Meg Sefton's Blog, page 49

Inktober, part two

[image error]Processed with VSCOcam with t2 preset, Paris on Ponce & Le Maison Rouge, flickr

Here is an example of a fifty word prompt based piece as explained in the previous post. Hopefully I will post more this weekend. Stay tuned to participate in Inktober 2020 or begin using the prompts listed in the previous post. Or even create your own list of prompts or create a completely original October challenge. A possible hashtag for Inktober might be #Inktober20. Post on twitter, instagram, your blog, or other social media with an accompanying image if you wish. I hope you will let me know how to find your creations. Mainly: Have fun and be your own original spooktacular self!

Ripe Pittsburgh, Halloween, night sky ink-ripened, having relinquished the sun, sees the sisters to the party. Cars careen over brick streets, sending flecks of ancient coal dust into the air. The witch sisters bring early winter solstice gifts to the host.

Inktober

[image error]Skeleton Keys by Paris on Ponce & Le Maison, flickr

I am going back to the prompt based activity I participated in on twitter last October. I made up prompts for an event called “Inktober.” Visual artists have their “Inktober” and so do writers. I also made up prompts for November. I intended to make up prompts for December but didn’t get to it. Maybe I will this year. Later in the year I made up prompts called “Dark Easter” for the advent of covid.

I thought I would post the list of October prompts here again in case anyone is interested. There is approximately one prompt for each day of October. These are 50 word exercises though of course you could make each piece any length. What I like about 50 words however is that I can spend some time each day thinking just about one impression I wanted to make with only fifty words. I feel less burnt out by the experience this way. I create something new each day, but don’t spend a whole lot of time writing. I spend more time imagining beforehand, which is fun. And for the whole month it is judgement free zone!

I may write using these again. Or I may create new prompts. I will probably do one or the other while I am working on a longer Halloween piece.

Before the end of the month I will share some of my flash pieces from last year’s Inktober. Meanwhile, here are some ideas:

ripe

catch

injured

ride

coat

dark

tasty

dizzy

ancient

ghost

treasure

tread

sling

misfit

ornament

wild

legend

overgrown

ash

dragon

snow

pattern

swing

frail

enchanted

husky

build

freeze

ring

mindless

bait

Blood Countess

[image error]Inktober Day 11 by Petit-Lutin, DeviantArt

Meet Shayla, one of my characters who rents her Halloween costume from the vintage shop every year to “be a new person.” She’s actually a prostitute on Orange Blossom trail, a section of a much larger highway extending all the way from Rocky Top, Tennessee to Miami. The seven mile stretch of 441 through Orlando has a long held reputation for seediness and vice. Things were particularly dicey in the 70s though there are still many arrests made today for the same reasons as back then. On top of that, there is sex and drug trafficking. Young women get caught into this and don’t find their way out.

At 25, Shayla wants to entertain the children who trick or treat. She intends to dress and gives out candy. She is making homemade treats to give as well but knows in her dangerous neighborhood adjacent to The Trail, parents will not accept treats not presented in wrappers. This year, she has decided to dress as Elizabeth Báthory. A local theater group put on a play about her life a few years ago entitled Elizabeth Báthory, The Blood Countess.

When I first conceived of the story, I thought of writing it from the Shayla’s sister’s perspective after Shayla’s death. I would have the sister go around and clean out Shayla’s house and find devastating information, things she knew she was avoiding facing about her sister’s struggle. And/or the sister would be haunted by spirits in the house, things from their shared past. The first few paragraphs felt flat.

Then I decided to try a different point of view. Better. Though there is still the possibility of writing from different perspectives, depending upon what happens.

Change of perspective can help if something feels dead, particularly if the point of view character is too much like you. I remember a therapist analyzing a puzzling dream I had and telling me I was actually the character I had not thought I was in the dream.

The other thing changing the point of view does is that it loosens your voice. Sometimes every story can sound just the same. I guess some want that exact sameness. I always think changing it up may help, though I get comfortable and stuck too. I still don’t feel as shaken as I want to feel with this character. It might take a few drafts.

