Laurie Boris's Blog, page 30

Don't Tell Anyone on sale

Hi, everybody! Don't Tell Anyone will be on sale for 99 cents (e-book version) from Sept. 18-20. You can get a copy at Amazon, Smashwords, Barnes & Noble, iTunes, or Kobo.

Some family secrets are too big to keep. A warm, touching novel about cancer, sibling rivalry, and a daughter-in-law stuck in the middle. Winner, The Kindle Book Review’s 2013 Best Indie Books Award.

Learn more about Don't Tell Anyone here.

Thank you for your time.

The Snake Pit: Jr High Can be Torture

laurieboris:

I have a soft spot for books that speak to bullying in schools…and among kids in general. This powerful little story by my friend Donna Dillon has just undergone a makeover courtesy of the lovely Kim Mutch Emerson and the folks at MKSP. I’m excited to see this story get a little more attention and…wait for it…MSKP is putting out the sequel, as well. Powerful stuff, adding one more voice to the fight.

Originally posted on Making Believe:

School has begun and with it anticipation, hope, trials, successes and failures. Unfortunately what also comes when school is in session are children struggling with their social skills. Some will learn to respect, accept, understand and enjoy their peers, and others will act out hostilities they might be witnessing at home, or that might be bottled up inside from their own fears and anxieties.

With so much talk about bullying these days you’d think America would see a decrease. Not so. Although there have been an increase of authors that have addressed the subject. Master Koda Select Publishing has a few of those novels and memoirs available.

One being The Snake Pit: Jr High Can be Torture by Donna Dillon

This is not an easy, fun read, but is rather a book that every student, teacher and child advocate should read.

Donna is very passionate to do what she can…

View original 403 more words

Flash in Front of Your Eyes Fiction

We tried to break JD Mader’s website this week with our Friday flash fiction. Not yet, but we keep getting closer. It was a long week, and I kept sneaking away to pop out some two-minute bits.  And a few more. And a few more. I don’t know if there was necessarily a theme in the ones I posted, but as I was reviewing them, it felt like I was working toward a progression of sorts. 

She was a kaleidoscope to him; every way he examined her he saw a different facet, a different sum of her parts, a different colored crystal tumbling into place. Until he wasn’t sure which was real and which was the illusion. He knew some facts to be undisputable: long blonde hair with a little flip on the end, blue eyes with flecks of brown, a pointed chin, an endless inventory of elephant jokes. But some things he’d taken for granted kept changing. The way she’d cry at certain television commercials that she used to think were stupid. The way she’d meet him at the door with haunted eyes, and through a two-inch space tell him she couldn’t come out. He was afraid to ask what might be wrong, afraid to find out it might be something horrible. So he decided to be patient, and wait her out, and bring her favorite movie the next time she allowed him over, just wanting everything to be normal again.

——————

In the bright, warm days of compromise and movie nights, you were a team with a capital T and prided yourselves on sharing those decisions, each one proof that you had what it took, that you could do it better than your parents, you could be the ones to finally survive. Now each decision felt like a battle, a war of wills, a contest. Being the first one to break lost. The “us” in the union felt like a “you” and “me.” Losing meant you were weak, could not hold your own, could not craft a solution tilted to give you the advantage. It felt hollow and wrong and not the example you wanted to set for the world. You wanted to shine and be larger than life, like those characters in Ayn Rand, you wanted to beat the world and stand atop skyscrapers and announce that yes, you had it figured out, this marriage thing, this forming a perfect union thing, but no, in the end you became what your parents did anyway, and it felt like defeat, a bitter taste like spoiled, year-old-wedding-cake in the back of your throat.

——————

Someone should fix this, she thought, deliberately trying not to look toward the boat launch where a woman had once driven herself and her three kids into the river. It would be too easy, too much a temptation when the children are screaming and it all weighs too heavily and even worse waits for you at home. Someone should put a chain up, at least. Something to stop the flash-second indecision of decision, the what-the-hell-who-would-care thought of a station wagon sliding under the surface, disappearing with a closing ripple and stream of air bubbles. How did it feel, she wondered. Was the water cold? Did the kids cry? Beg Momma to let them out? Or did she wall herself over while the murk rose up to the windows, while the sunlight danced on the particles of floating debris? Did she sing lullabies, old songs from her own childhood, talking to them in soft voices, telling them that daddy would be fine and Grandma would meet them in heaven?

A chain, at least.

