Mixi J. Applebottom's Blog, page 6
April 19, 2017
Chapter 1
Mark was sitting in his truck, pounding on the steering wheel with his fists, and his fingertips. Alternating fist pounds, and finger thumps, he was keeping time with a loud obnoxious music he was playing. As he pulled into his parking spot, he turned off the key in the louder racket he truck clinging to a stop. The door didn’t really lock, but he didn’t care anyways, who was gonna rob his truck? He hopped out of the red dusty thing, and slipped on his leather jacket. He was thirty-six, and was about to step into the familiar thrift store for the thousandth time.
Today he was on a quest. He wanted to find the girls a new bike seat. He had two beautiful daughters, Coralina who was loud and seven and Beth who was four years old. Beth was quiet and reserved, and barely spoke to anyone. She was so incredibly shy he wondered how he could be her father. He didn’t feel shy at all.
But there you have it, he had one daughter with his personality that was boisterous and loud and the other one was as meek as a mouse. He was looking for new bike seat for Coralina. He bought her a bike at the thrift store a few weeks ago, but the bike seat itself was so brittle from the sunshine, that the first time Carolina rode, it cracked in half. As he wandered up and down the aisles, he saw in the furniture section a large wooden dollhouse. It had individual shingles on the roof, and he almost didn’t look at it any further. Individual shingles, for a dollhouse. His own roof had less shingles than that tiny little dollhouse.
It was clearly a collectors item and probably over a thousand dollars. After an unsuccessful search for a pink bike seat, finally he asked one of the workers, “Any chance you have a bike seat?”
“Sure, let me see.” In the scraggly old man wandered towards the back of the thrift shop. Everything was piled fairly neatly, and Mark found himself glancing back at the perfectly shingled very expensive dollhouse.
“How about this one?” Said the old man, handing Mark a pink bike seat. It didn’t look too sun damage, and even seemed like maybe it would look good with the bike. Although looking good was never a priority. Function over form.
That’s what you do when you’re broke.
He looked at the price tag of the bike seat and it was three dollars. No problem. He could skip lunch today so that Coralina could ride a bike. Besides, he was constantly battling the nervous feeling in his stomach that maybe, just maybe he was a terrible father.
After all, in order to get his kid is used bike seat he had to skip lunch. That was not the sign of a good father, that was the signs of a fuck up. Sure, he’s fixing the bike, but he shouldn’t have to shop at a thrift store for a freaking bike seat, and skip lunch to get it for her.
“What’s the price of the dollhouse?” Mark said, before he even managed to stop himself. He didn’t really want to know, he might as well ask what the price of a Lamborghini was. He wasn’t going to get that expensive high quality dollhouse today.
Not when he skipped lunch to buy used bike seat. He stuck his hands in his leather coat and he stared at the perfect little shingles in a nice little line. The house was better than his own actual home.
“The dollhouse? Oh, I think it’s five bucks.” Said the old man as he started to shuffle away to help some other customer.
Mark’s eyes were so big from shock that they fell out of his head, rolled across the floor, and got kicked by kid who was screaming at his mother. Five dollars?
Not a second later he was running towards the dollhouse. He picked it up, without even looking inside. He could put it on Craigslist for two hundred bucks, and come out ahead. New bike seat, and a bunch of lunches.
Or… As he was standing in line holding the bulky dollhouse, his mind started to wander away from the profitablity of this purchase. What if he gave Beth and Coralina the most expensive dollhouse they ever had? Would that mean he was a good father? Or… Was he indulging them too much? Or… Does it not even count because he’s getting a dollhouse for five dollars?
In the end he decided it didn’t matter. And on a whim, just like that he brought home a gorgeous, eight thousand dollar dollhouse.
April 18, 2017
Prologue
The saw made a quick buzzing noise, and then it paused. The sound lingered in the air with the dust. His old wrinkly hand brushed some of the sawdust off of the edge of the cut. And then with a long shhh blew some air across the edge. The cut was smooth and straight. Just like it should be.