There are prompt based exercises during the holiday months for micro fiction. I participated in one in October called Inktober. There was a one word prompt every day of the month which more or less related to the theme of the season. People then posted their micro stories each day.

I am now seeing the advantage of this. You can perhaps go back and mine the material from the year previous to use in various stories or expand on old stories. I don’t know if that’s what I’ll do but I can see perhaps throwing in some more layers from minimalistic offerings to build richer stories.

And writing only fifty words throws you from that intellectual space. Sometimes I sense a scrim between me and the feelings I hope to get to and land on the page. This is a way to tear it up.

I may host Inktober again, though I am no longer on twitter. But I may host on WordPress.

Here is a jazz favorite to finish today’s post. Be well.

Meg

treading water

[image error]Synchronized swimming by uwdigitalcollections, flickr

I am excavating beginnings of some old short stories to find points of tension and direction with the thought of developing one or more of them. I have hit on one, so, fingers crossed: An epistolary horror about a dystopian society formed by a capricious dictatorship unconcerned with the hopes and dreams of the little fella.

I have found it hard to start much that is new during the current conditions of the pandemic. I am finding I breathe better creatively when there is more movement happening. On the other hand, I can become too energetic and distracted when there are so many things happening, I don’t actually finish the longer work I start. I just write shorter. If I don’t get sick myself, I hope to use the current situation to concentrate. Slow myself down.

“Staged” is a British series on Hulu in which actors David Tennant and Michael Sheen play actors by the same name. Their play opening is postponed in the West End because of the pandemic. They use video conferencing technology to kvetch, get up to speed with spouses, and of course start getting a bit feral in appearance and behavior.

I’m about halfway through the current season. The inciting raison d’être of the calls is grounded in the desire of the director to get them together to rehearse. He believes their meetings will give them some advantage when things return to normal. But predictably, things start to fall apart.

On the one hand, it is hilarious and there is so much reality in the script I groan inwardly. On the other hand, it feels too real and so I take it in small doses. The very “real” part is the attempt to “take advantage of this golden opportunity.” In our current circumstance, I feel myself treading water even as I tell myself I’m making progress. And I do seem to have very ambitious friends who write a lot, no matter what. But I am not always convinced everyone advertises accurately.

In trying to survive psychologically, we are telling ourselves what we must. Lying to ourselves may be an escape. Other popular favorite escapes are eating and drinking. In “Staged,” Michael Sheen gets caught sticking a lot of liquor bottles in the recycling bin of an 80 year old woman. She comes to the door during a video conference and tells him to reclaim them. Ha!

I have been labeled an “escapist.” And now all these vehicles for escape are sending me down the rabbit hole.

Be well.

Meg

Ladybug

[image error]State Library of Queensland, no known copyright restrictions, flickr

I think of the Florida Gulf coast in this hurricane season. I wrote this story several years ago and published with an Australian journal. Growing up, it meant everything to me to learn how to fish in the Panhandle during the summer and sell crabs on the roadside. “Ladybug’s” passion for the sea and its creatures are modeled loosely on experiences I had with my aunt. Be well. — Meg

Her chair is a basket weave of rainbow, her floppy hat a mushroom cap. Every day she sits under the Australian pine, her thin legs stretched out toward the bay, heels dug into the soft sands of Anna Maria Island.

She speaks to birds. She tells them where to find mollusks, greenies, pinfish, tube worms, anemones, mullet, stonecrab, blue crab, fiddlers, spot, black drum, croakers, ballyhoo. The longer-legged wading birds walk along the shallow areas, knobby knees clear of the water for more than a hundred feet out. They are her friends: the common egret, the snowy egret, the white ibis, the roseate spoonbill, the great blue heron. When one of the larger birds is near, she speaks in soft tones. She embraces their world through her sympathy.

Sometimes she helps a grounded boat. She walks out on the bar and dislodges sand from the propeller. She gives the careless boaters a map, shallow areas at low tide drawn with her red pencil, the channel markers with an x. Had they had her aboard, she could have helped. But the birds need her more.