Playing Charlie Cool: Sneak Peek

Hi, everyone! While Art Dude is finishing the cover, I’d like to share an excerpt from Playing Charlie Cool. The e-book is available for pre-order on Amazon. You can save a buck by ordering now at the introductory price, and it will be delivered to your Kindle when the book is published at the beginning of October. Although it’s a sequel to The Picture of Cool and Don’t Tell Anyone, Playing Charlie Cool is a standalone story. (Scroll down to find out how you can grab a free copy of The Picture of Cool.)

First…what’s Playing Charlie Cool about?

With a few humble words, mayoral staffer Joshua Goldberg comes out to the New York press, resigns his post, and leaves his wife. Three months later, he is still skittish about making his relationship with television producer Charlie Trager public. Charlie understands Joshua’s stress over the divorce and his desire to step back into the political spotlight. But he’s tired of schedule conflicts and frustrated about getting put on the back burner while the pressure ravages the man he loves. Managing some of the most demanding divas in network television has taught Charlie patience. But his cool façade is wearing thin. Longing to ease Joshua’s anguish and burning for control in a situation that seems headed off the rails, Charlie takes a huge risk that could destroy everything he and Joshua have worked so hard to build.

—————-

The excerpt…

Prologue

As if a stranger lived within the silvered glass of the master bedroom’s mirror, Adam Joshua Goldberg watched the reflection straighten his tie. His chest rose and fell rapidly as his lips moved, committing to memory the short speech for the cameras and microphones at Gracie Mansion. He’d already submitted his formal resignation from the mayor’s staff, which had been accepted with the respect he’d grown accustomed to by virtue of owning a last name famous beyond New York politics. But what would happen after he told the media, not often known for their kindness, he had no idea.

“Joshie, you don’t have to do this.” Deidre’s voice, and the nickname only she and his mother used, threatened to weaken him, but he could not afford to enter this arena unarmored. She reached toward the nightstand for a tissue, dabbing carefully beneath her eyes to preserve her makeup.

“Yeah.” He stared himself down in the mirror, willing away his pallor, such a contrast to his dark hair, eyes, and suit. “I do.”

“We could just”—she turned her palms up in surrender—“disappear. Until it blows over. People do that. Move upstate. Find a new school for the kids…”

“Deidre.” He knelt beside her and rested his head against her pink-skirted knees. “If you want to disappear, I wouldn’t blame you. I can handle it on my own.”

“A promise is a promise,” she said. “I agreed to stand beside you.”

The laugh strangled in his throat. “Isn’t that how we got into this in the first place?”

Her face softened.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I’m just…ready to jump out of my skin, here. After hiding for so long, I need this.”

She patted his head. “Adam. Come up here. Sit with me.”

Reluctantly he rose and perched next to her on the bed. Her bed, technically. For the last six months—since he’d told her about Charlie—Adam had been sleeping in the guest room. The move was not out of anger on her part; on the contrary, she’d offered it to him as a courtesy, out of respect.

He took her hand, squeezed it.

“It’ll be okay, Deidre.”

“It most certainly will not be okay. Do you have any idea what they’re going to do to you? To your family?”

“Dad already knows.”

Her eyes widened.

“That’s where I was last night. You were asleep when I got home.”

She patted his arm as if to convince herself he was still there. “Well. The senator didn’t kill you, so I guess that’s good.”

A corner of his mouth crooked up. “I can’t say that he was thrilled. He tore me a new one about keeping it secret for so long. What it would do to his grandchildren. And any future I might have in politics. And you, of course.”

She didn’t answer.

He turned to look out the brownstone’s window at the terrace garden. “I can keep the press away from you. Anything they want to ask, they can ask me.”

She didn’t answer.

“Like I said, you can keep the house. I won’t contest it. I’ll move into that apartment Dad’s firm keeps near Columbus Circle.”

“That’s such a horrid little place.”

He shrugged. “It’s just for now. I want you to be happy, Dee. You deserve so much more.”

She didn’t answer.

“I know I’m in no position to make demands, but I want to see the kids. I want to be part of their lives.”

Her lower lip began to tremble. Tears streamed down her face. He curled her into his arms, acutely aware of how fragile she felt in them, and cried with her. After a while she sniffed and said, “You’ll be late.”

“For my own hanging?” He smirked. “I think the press will stick around.”

While Deidre freshened her makeup, he sent a text to Charlie, a favorite quote from Ben Franklin: They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither.

The reply came within moments. He glanced down, expecting a quip, but nearly teared up again when he read: When strength and fear shake hands, it can move mountains. Go move mountains, my friend.