The thin piece of wood slid perfectly fitted on the tiny little staircase. It was the third tread, counting from the bottom up. The entire staircase is only six inches tall, and it had taken him five full minutes to perfectly shape each tread. He left that one, not glued in place, just sitting waiting for him. While he grabbed another tiny thin board. He carried it over to the little router, and set the groove for the front of the tread. The little router whirred to life at the touch of a button.
The dust was growing in the air, even with his expensive vacuum system running. He was wearing a dust mask, as he always did when he worked long hours. This would be his final house.
Four hundred houses. He really liked the idea of stopping on an even number, and this was the four hundredth house. He would be retiring in less than a week. This house should sell for eight thousand dollars, that was the going rate. But he had every intention of keeping it, the final dollhouse.
It was Victorian, as most of the styled doll-houses were. He loved those particular houses because they were intricate, detailed. He knew he would be spending at least a full month individually carving all of the handrails and the spindles for that staircase. And they would be gloriously beautiful, worth every second of his efforts. After the front of the tread of the step was routed, he moved it back to the tiny saw blade. He measured and re-measured, and then cut the tread to fit. He set it on the fourth stair. It fit perfectly, there was sadness pushing through the dust in the air. A finality. This would be the end. Last staircase, and he was one tread closer to packing up his workshop and retiring.
When all the treads were finally cut for the staircase, he carefully glued them all into place and then hammered with the tiniest little nails until they were well seated.
Then with a soft smile, he looked at the perfectly proportioned little stairs. This would be his masterpiece. Every trick that he knew from his entire life’s work would be put into this dollhouse. He gently twisted the banister knob, and the staircase popped open as a little set of drawers. It was one of the many secret latches that he had installed in this house. He carefully pushed each step back into place. And twisted the knob again all ten stairs popped forwards, spring-loaded little drawers.
If he could’ve built that into his own beautiful home, he would have. But at this moment in his life, even with his houses selling for eight thousand dollars at a crack, he still had never purchased a custom home. Nothing at all like the houses that he built, with secret little levers. This one would have at least seven different secret letters.
One would definitely be a candlestick, and one was the stair banister. And he still had five left to decide on. The house was covered in dust, not a single bit of it painted or stained yet, just raw wood.
And he smiled brightly as he stared at the empty rooms that would come to life before his fingertips.
The dollhouse was perfection, he managed all seven of the latches worked perfectly and smoothly upon their installation. He was just finishing up coating each and every piece of wood with paint, tile, and tiny perfectly matched wallpaper.
He was carefully lining a piece of glass with glue while he held it with a pair of tweezers. He had carefully glued tiny pads on the ends of the tweezer so they wouldn’t scratch the tiny pane of glass. It was as thin as paper. He would carefully use a suction cup to place the glass into the window frame. The suction cup was about as big as an eraser on a pencil. Carefully, he set up his tools, waited five seconds for the glue to set just slightly before he pressed the glass gently into place. His wife came in.
“Is that the final house?” She said, with a sneer of disgust. She had never enjoyed his career. And now, that it was almost at the end, she seemed to have the most hate for it that she had ever had. “Is it done? Can we move on with our lives now?”
He didn’t respond, ignoring his wife, as he had done a thousand other times. Maybe ten thousand other times. She was unreasonable, that’s what he always thought to himself. Unreasonable women do as they please.
But he didn’t need to reply, she could see with their eyes that he wasn’t quite done yet. It was close, maybe twenty or thirty more hours of work. In a project that took in more than two hundred hours, twenty or thirty left was next to nothing. But she wanted to schedule that cruise.
She let out a nasty little laugh. Revealing her gums with no teeth. Even though, he had bought her teeth, she refused to wear them. And her scraggly gray hair that looked like she had just been electrocuted moments before, even though he had offered many a time to take her to the salon and get something pretty done.