Once a week her daughter visits.  She says Mother I really don’t think you should… and Mother I don’t think it’s wise that you… and Mother why don’t you try to see if you can… and Ladybug, for that’s her name among the locals, says “Umm hmm” until her daughter leaves for the city. The birds listen to her complaints. They nod their silent ascent.

When her son comes, he casts his rod, the only sound the fine unspooling of the line from the reel. She has taught him all she knows about fish and where they feed and when, the patterns of the tides, what he can find just by looking and what he has to know, too, in a deeper sense.

Her husband died pursuing shrimp. He allowed her to navigate while he went below to haul in the catch: At that time, the highest compliment any man could give a woman of a fishing persuasion. Superstition had it that this killed him. She did not remind them he died saving one of their own, a crew member entangled in a net.

During the long days she grieved him, she dreamed of pregnant nets, the breeze in her hair, her husband’s strong neck, the feel of his unshaven face against her cheek in a private moment. His expectation that she could endure anything, could do what she must, helped her survive. She sensed him with her, protecting her still and she began to understand something like faith.

Once her children were raised and gone, once the town forgave and forgot, she became Ladybug, a woman who talks to birds, a woman who graced the town – the grocery, the bar, the peel ‘n eat, the library, everywhere – with a red bug tattoo on the bone of her wrist.

First appeared in Pure Slush

On the grift

[image error]Well Heeled, Well Worn by Jo Christian Oterhals, flickr

I found a motel on St. Pete run by a quiet German couple. Earlier that day upon my arrival to town, I had deposited the money from the policy with no fanfare.

At check in I wore the black of a widow. I was very quiet, subdued, some might even say I seemed to be appropriately mourning.

On my first evening I wore to the pool a conservative kaftan, had a drink from the bar only at the cocktail hour and only one.

The police had questioned me a few days ago when he died but only to rule me out, had made note of an alibi.

There would have been only the one motive, though a considerable one: the sizable life insurance policy.

After the questioning, I had to survive the duties – the mourning wife, funeral director, hostess and I was surprised I had it in me to be so cold and unfeeling. But all I had to remember was my husband’s iron grip on my arm, the bruising, the years of indignities, and I was a woman of steel. Before I left town I paid the death expert, my white knight.

At the beach, my first sunset there, how good the warm breeze felt on my cheek as I followed the path between the dunes, the setting sun on my back, the knowledge of the money tucked away in my account, my German hosts polishing my car in the lot.

There was a little brick hut apparently for storing beach equipment along the path. And beside it, a small concrete outcropping where five smooth black cats lounged.

What did they know? I thought to myself, amused. Very little.

On the beach as the sun fell I must have drifted asleep.

I woke up in the darkness to mewling and purring beside me. The cats, I thought.

One had pressed its lips to mine. I couldn’t move. It had taken all my breath, its yellow eyes penetrating the dark.

I woke, gasping for air. It had been a nightmare.

I sighed in relief and returned to my room. The next day, a group of them waited for me outside my door. I could barely pass to get breakfast.

I was not able to stay at St. Pete without the cats following me, more and more of them. It made me feel conspicuous and self conscious. And of course people looked at me.

I moved to another beach town further north and stayed inside most of the time but found they clustering near the door though I never fed them. They followed me when I went to to the grocery or to town, crowding in, harassing, mewling, hissing.

It’s been months now and I’m half crazed.  To be honest, I hope to die.

[image error]

Survivor Blood

 

[image error]Face Paint by Ariel Ophelia

 

The heat from the oven blasted her face. The blackened salmon was cooking nicely in the cast iron skillet, a deep rich glaze of soy and sweetener and garlic thickening under the broiler. How simple it had been to make from a frozen filet. A sweet potato was turning in the microwave.

She sat at her coffee table that conveniently lifted and took her first bite. How could life be so hard yet so simple. She had managed to find a diabetic alternative to honey for the recipe: monkfruit sweetener. And yet, she could not tell a difference. That was what it was about: Challenge, opportunity, response, every ounce of her a scrappy animal, cancerous body parts removed in the fight, depression not an option.