The words pulsed in him, confirmed that he was doing the right thing. Trying to keep his hands from shaking, he wrote back: When they speak of me, remember me well.

The phone trilled with a reply—Unforgettable, that’s what you are—followed by a smiling emoticon.

Adam grinned. That was the Charlie he knew. The Charlie who’d been so patient with him, and for so long.

High heels clicked into the doorway. She was staring at the phone in his hands, the remnants of the smile on his face.

Her voice barely broke into sound. “I envy you.”

“Aw, Deidre, don’t.”

“No. It’s true. When this is over, you’ll have support. You’ll have a community. I’ll have…pity. People looking at me everywhere I go, wondering how in this day and age a woman could be so clueless not to know that she’s marrying a gay man. Or worse, that I did it on purpose. That we’d made some sort of…political arrangement. The perfect candidate’s perfect wife.”

He crossed to her and took her in his arms. “Screw what they think. You’re none of those things, and I’ll defend you with my dying breath.”

She pushed away. “Stop. I don’t want to fix my makeup again. Just…let’s go.”

—————-

I’ll put up Chapter 1 next week, and then both chapters will be available on Wattpad as well.

If you’d like to pre-order a copy now and save a buck at the introductory price, here’s that link:  http://www.amazon.com/Playing-Charlie-Trager-Family-Secrets-ebook/dp/B00MQ6MDWY/

And…as a bonus (although I sort of feel like a QVC hostess at the moment!), if you’d like to read The Picture of Cool before Playing Charlie Cool is published, hop over to Smashwords and grab your free copy. Use coupon code VQ87E at checkout (expires 10/8/14).

Thank you for your time!

Why Tell a Story?

For as long as I can remember, I have been observing people. Not in a creepy, stalker-ish way, or at least not according to the local authorities. But as a watchful, introverted child attempting to make sense of the world, and later, as a watchful, introverted adult, still attempting to make sense of the world and my place in it.

People are fascinating. How they can say one thing and do another. How they are capable of great feats but falter at the smallest tasks. How they can smile at you and promise the world, right before crushing you under their heels.

I’ve paid attention. I like to think I’ve paid attention well enough to tell their stories. So that when a character pops into my head, my subconscious can riffle through its databank and match behaviors I’ve observed with the imaginary person sitting before me.

Sometimes we writers sit around over a few adult beverages and talk about who “owns” a story. The author? The imaginary characters? Any “real” person who might have inspired the tale? I used to think there was a certain responsibility involved in storytelling. That as someone who seeks to string words together in the right order, I had a kind of obligation to tell the stories of people who could not do it for themselves.

I don’t know if that’s so true anymore, now that I’m older. It sounds awfully snobby, that “obligation” part. That “assuming” part. I just like to tell stories that help me understand what we silly humans do, and maybe stories that help me connect with other people.

So let me tell you one. Years ago, I left an emotionally abusive relationship and rented a room in a huge apartment I shared with three other people. I did not know them well—I hadn’t even met one of them before I signed the lease—but after what I’d been through, they became a kind of family for me. We quickly had each other’s backs. A few months after I moved in, a hurricane swept through Boston, leaving us one of the few houses in our neighborhood with power. Our available horizontal surfaces filled with stranded friends and loved ones, including a male housemate’s sister. She was (presumably still is; we lost touch) smart and funny, and I took to her as easily as I had to her brother. Both siblings are gay; both had been rejected by their father when they came out. I mean completely, utterly, you-are-dead-to-me rejected. That chilled me to the core. One of my own ancestors had rejected my family when my parents left Judaism, so I felt a bit of that pain. I could never imagine my loving, open-minded parents doing such a thing to us. The brother used humor as a coping mechanism. He also worked at a nonprofit agency helping at-risk kids; he’s now a lawyer. The sister ran away from home and joined the Hare Krishna; in fact, when we met, she’d just parted ways with them and hoped to stay with us long enough to figure out what came next. They were lucky. One woman I knew, a former babysitter, was not so lucky. I learned years later that she killed herself after her parents turned her away.

Does that mean I “get” to tell these peoples’ stories? I have no idea what it’s personally like to be in the thoughts and bodies of the people involved. But I knew them. I have deep compassion for them. I’d rather no one else went through these horrible circumstances. Ever.

What do you think? Can experiences be transferred through story? If something moves us, can we write about it? Should we? Or is it not ours to tell?

