Jessica McHugh's Blog, page 11
December 9, 2011
Holy Haunted #FlashFriday
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Robert shivered as his mother towed him into the massive beast of a building. Its twisted bones and mass of fragmented eyes welcomed him too sweetly, and the warm light of its belly was too calming considering the dark spirits on the rise. Ghosts surrounded him on all sides, delighting in their colorful murder. With bludgeons and swords, they painted the walls vermilion as if it were their religion. But the most frightening ghost of all, and the most substantial, was a young man whose eyes clamped onto Robert as soon as the boy stepped inside. Dripping blood upon the alter, the ghost laughed as mortals licked the table clean and achingly begged for more. They tore large lumps of flesh from his body and devoured them ravenously, never fully appeased. The choir sang "Violent Night, Holy Night", and captivating as it was, Robert couldn't stand another verse while the ghosts closed in. He ran from the building, bawling, but a man dressed in black stopped him on the stairs.
"Peace be with you, son," he said and Robert scoffed.
"I'll have peace as soon as I get away from here. I don't know what my mom was thinking. She knows I hate haunted houses."
"Peace be with you, son," he said and Robert scoffed.
"I'll have peace as soon as I get away from here. I don't know what my mom was thinking. She knows I hate haunted houses."
November 30, 2011
Alone at the Reading
WOOHOO THE LAST FAUXPOWRIMO!!!
#30, comin' at ya.
Alone at the Reading
I left pieces of me in the cafe,
Pieces that clung to the clamor of poets on parade:
A raucous bunch I'd be loathed to quiet.
They trumpeted they hooked onto my hands and feet
And stretched me across the room like a trampoline.
But no one wants a jump.
Tempted, perhaps.
Curious, as their fingers drum up and down their cups and cans
And plan to ask, "Who is this girl alone at the reading,
Scribbling blue babble while the lions roar and she ignores?
Maybe she's a poet too.
She looks unglued enough to join our tribe."
I am hopeful as the scribes call me over
And give me smiles and smokes
To coax me out of ALONE.
By the end, it is the beginning.
Although my poetry goes unspoken,
I litter it across the cafe,
Along with the pieces I left for another parade.
#30, comin' at ya.
Alone at the Reading
I left pieces of me in the cafe,
Pieces that clung to the clamor of poets on parade:
A raucous bunch I'd be loathed to quiet.
They trumpeted they hooked onto my hands and feet
And stretched me across the room like a trampoline.
But no one wants a jump.
Tempted, perhaps.
Curious, as their fingers drum up and down their cups and cans
And plan to ask, "Who is this girl alone at the reading,
Scribbling blue babble while the lions roar and she ignores?
Maybe she's a poet too.
She looks unglued enough to join our tribe."
I am hopeful as the scribes call me over
And give me smiles and smokes
To coax me out of ALONE.
By the end, it is the beginning.
Although my poetry goes unspoken,
I litter it across the cafe,
Along with the pieces I left for another parade.
Disbelief
FauxPoWriMo #29
Disbelief
He prays the only way his heart allows.
Skeptic, he sketches what Heaven is etched onto his heart:
An empty Elysium.
No cloud is a town,
And no god is an entity beyond breeze.
Disbelief
He prays the only way his heart allows.
Skeptic, he sketches what Heaven is etched onto his heart:
An empty Elysium.
No cloud is a town,
And no god is an entity beyond breeze.
November 28, 2011
Vacation
FauxPoWriMo #28
Vacation
I was resolved to spend those days in ink:Fighting languor and vexationAnd making the most of my vacation.Instead, I laid pen and paper asideSo that you could have my lap.Many pages remained blank,
But it was worth it to watch you nap.
Vacation
I was resolved to spend those days in ink:Fighting languor and vexationAnd making the most of my vacation.Instead, I laid pen and paper asideSo that you could have my lap.Many pages remained blank,
But it was worth it to watch you nap.
Surface Confusion
FauxPoWriMo #27
Surface Confusion
The years keep telling me my age.
The lines refine and remind me
How many smiles have crossed this face
And creased it with joy.