They weren’t even close to poor, so why did she insist on wandering around looking like a bedraggled old homeless woman? For a man who’d spent his entire life makings tiny little intricate beautiful things, his wife had spent the entire time looking like a hobo. It disgusted him. She disgusted him.
But, he had no plans to leave. After all, he was a man of convictions. And he would not walk out on his wife for no reason. Well, for this lame reason of her choosing to be an ugly old hag. That wasn’t enough to leave her. She had to do something worse. Besides, even when she was unpleasant, she was still his. There was comfort in having her. Back when they were young, she was his rock, she helped him sell his first house. But as the years had grown on, her mood towards his work had stiffened and grown cold. He should have retired last year, to appease her, but he really wanted to finish at four-hundred houses. He’d been doing this for forty years, what was one more?
The suction cup made a soft kissing noise as it finally adhere itself to the perfectly ready glass. The glue was nearly perfectly set, it was ready. He turned and he was placing the glass into the baby’s bedroom. As he pushed on the window frame, studying his wrinkled, trembling hand before he slipped the glass into place his wife turned. As she moved, her big clumsy body bumbled into his. The glass shifted, and he wasn’t dexterous enough any more to catch himself. The glass knocked from his hand and sliced into hers.
He held his breath a moment, as her eyes grew big and wide. A trickle of red was starting to drip.
She let out a scream and shook her hand violently, as if the glass was a spider. The miniature window slipped out of her flesh from the force of her flailing. The glass, dripping with glue and blood, spun like a Chinese throwing star smashing into the house. Tiny shattered bits of glass went flying literally everywhere all over the tiny intricate library. He was absolutely exasperated.
She was injured, yes, but he was furious. This was the third time she had managed to knock something into his final creation. And this time, this time she shattered glass and blood all over the interior of the nearly completed library. He slammed his perfect little tweezers down on his desk. Then he turned and stared at his hideous wife. “Why are you even in here?” He said, anger growling out with every word. Like a rabid dog.
She was sucking on the sliced hand. “I think I need stitches. You cut me.” She said, her accusatory tone was mixed with a whine of pain. “Why the fuck would you cut me?” She said, her voice growing downright shrill. It was like she was trying to grate every single nerve of his with her pitch.
And it was working well.
“I’m going to have to order new glass! It will take weeks to get here. Plus, I’ll have to clean up all this blood. You are why this takes so long.” He said jabbing his finger at her face. “You stupid…”
“I’ll curse you.” She said, with a painfully calm, angry voice. The room grew suddenly cold, as he was finally pushed too far.
“You hideous bitch.” He replied. “Do you know how much I think about divorcing you? I do. All the time. But I put up with you because you are my wife. And that means something to me. But, honestly? Fuck you. Fuck you and your toothless, hideous face.” It was the first time in their entire marriage that he used hateful language at his wife. Though she had used cruel words to him plenty of times. Usually he’d say fine dear, or it’s okay. Or I’m sorry. But today, he just wanted to finish his masterpiece. And he was so close. This would take hours upon hours to fix
But he was not expecting the thing that happened next. As she straightened her back and pointed her finger at him. And he felt the curse long before she finished saying it, it felt like cold water slowly being poured from the top of his head all the way down his body. A cold frigid feeling dripping across his entire soul, his entire being. He couldn’t reply, he was stuck gargling on his words like it idiot.
When she finally relented, he leapt on top of her and stabbed straight through her neck with the funny little suction cup device. It sounded like it kissed her right before it penetrated her.
A month later he was dead.
But the house was complete.
Deadlocked Dollhouse
The saw made a quick buzzing noise, and then it paused. The sound lingered in the air with the dust. His old wrinkly hand brushed some of the sawdust off of the edge of the cut. And then with a long shhh blew some air across the edge. The cut was smooth and straight. Just like it should be.