AUTHOR LAURIE BORIS ANSWERS THE DAMES DOZEN

laurieboris:

The fabulous Dames of Dialogue have me back to talk about Playing Charlie Cool, my former career as a stripper, and what’s on tap next…

Originally posted on Dames of Dialogue:

Welcome to Dames of Dialogue, Laurie!  Tell us one strange and provocative tidbit from your life that nobody has heard before.

I used to be a stripper. Yes. That was my job title, although it didn’t involve taking off my clothes. I worked in graphic arts before I segued into writing. In the “old-fashioned” way of creating printing plates, negatives for each ink color had to be sandwiched together precisely on a light table, which were then covered with a thick paper mask, and windows cut so the text and images would show through to make the plate. Hence, I was a negative stripper—which meant I complained about my tips. Just kidding. The tips were really good. Especially the ones about not cutting myself with the razor blade or inhaling developer fumes.

Laughing…Tell us about your latest book.

InPlaying Charlie Cool, television producer Charlie Trager’s secret relationship with…

View original 1,181 more words

Talking About Writing Men and Editing

Melissa Bowersock is a prolific writer with a sharp eye. She’s also a fellow IU minion. One day she picked me up on her virtual private plane, plied me with tasty adult beverages, and asked me a few questions on her Wordlovers blog about my new book: what the heck I was thinking, mainly. We even got to talk about editing. I hope you’ll swing by, spend some time with us, and leave a comment. Thank you!

If you’d like, you can pre-order Playing Charlie Cool from Amazon right now. 

Now back to your regularly scheduled kitten videos and bacon jokes.

Flash Fiction of Inspiration

We’re at it again! This week’s Friday flash fiction fun at JD Mader’s Unemployed Imagination 2-minutes-go blog. Write for two (more or less) and post it for the world to see. Maybe you’ll join us next time. I swear, magic happens when we all write together. Here are mine. Lightly edited to be a little easier on the eyes. With a dash of cinnamon, cook until done.

————-

His blue-jeaned legs swung from the crook of the tree branch, beating a tattoo against the trunk, and she could almost hear him calling her a pussy in his head as he smiled half-assed at her, gesturing with his nibbled apple how easy the climb had been. She didn’t care about girly things like manicures—piano lessons forever had cured that—so she dug in her stubby fingers and began the ascent. The sickly-sweet aroma swirled around her, of the apples that hadn’t made it to picking, the whir and whine of the bees in their confusion of something to pollinate, and straining her muscles, she pulled herself up, leaves catching in her hair, the scruff of the bark scraping her skin even through her denim shirt and pants. His grin widened as she joined him. The sun, dappled through the leaves, glinted off his aviator lenses. Sanctuary. At last.

———–

The future waits but he does not know that yet. Life has been a series of steps he’s told to take, places he’s told to wait, tasks he’s commanded to complete. Choices? That’s not been part of the plan. Choices have been about small things: ketchup or mayonnaise on the french fries; go swimming or ride bikes. These new choices feel too large and terrifying, like he’ll pick the wrong one and be stuck on a bad path forever. End up like his mother. Worse, like his father. Drifting around, busking for change and smiles. Not knowing when he’ll come home. As the bus bound for the unknown pulls into the bay and opens its doors, his mother licks a finger and pushes a cowlick down and he cringes backward. “Mom.” His mouth forms a sneer. “Stop it.” And to his surprise, she does.

————

From nowhere, it seemed, the neighborhood stray tortie joined me on my walk. Dusk. Playing with me or trying to herd me or whatever feline trick she employed to bond me to her, she slipped serpentine in front of my legs, her mottled fur blending in with the asphalt, with the darkening night. Now just her too-big collar was visible, keeping me from tripping over her. She lifted her head up to mine, gave me a slow blink and bonked her forehead against my knee before letting me continue placing one foot in front of the other. Take me home, she seemed to be saying. We both knew that couldn’t happen. So we walked, her twining her long, skinny body around my calves, twitching tail, for the length of one property, two, before she slipped back into the woods.