But the rosy spots of youth remain,
Confusing my reflection.
All my life, I've been trying to follow the advice to grow up.
But my skin refuses,
Infusing a woman with an eternal teenager,
Minus true youth.
I try to grow up,
But the future is spotty.
Surface Confusion
The years keep telling me my age.
The lines refine and remind me
How many smiles have crossed this face
And creased it with joy.
But the rosy spots of youth remain,
Confusing my reflection.
All my life, I've been trying to follow the advice to grow up.
But my skin refuses,
Infusing a woman with an eternal teenager,
Minus true youth.
I try to grow up,
But the future is spotty.
Turning Home
FauxPoWriMo #26
Turning Home
These roundabouts don't belong
In straight-paved schoolyards.
Neither does reminiscence, say the turns.
Let the memories nap for now.
It's better to accept the rest
Than wish the past into
Eternal sleep.
Turning Home
These roundabouts don't belong
In straight-paved schoolyards.
Neither does reminiscence, say the turns.
Let the memories nap for now.
It's better to accept the rest
Than wish the past into
Eternal sleep.
November 25, 2011
Our Path
FauxPoWriMo #25
Our Path
From my toes, a path stretches
Into chasms littered with plaster-cluttered pittance
And lands in simple revolution.
(The turn, I stress, not the evolution.)
We still stand in sitting
And still hope in betting
That every day will rise in fire
Of life's desire and forgetting.
Forgetting will come slow
But desire burns it to a subtle glow.
Your footsteps grace the path
And rake the leaves aside.
The path then leads to
Beauty: uncluttered, unfettered,
And undenied.
Our Path
From my toes, a path stretches
Into chasms littered with plaster-cluttered pittance
And lands in simple revolution.
(The turn, I stress, not the evolution.)
We still stand in sitting
And still hope in betting
That every day will rise in fire
Of life's desire and forgetting.
Forgetting will come slow
But desire burns it to a subtle glow.
Your footsteps grace the path
And rake the leaves aside.
The path then leads to
Beauty: uncluttered, unfettered,
And undenied.
November 22, 2011
Ain't No Stopping Us Now (with Author, Red Tash)
Today on No Vacation from Speculation, I have a very special guest. I met her during the Coffin Hop and instantly became enamored of her wit and fantastic writing style. Plus, her cover for "This Brilliant Darkness" is ...well...brilliant! It really caught my eye. I'm going to post the picture below and if you like it, make sure to vote for it in the Goodreads Best Cover Listopia. Also, the author will be giving away an ebook copy of "This Brilliant Darkness" to a random commentor, so make sure to comment!
Without further ado, the incredibly cool Red Tash!!
(Clap, clap, Droogies!!)
Ain't No Stopping Us Now
I hosted Jessica on my blog this past Writer Wednesday. She did a double-header, writing about branding ( http://lesleatash.com/post/12884865883/i-have-no-brand-hey-there-world-im-your-wild ) and then sharing an excerpt from Danny Marble and the Application for Non-Scary Things ( http://redtash.com/post/12884594109/danny-marble-the-application-for-non-scary-things ). She's recently turned 29, and she did a little looking back over the past ten years, and where her career has taken her. She got me thinking.
Then there was Sara Deurell, who posted in her blog ( http://saradeurell.wordpress.com/2011/11/17/a-brief-observation/ ) :
If you're not inspired to write, there is nothing more likely to make you start living in a story world than spending a few months in a class where the teacher never stays on topic, especially if the tangents are wholly uninteresting and usually repetitions of previous tangents…
Finally, there was RJ Palmer, who asked me in a recent interview ( http://rjpalmer.blogspot.com/2011/11/please-welcome-back-red-tash.html#idc-container ) if I would take a do-over, if I had one to take. At the time, I'd answered:
No.
I have regrets, but I forgive myself and I try to do better the next time. I like who I am because of my choices. I am authentically me, in Oprah-speak, and as it turns out, I dig that.
And while this is still true, I have to admit I probably answered that out of habit, because there is one area where I wish I'd had a do-over, after all.