The thin piece of wood slid perfectly fitted on the tiny little staircase. It was the third tread, counting from the bottom up. The entire staircase is only six inches tall, and it had taken him five full minutes to perfectly shape each tread. He left that one, not glued in place, just sitting waiting for him. While he grabbed another tiny thin board. He carried it over to the little router, and set the groove for the front of the tread. The little router whirred to life at the touch of a button.
The dust was growing in the air, even with his expensive vacuum system running. He was wearing a dust mask, as he always did when he worked long hours. This would be his final house.
Four hundred houses. He really liked the idea of stopping on an even number, and this was the four hundredth house. He would be retiring in less than a week. This house should sell for eight thousand dollars, that was the going rate. But he had every intention of keeping it, the final dollhouse.
It was Victorian, as most of the styled doll-houses were. He loved those particular houses because they were intricate, detailed. He knew he would be spending at least a full month individually carving all of the handrails and the spindles for that staircase. And they would be gloriously beautiful, worth every second of his efforts. After the front of the tread of the step was routed, he moved it back to the tiny saw blade. He measured and re-measured, and then cut the tread to fit. He set it on the fourth stair. It fit perfectly, there was sadness pushing through the dust in the air. A finality. This would be the end. Last staircase, and he was one tread closer to packing up his workshop and retiring.
When all the treads were finally cut for the staircase, he carefully glued them all into place and then hammered with the tiniest little nails until they were well seated.
Then with a soft smile, he looked at the perfectly proportioned little stairs. This would be his masterpiece. Every trick that he knew from his entire life’s work would be put into this dollhouse. He gently twisted the banister knob, and the staircase popped open as a little set of drawers. It was one of the many secret latches that he had installed in this house. He carefully pushed each step back into place. And twisted the knob again all ten stairs popped forwards, spring-loaded little drawers.
If he could’ve built that into his own beautiful home, he would have. But at this moment in his life, even with his houses selling for eight thousand dollars at a crack, he still had never purchased a custom home. Nothing at all like the houses that he built, with secret little levers. This one would have at least seven different secret letters.
One would definitely be a candlestick, and one was the stair banister. And he still had five left to decide on. The house was covered in dust, not a single bit of it painted or stained yet, just raw wood.
And he smiled brightly as he stared at the empty rooms that would come to life before his fingertips.
The dollhouse was perfection, he managed all seven of the latches worked perfectly and smoothly upon their installation. He was just finishing up coating each and every piece of wood with paint, tile, and tiny perfectly matched wallpaper.
He was carefully lining a piece of glass with glue while he held it with a pair of tweezers. He had carefully glued tiny pads on the ends of the tweezer so they wouldn’t scratch the tiny pane of glass. It was as thin as paper. He would carefully use a suction cup to place the glass into the window frame. The suction cup was about as big as an eraser on a pencil. Carefully, he set up his tools, waited five seconds for the glue to set just slightly before he pressed the glass gently into place. His wife came in.
“Is that the final house?” She said, with a sneer of disgust. She had never enjoyed his career. And now, that it was almost at the end, she seemed to have the most hate for it that she had ever had. “Is it done? Can we move on with our lives now?”
He didn’t respond, ignoring his wife, as he had done a thousand other times. Maybe ten thousand other times. She was unreasonable, that’s what he always thought to himself. Unreasonable women do as they please.
But he didn’t need to reply, she could see with their eyes that he wasn’t quite done yet. It was close, maybe twenty or thirty more hours of work. In a project that took in more than two hundred hours, twenty or thirty left was next to nothing. But she wanted to schedule that cruise.
She let out a nasty little laugh. Revealing her gums with no teeth. Even though, he had bought her teeth, she refused to wear them. And her scraggly gray hair that looked like she had just been electrocuted moments before, even though he had offered many a time to take her to the salon and get something pretty done.