And yet, her sister was well yet struggling too. They spoke frequently. And she had a good relationship with her son who had his own challenges. Her aging dog would need a vet visit soon which may lead to expensive steps to help her maintain. Storms were beginning to rip through the state. Fall always brought beauty and natural chaos and disaster.

She and her sister talked on the phone after she received word of the necessity of a biopsy. She was sitting in her car in the parking lot of a donut shop. She planned to get coffee and cream and as usual these days, eschew the donuts and bagels. She would wait to go through the drive thru until after they had dissected the situation.

There was at least this morale boosting conversation in her life. And there was this, something they laughed about but knew all too well from birth: They were made of survivor blood.

Ok, so that little “story” or vignette was about me, lols. I even tried to post it multiple times today because I haven’t mastered the new WordPress editor so if you’re seeing it in different forms and rearranged, know it’s been under construction. 

Maybe someday I will make this into more of a layered story, but for today, I thought, why not share a recipe along with a little writing? It will keep me creating both food and fiction during this challenging time.

This recipe of sweet and savory salmon is quick, inexpensive, delicious, and healthy. If you don’t like salmon, I have other fish dishes I will share. Occasionally, I am going to try to share recipes you can use from your freezer or pantry. Please try this even if you think you are not a salmon lover. The delicious sauce masks some of the strong oiliness that can be a challenge and you might be converted after all.

I have to always try to find honey and sugar alternatives because of eratic sugar levels. I love honey and it would be a perfect just as called for in this recipe. But it is not necessary for the flavor or thickening of the sauce. Monkfruit sweetener can be easily and affordably secured online and is often a substitute for sugar. It has the reputation of not spiking blood sugar. Though like all such products, it is probably best consumed in extreme moderation. It is handy to have on hand for a pinch here or there.

Salmon filets are nice to have in the freezer, and you don’t need the crème de la crème with recipes like this. Mine come in a pack of multiple filets, skin on. Most salmon recipes are fairly of forgiving of skin and once cooked, it easily releases without need of special knives though I just leave it as is and leave the skin behind. I do have some recipes or methods to use in cooking with frozen filets with a variety of fish but most of the time it is preferable to thaw. Most fish filets do not take long to thaw and you can do this overnight or on the counter day of. Just be very careful not to forget about it, making it dangerously unhealthy. If you make a mistake, throw it out and start again with another filet. When the fish is thawed, use it same day and don’t refreeze. See link below. Enjoy.

 

Honey Garlic Glazed Salmon

lost in wonder

[image error]Fluid Painting Acrylic on Canvas by Mark Chadwick, flickr

I am always devastated when I go back to read typos I have let dangle out there on my site like so much dirty laundry. My apologies! The one good thing about posting with some frequency is that I am going back to read and correct frequently. I have felt that one of my biggest reasons for trying to write fiction is to try to learn grammar, learn how to spell, to try to be a more disciplined writer.

To me, there are a few approaches or mentalities to writing though one often plagues us from grade school on: Shame based. We feel we can’t do it well so we don’t do it at all. Or we do it, but get embarrassed easily when we make a mistake so we start and stutter and waste time. Sometimes we run into blocks. With creative writing, that is a disaster. We have to be willing to make big enormous mistakes, big splashes with glops of color, large splooshes of ink. Somehow, we have to learn being completely lost in wonder. Even if sometimes the finer points get skimmed over in the rush. It is still art time. The paints are out and we must honor our brushes. Or even, our fingers. Pay no mind to the grim teacher in the corner, lips pressed together, disapproving. Her stomach is pinched from hunger, a meal delayed, she is unhappy. Don’t be unhappy.

I am not one who refines endlessly before putting it out there. Honestly, I am too interested in getting on to the next thing, which often means lunch or coffee. I am also worried if I don’t post soon I’ll psych myself out. Putting myself out there forces me to go back and check more carefully what I’ve done. I sometimes have several steps for checking myself: seeing myself on a blog, seeing myself through my writing group and other readers, seeing myself through editors’ eyes even if and especially when they reject me, seeing myself when I try to rework the material into a larger or smaller project. With each of these steps I sometimes catch my errors but I also have the chance to learn my blind spots from others. If shame paralyzed me I would never take any of these steps.