But let me back up. I just had one of those big birthdays, myself, turning 39 in late October. When I look back at the last decade & a half of professional post-collegiate work, I honestly wish I'd just started taking my writing more seriously, sooner.
My folks worked long hours—one in pursuit of mechanical perfection, the other in dogged pursuit of…I don't know what. Money? No idea. Neither were around much, and neither took the time to speak to me about money, a work ethic, the future…it was all a big mystery to me. I just felt pressured. I was supposed to be something really spectacular, or else I'd failed.
I was a smart kid, creative and eager to please, and school identified me as gifted very early on. I was also a smartass, and after my father died, I recall answering an Algebra test with a lot of answers along the lines of "I don't give a fuck." Luckily, the Algebra teacher realized it was a cry for help and I didn't get in trouble for that. I also slid by when I vandalized the front of the junior high school with Satanic messages, in the middle of the school day. (I let someone else take responsibility for that, and to this day, Shawn Hendrix, I am grateful to you for your sacrifice.)
High school was a different story. I was the cheerleader who also got suspended for fighting, and by mid-year of grade nine I was in all-girls boarding school run by nuns. To this day, I consider that the darkest time of my life. Age 15.
I would change high schools three times, then change universities three times, as well. Who was I? What was I going to be when I grew up? Everyone assumed I'd be a writer, because that was the thing I was best at. It was the thing I consistently delivered. Stories. Copy. Deadline. Lit. Drama. That was me. The story girl.
"Everyone" may have thought that, but the only thing I knew for sure was that I wanted a home.
I spent many a night in college--after having worked all day at my full-time job--doodling story notes into journals. When I eventually went to work in public accounting, it was such an exercise in frustration that I took to writing stick-figure comic illustrations of my dire consequences and mailing them randomly to friends from college and my previous job. My cubicle on fire, tax returns set ablaze, me always comically at fault not unlike Gilly on SNL ( http://www.nbc.com/saturday-night-live/video/gilly/945843 ). At my last accounting gig, I made a zine on the clock and wrote This Brilliant Darkness ( http://redtash.com/ThisBrilliantDarkness ) on my lunch break. I kept writing, even though my education and career were labeled something else.
I became a successful blogger, not by design, but out of a pure desire to connect. My writing took off and I became a journalist, and a newspaper columnist. A few years ago I made some big changes in my life, and in 2011 I decided it was now or never, for pursuing my fiction. I wasn't willing to wait anymore.
Now I am 39. I have been a nationally syndicated newspaper columnist. I have been a very popular blogger, whether writing as myself or under more than one username. I have been a well-known podcaster, again as myself or anonymously. I am even a published poet, although I don't know sometimes whether or not to use that as punchline. My track record in marketing and PR speaks for itself, should one be interested enough in that to listen.
Now I am a novelist, and I'm thinking seriously about what to do next. Where will I be with my writing in ten years? Will I really be pushing 50 when I sit down to do this again?
Now I write not to vent, but to create. I don't just write for income, or to silence the voices in my mind. My writing serves a great purpose, even if it's lighter fare. I write for my kids, for my husband, for my naysayers, and you better believe I write for those precious souls who've cheered me on, who told me I could do it, who encouraged me and shared in my successes.
If I had a do-over, I'd have found someone who believed in me, early on, until I learned to believe in myself. I wouldn't have wasted so much time trying to be something I wasn't. I'd have gone ahead and written books during college and said to hell with the GPA. I'd have written on the walls, I'd have written on my clothes, I'd have written on the skin between my toes. I'd have filled every surface of my world with the words, until I'd found myself within them, among them, saturated—and sated.
*****
HEY, WHERE ARE YOU GOING?! There are still a lot of goodies, and I'm pretty sure you haven't commented yet. ;) Do it! You could win Red Tash's amazing book "This Brilliant Darkness"!!
Rock the Book Trailer: http://redtash.com/post/12648485908 Visit Red's Website: http://RedTash.com Facebook seems popular with the kids: http://facebook.com/TheRedTash Twitter. Red's Brevity. Dig it: http://twitter.com/RedTashBooks She has plenty of Goodreads: http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/5153812.Red_Tash
Without further ado, the incredibly cool Red Tash!!
