my high school buddies and I wrote what’s known as “fan fiction” about Star Trek (The Original Series). Our stories were sometimes full of angst and action, but they were sometimes silly. My pal Jane created a half-Vulcan troublemaker named Tetra, and I created a human troublemaker named Bel.

Time passed. I took one of my fan fiction stories and turned it into a piece of original fiction, FORCE OF HABIT, having gotten Jane’s permission to turn the half-Vulcan Tetra into an amphibian from the planet Gilhoo.

Enter Holly Jahangiri. Holly won a contest I ran, the winner of which got her name in a story set on the planet Llannonn, where FORCE OF HABIT takes place. That’s “By The Book”, $0.99 in the Kindle store. I had so much fun, and Holly enjoyed being in a story so much, I did it again.

As for pratties, they were first mentioned in FORCE OF HABIT, and featured prominently in my fan fiction “Hizzoner Mudd”. (Yes, it has Harry Mudd in it. I love Harry Mudd. In FORCE OF HABIT, Harry has morphed into Connell Morgan, who is a bit the same, but a bit different.) Pratties, as I was saying before I so rudely interrupted myself, are like sheep the size of llamas.

One of the scams Connell runs is the sale of Earth names to the natives of the planet Llannonn. Naturally, when I was invited to write a winter holiday story connected to one of my books, the name Dickens O’Henry popped into my head. Then what could the first line be but Dickens O’Henry was mad to begin with?

I’m very sorry if this dashes anyone’s romantic fantasies about how stories come to be, but it often happens that they just get cobbled together out of this and that and then get struck by lightning and come to life. Rawr.

LET IT SNOW! SEASON’S READINGS FOR A SUPER-COOL YULE is free today for Kindle. Check the LET IT SNOW! SEASON’S READINGS FOR A SUPER-COOL YULE Amazon Kindle page. If it is NOT free, don’t let the price of a measly $4.99 stop you. ALL that money goes to Superstorm Sandy relief efforts.

A WRITING PROMPT FOR YOU: Invent an animal.

MA

#SampleSunday LET IT SNOW For Nothing 11-25 and 26

LET IT SNOW! SEASON’S READINGS FOR A SUPER-COOL YULE is supposedly (or, as one of our kids used to say, “apposably”) free today and tomorrow for Kindle. Check the LET IT SNOW! SEASON’S READINGS FOR A SUPER-COOL YULE Amazon Kindle page. If it is NOT free, don’t let the price of a measly $4.99 stop you. ALL that money goes to Superstorm Sandy relief efforts.

Meanwhile, here’s another excerpt from my story, “The Pratty Who Saved Chrissmuss”:

“The Pratty Who Saved Chrissmuss” – excerpt
by Marian Allen

As the book had predicted, the snow began once they were well out of town. At first the flakes feathered down, sparkling in the thin light that filtered through the clouds. Soon, though, the flakes turned to clumps and sheets, and only Holly’s driving skills got the hovercar safely to a posting inn.

A couple of bracing cups of tea and a plate of cake for two soon put the travelers right, as did the news that the inn had a snow-wagon and a pratty from Boonieburgh itself to pull it.

In the stable, Holly and the book admired the pratty, a four-legged beast both tall and stout, covered with curly wool as white as any snowdrift.

The prattler harnessed his beast to the snow-wagon, helped shift the luggage from the hovercar, and waved his quaint rustic hat in farewell as Holly and the book drove away.

* * * * *

“I’m trying to hold ‘er steady, Boss!”

Plugugly had never been in the country before, so had no experience driving on irregular surfaces and didn’t even know all the things that a heavy snowfall can do to a hovercar’s sensors. All the automatic gizmos that make a hovercar hover now made it try to climb into the air sideways.

“Just catch up to ‘em! If a librarian can drive in this, so can you!”

“A head librarian, Boss!”

O’Henry saw the justice in the correction, but said nothing. He strained forward against the force field that protected hovercar occupants from any impact, peering into the snow as if he had laser beams in his eyes. He didn’t, just so you know.

Visibility was so limited, the car was upon the snow-wagon with no warning. The car’s emergency brake-and-bank assembly kicked in, the heavy snowfall garbled the signals, and the car zoomed past the wagon and went nose-over-fuselage, ending with a plumpf in a drift.

* * * * *

“That idiot!” Holly tugged at the reins, easing the complacent pratty to a stop. “Only Nittleigh Witterr would try to drive a hovercar at high speed in weather like this.”

“The call of family is strong at this blessed time of the year,” said the book.

“Yeah, yeah.” The head librarian sighed deeply. “I suppose I’d better make sure the fool hasn’t killed himself.”

Before she had to leave the comfort of the primitive force field that encapsulated the wagon against the falling snow and the biting cold, two figures emerged from the hovercar and staggered toward the barely visible road.

“Neither one of them looks like Nittleigh,” she said.

“Still,” said the book, “the spirit of compassion which makes this time of year one of tender feelings and elevated goodness behooves us to aid them, even — perhaps especially — if they are unknown to us. For who knows when we may entertain angels unaware?”

By the time the book had finished this speech, the figures had reached the snow-wagon, and Holly opened the force field enough to allow them to crawl into the back. As she had judged, neither was her cousin.

When the men had shaken the snow off themselves, the smaller of the two looked from Holly, in her trademark purple feather boa, to the book, in his swallow-tail coat and top hat, and asked, “Head Librarian Holly Jahangiri?”

“Yes,” said Holly. “And this is Living Book A COMPENDIUM OF CHRISTMAS CLASSICS, from the Living Library of Books of Old Earth.”

“I’m Bar and Grill Owner Dickens O’Henry,” said the smaller man. “This is my assistant, Humbug Plugugly.”

They all hooked thumbs with one another in greeting.

“I’m looking for your cousin,” O’Henry said, while Plugugly rummaged about noisily.

“So am I,” said Holly. “He was supposed to come with us, but he never showed up.”

O’Henry cursed, then apologized. Librarians are allowed to curse, but must never be cursed in front of. That’s the rule.

~   ~   ~   ~   ~   ~

Get yer free copy. Then buy one and give it for a gift. Wouldn’t that be a nice thing to do? Head Librarian Holly Jahangiri would be so proud of you!

A WRITING PROMPT FOR YOU: Does your main character have a cousin he or she would turn over to gangsters? One he or she would shield from gangsters?

MA