One thing I love about jazz music are its free riffs. It almost feels like it is created out of air and has no intention of being contained or conformed to a musical staff. One musician who just seems to hang it all on delicately spun thread, creating with magic is Thelonious Monk. Would a conservative dour music teacher have approved of early riffing sessions through music class? Perhaps not? (I speak metaphorically.) Yet the man is a genius. And actually self taught since the age of six.

Be well today.

Meg

Branford Marsalis

Mortal coil

[image error]

Erik Muller, unsplash

The thickness between worlds is thinning, the spirit world merging with the living, the undead with the dead.

A woman, in dank clothes whose skin smelled like the earth, materializes from the forest while I was decorate my porch for Halloween. She bares her rotten teeth, she touches me. I feel ice run through.

I try to tell my husband what is happening as the sky overhead threatens. His eyes are sad. This is kind of the tipping point for what he has decided about me. He gently moved me to the car. He thinks I’m crazy, that I’ve neglected my pills. Again. He drives me to the hospital.

In Central Florida, there is no cool weather in autumn. The leaves don’t fall. And yet, every day, leaves drift through the bars of my hospital window. The corridor blows with a fierce wind and I worry for the children.

“Trick or treaters will die,” I tell my husband on the phone. “Warn the city to keep them indoors.”

And he hangs up on me in the sad, slow manner he has with me now, resigned.

The doctor says I am very far gone now because I have neglected my medications for a long time.

I say the pills made me into a dead person. I do not tell him I hid them in a little pill cemetery I created in my backyard, a little hole I dug in the ground with a kitchen spoon. It was a grave for every dead person I would have been had I remained compliant.

He says electric shock is possible. I almost say you will be strangled, doc, but think the better of it.

I do not want them taking my memory.

On Halloween, the souls of the dead haunt the corridors but the nurses decorate with garish paper chains from a party store. After lights out, our souls leave our sleeping bodies and travel through the air.

We sneak through cracks in barred doorways and harass medical staff and their families at their homes while they sleep. We harass their college and teenage children at parties.

I have no feeling about this while this is happening. In a waking moment, I would have probably felt guilty. But it is like I am in a dream in which I have no agency over my mind or actions. I see myself doing these things and stand apart from myself as a witness. I stand apart from myself while I shout in doc’s face and watch him shudder next to his wife. Not quite the man now are you? I say though what probably comes out is something ragged and indistinct.

A nurse died of fright that night. Official cause of death: Heart attack.

At the hospital, we put the Halloween paperchains through the shredder along with the medical notes doctors and nurses keep regarding our behaviors and treatment.

We return to bed. It would be impossible for them to pin any of this on us, helpless, drugged, blithering idiots that we are.

My husband visits me next day, now my ex husband. I had been in hospital for months. My college son was living elsewhere, on his own. My ex’s fiancé looks very grown, very mature, though I know she was only half my age. It is her air. When my ex brought the settlement agreement papers to the hospital a couple of months ago, he told me to grow up. Now he will marry a woman ten years older than our child.

We are only able to soul travel at certain times during the year. It was for the best. Being inside was like wearing life saving blinkers. I couldn’t bear to think what was happening in the trappings of my old existence. I would be tempted to spy, and worse.

As it is I can’t stand to see him touch her on the arm.

I just wonder if I could ask her to check on my pill cemetery, to remove the pills so animals didn’t get to them. I do not do this. Soon there will be the residents’ favorite program on television and I pray for my ex and his girlie to leave. If the residents are all good, we will be able to go out for pizza.

Our strange asylum is slated to be shuddered by orders of the state. And yet God has seen fit for us to live on, no matter what is done with the mortal coil, be assured of it. And that is why we are still brash and confident. We will always have a place. We are the mice of the field, the birds of the air.