(Clap, clap, Droogies!!)
Ain't No Stopping Us Now
I hosted Jessica on my blog this past Writer Wednesday. She did a double-header, writing about branding ( http://lesleatash.com/post/12884865883/i-have-no-brand-hey-there-world-im-your-wild ) and then sharing an excerpt from Danny Marble and the Application for Non-Scary Things ( http://redtash.com/post/12884594109/danny-marble-the-application-for-non-scary-things ). She's recently turned 29, and she did a little looking back over the past ten years, and where her career has taken her. She got me thinking.
Then there was Sara Deurell, who posted in her blog ( http://saradeurell.wordpress.com/2011/11/17/a-brief-observation/ ) :
If you're not inspired to write, there is nothing more likely to make you start living in a story world than spending a few months in a class where the teacher never stays on topic, especially if the tangents are wholly uninteresting and usually repetitions of previous tangents…
Finally, there was RJ Palmer, who asked me in a recent interview ( http://rjpalmer.blogspot.com/2011/11/please-welcome-back-red-tash.html#idc-container ) if I would take a do-over, if I had one to take. At the time, I'd answered:
No.
I have regrets, but I forgive myself and I try to do better the next time. I like who I am because of my choices. I am authentically me, in Oprah-speak, and as it turns out, I dig that.
And while this is still true, I have to admit I probably answered that out of habit, because there is one area where I wish I'd had a do-over, after all.
But let me back up. I just had one of those big birthdays, myself, turning 39 in late October. When I look back at the last decade & a half of professional post-collegiate work, I honestly wish I'd just started taking my writing more seriously, sooner.
My folks worked long hours—one in pursuit of mechanical perfection, the other in dogged pursuit of…I don't know what. Money? No idea. Neither were around much, and neither took the time to speak to me about money, a work ethic, the future…it was all a big mystery to me. I just felt pressured. I was supposed to be something really spectacular, or else I'd failed.
I was a smart kid, creative and eager to please, and school identified me as gifted very early on. I was also a smartass, and after my father died, I recall answering an Algebra test with a lot of answers along the lines of "I don't give a fuck." Luckily, the Algebra teacher realized it was a cry for help and I didn't get in trouble for that. I also slid by when I vandalized the front of the junior high school with Satanic messages, in the middle of the school day. (I let someone else take responsibility for that, and to this day, Shawn Hendrix, I am grateful to you for your sacrifice.)
High school was a different story. I was the cheerleader who also got suspended for fighting, and by mid-year of grade nine I was in all-girls boarding school run by nuns. To this day, I consider that the darkest time of my life. Age 15.
I would change high schools three times, then change universities three times, as well. Who was I? What was I going to be when I grew up? Everyone assumed I'd be a writer, because that was the thing I was best at. It was the thing I consistently delivered. Stories. Copy. Deadline. Lit. Drama. That was me. The story girl.
"Everyone" may have thought that, but the only thing I knew for sure was that I wanted a home.
I spent many a night in college--after having worked all day at my full-time job--doodling story notes into journals. When I eventually went to work in public accounting, it was such an exercise in frustration that I took to writing stick-figure comic illustrations of my dire consequences and mailing them randomly to friends from college and my previous job. My cubicle on fire, tax returns set ablaze, me always comically at fault not unlike Gilly on SNL ( http://www.nbc.com/saturday-night-live/video/gilly/945843 ). At my last accounting gig, I made a zine on the clock and wrote This Brilliant Darkness ( http://redtash.com/ThisBrilliantDarkness ) on my lunch break. I kept writing, even though my education and career were labeled something else.
I became a successful blogger, not by design, but out of a pure desire to connect. My writing took off and I became a journalist, and a newspaper columnist. A few years ago I made some big changes in my life, and in 2011 I decided it was now or never, for pursuing my fiction. I wasn't willing to wait anymore.
Now I am 39. I have been a nationally syndicated newspaper columnist. I have been a very popular blogger, whether writing as myself or under more than one username. I have been a well-known podcaster, again as myself or anonymously. I am even a published poet, although I don't know sometimes whether or not to use that as punchline. My track record in marketing and PR speaks for itself, should one be interested enough in that to listen.