————

She couldn’t explain why walking in circles helped. The rhythm of it, maybe, one after the other around the top of the driveway, the streams of rain trickling under the hood of her slicker and down her neck. It was something she could feel, unlike the stale air inside, unlike the same tired looks he gave her. Feeling that wet and cold sliding along the nape of her neck was like a jolt to her body that woke up the rest of her nerves; the smell of the ozone calmed her and made it easier to face what lay inside. Made it easier to lift her feet up the crumbling concrete stairs and face his puzzlement, his derision, the shattered drinking glass he refused to throw away. He wouldn’t throw anything away. It all had memories, it all meant the person who’d owned it stayed alive, somehow. But she also preferred to walk the circles outside because if she did them inside, she could see the glass, the shards stacked inside the jagged base. Throw them out, she said. Get rid of them. She didn’t want to explain why it was bad to have them around, why she couldn’t stop watching the glint of the fluorescent lights against the fragments. The words were too hard, too fractured, too broken.

Big News!

I’m so excited to start spreading the news. (So excited, apparently, that I’m making tortured New York, New York puns.)

Playing Charlie Cool, (the sequel to short story The Picture of Cool) is in final editing and will be available the first week of October or even sooner, if possible!

But you can pre-order a copy of the e-book from Amazon now, and it will be sent directly to your Kindle on the official “go live” day.

If you’re keeping score, the novel also catches up with the characters introduced in Don’t Tell Anyone. But no worries if you haven’t read that one—while the characters and situations overlap, Playing Charlie Cool and Don’t Tell Anyone are stand-alone stories.

I’ll post again as we get closer. This will include an excerpt, info about a print book giveaway, and (woo hoo!) our final cover design.

And don’t forget to sign up for my newsletter if you’d like the latest news and the occasional special offer. (I promise not to spam you.)

Thank you for your time, and now I’ll let you get back to your regularly scheduled Internet hijinks…

Flash in the Pantone

Another Friday, another two-minutes-go writing challenge over at JD Mader’s Unemployed Imagination site. We joke each week about “breaking the blog,” but I think this time we actually did it. Flash fiction bits were going up, comments followed, until…well, let’s just say that we kicked some serious interwebs. Here are three pieces I threw down. Hope you’ll pop over to that link and see some amazing writing by David Antrobus, Julie Frayn, Mark Morris, Ed Drury, Leland Dirks, Lynne Cantwell…hope I’m not leaving anyone out…and of course, our own wicked awesome Pied Piper. Enjoy. As always, lightly edited for your protection.

———————–

We eyed each other over a virtual backyard fence, comparing lives, comparing the Pantone shades of our lawns, who had #270 and who had #245, CMYK or RGB, or whatever shade of lush organic lust was in that season. I wanted what she had. The rich husband, the house, the pretty children, the sweaty glass pitcher of lemonade by the pool. She wanted my peace and solitude, my lack of responsibility. I snorted and turned away. What she mooned over was my worst nightmare, the thing that made me want to claw the walls down and set the rubble aflame. Hers, same. But in different degrees and with different weapons.

———————–

His station wagon—packed with nearly everything she owned—fishtailed around the ramp to the Thruway exit. The sudden motion roiled her stomach and as he corrected, she opened the window to let in what little air hung in the thick of August. Cicadas thrummed. The purple and yellow loostrife fluttered with the motion of the cars. Home. And not home. She’d left it years ago, left the very silence that the motion of opening the window let in, the small death of the last two weeks of August when everyone she knew had somewhere else to be—a new job, school, a life waiting, while hers…sat. Like the humidity. Like the loostrife. At that moment, she began to think she had made a terrible mistake, coming back here. Where there had been nothing. But she was dead tired of leaving places. Instead of going toward new ones. Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad. They would only be living in his mother’s basement for a little while…and the smell wasn’t all that bad. Anymore. Or at least that’s what he claimed. But as he pulled up to the tollbooth, he adjusted the rear view mirror and it snapped off in his hand. He looked at it, perplexed, as if such a thing could never happen, despite his vigilance, despite the careful check of the tire pressure each time he got into the car, despite all his reassurances, and she wondered if it wasn’t too late to change her mind.

———————–

His velvet brown eyes scrutinized each piece, each square, and she could almost hear the tumblers falling into place in his mind as he weighed his alternatives. She’d stared at the layout so long the players swirled into an Alice in Wonderland tea party, off with their heads. Yet if she looked away, out the picture window and into the dark clouds rolling over the Catskills, she feared she’d miss an opportunity to learn from the junior grandmaster. Some flick of his eyelash or sweep of his delicate hand easing into a short-term gambit or riding down a file into a slash-and-burn offensive. Finally, he’d chosen. She could see it in his eyes. He reached up and tapped a pawn up two squares. She blinked. And blinked again. “That’s it?” she blurted. He hooked an eyebrow and withdrew his hand. Her next move would be checkmate. He had to have known that. He had to.