Now I am a novelist, and I'm thinking seriously about what to do next. Where will I be with my writing in ten years? Will I really be pushing 50 when I sit down to do this again?
Now I write not to vent, but to create. I don't just write for income, or to silence the voices in my mind. My writing serves a great purpose, even if it's lighter fare. I write for my kids, for my husband, for my naysayers, and you better believe I write for those precious souls who've cheered me on, who told me I could do it, who encouraged me and shared in my successes.
If I had a do-over, I'd have found someone who believed in me, early on, until I learned to believe in myself. I wouldn't have wasted so much time trying to be something I wasn't. I'd have gone ahead and written books during college and said to hell with the GPA. I'd have written on the walls, I'd have written on my clothes, I'd have written on the skin between my toes. I'd have filled every surface of my world with the words, until I'd found myself within them, among them, saturated—and sated.
*****
HEY, WHERE ARE YOU GOING?! There are still a lot of goodies, and I'm pretty sure you haven't commented yet. ;) Do it! You could win Red Tash's amazing book "This Brilliant Darkness"!!
Rock the Book Trailer: http://redtash.com/post/12648485908 Visit Red's Website: http://RedTash.com Facebook seems popular with the kids: http://facebook.com/TheRedTash Twitter. Red's Brevity. Dig it: http://twitter.com/RedTashBooks She has plenty of Goodreads: http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/5153812.Red_Tash
November 21, 2011
An Ode on Ozymandias
FauxPoWriMo 21
An Ode on Ozymandias
Through whispered smoke,
A poem arrives on a school boy's tongue.
Numb in all but lips and eyes,
He recites to me
A dirge turned idyllic melody.
Every stone, every sneer,
Every hazy dream stands clear before my borrowed bed,
And the school boy stands a man
At finally knowing what Shelley meant.
My audience gave the words dimension.
Before my glazy-eyed awe,
The intent was spent in the day's assignment.
Teenage rebellion kept worth at a distance:
About as far as I sat, curled in wonder
Under a shawl;
So small I was, it blanketed me with wool to spare.
But at the poem's end,
I shed my shelter and embraced another:
Ozymandias, King of kings,
Cover me from this night to the end of mornings.
Touch my works with stone turned flesh,
And let no King or Queen despair it. The worth is in our traveling words.
The worth is in our sharing it.
For anyone who doesn't know, my favorite poem is "Ozymandias" by Percy Shelley. It has been my favorite poem since I was around 9 years old. While celebrating Christmas with relatives in North Carolina, I heard the poem for the first time, recited to me by a stoned cousin. I would later go on to write a book that includes Ramesses II (aka Ozymandias). So, as you can see, that first recitation made quite an impression on me. Enjoy!
An Ode on Ozymandias
Through whispered smoke,
A poem arrives on a school boy's tongue.
Numb in all but lips and eyes,
He recites to me
A dirge turned idyllic melody.
Every stone, every sneer,
Every hazy dream stands clear before my borrowed bed,
And the school boy stands a man
At finally knowing what Shelley meant.
My audience gave the words dimension.
Before my glazy-eyed awe,
The intent was spent in the day's assignment.
Teenage rebellion kept worth at a distance:
About as far as I sat, curled in wonder
Under a shawl;
So small I was, it blanketed me with wool to spare.
But at the poem's end,
I shed my shelter and embraced another:
Ozymandias, King of kings,
Cover me from this night to the end of mornings.
Touch my works with stone turned flesh,
And let no King or Queen despair it. The worth is in our traveling words.
The worth is in our sharing it.
For anyone who doesn't know, my favorite poem is "Ozymandias" by Percy Shelley. It has been my favorite poem since I was around 9 years old. While celebrating Christmas with relatives in North Carolina, I heard the poem for the first time, recited to me by a stoned cousin. I would later go on to write a book that includes Ramesses II (aka Ozymandias). So, as you can see, that first recitation made quite an impression on me. Enjoy!