They weren’t even close to poor, so why did she insist on wandering around looking like a bedraggled old homeless woman? For a man who’d spent his entire life makings tiny little intricate beautiful things, his wife had spent the entire time looking like a hobo. It disgusted him. She disgusted him.
But, he had no plans to leave. After all, he was a man of convictions. And he would not walk out on his wife for no reason. Well, for this lame reason of her choosing to be an ugly old hag. That wasn’t enough to leave her. She had to do something worse. Besides, even when she was unpleasant, she was still his. There was comfort in having her. Back when they were young, she was his rock, she helped him sell his first house. But as the years had grown on, her mood towards his work had stiffened and grown cold. He should have retired last year, to appease her, but he really wanted to finish at four-hundred houses. He’d been doing this for forty years, what was one more?
The suction cup made a soft kissing noise as it finally adhere itself to the perfectly ready glass. The glue was nearly perfectly set, it was ready. He turned and he was placing the glass into the baby’s bedroom. As he pushed on the window frame, studying his wrinkled, trembling hand before he slipped the glass into place his wife turned. As she moved, her big clumsy body bumbled into his. The glass shifted, and he wasn’t dexterous enough any more to catch himself. The glass knocked from his hand and sliced into hers.
He held his breath a moment, as her eyes grew big and wide. A trickle of red was starting to drip.
She let out a scream and shook her hand violently, as if the glass was a spider. The miniature window slipped out of her flesh from the force of her flailing. The glass, dripping with glue and blood, spun like a Chinese throwing star smashing into the house. Tiny shattered bits of glass went flying literally everywhere all over the tiny intricate library. He was absolutely exasperated.
She was injured, yes, but he was furious. This was the third time she had managed to knock something into his final creation. And this time, this time she shattered glass and blood all over the interior of the nearly completed library. He slammed his perfect little tweezers down on his desk. Then he turned and stared at his hideous wife. “Why are you even in here?” He said, anger growling out with every word. Like a rabid dog.
She was sucking on the sliced hand. “I think I need stitches. You cut me.” She said, her accusatory tone was mixed with a whine of pain. “Why the fuck would you cut me?” She said, her voice growing downright shrill. It was like she was trying to grate every single nerve of his with her pitch.
And it was working well.
“I’m going to have to order new glass! It will take weeks to get here. Plus, I’ll have to clean up all this blood. You are why this takes so long.” He said jabbing his finger at her face. “You stupid…”
“I’ll curse you.” She said, with a painfully calm, angry voice. The room grew suddenly cold, as he was finally pushed too far.
“You hideous bitch.” He replied. “Do you know how much I think about divorcing you? I do. All the time. But I put up with you because you are my wife. And that means something to me. But, honestly? Fuck you. Fuck you and your toothless, hideous face.” It was the first time in their entire marriage that he used hateful language at his wife. Though she had used cruel words to him plenty of times. Usually he’d say fine dear, or it’s okay. Or I’m sorry. But today, he just wanted to finish his masterpiece. And he was so close. This would take hours upon hours to fix
But he was not expecting the thing that happened next. As she straightened her back and pointed her finger at him. And he felt the curse long before she finished saying it, it felt like cold water slowly being poured from the top of his head all the way down his body. A cold frigid feeling dripping across his entire soul, his entire being. He couldn’t reply, he was stuck gargling on his words like it idiot.
When she finally relented, he leapt on top of her and stabbed straight through her neck with the funny little suction cup device. It sounded like it kissed her right before it penetrated her.
A month later he was dead.
But the house was complete.
February 9, 2017
How to be a dictator, and other lies.
I’ve been dictating my novels lately.
And I thought I’d post about it, because one, I have been getting a lot of word count questions, and two, I am about to give you wild, amazing advice for word counts.
Because I arrogantly think I’m brilliant.
And, also, because, I had some questions this week.
Dictation is like running the mile in gym class. You may cough up blood, but it’s good for your health. Supposedly.
Here is how I got faster it dictation, and got better at it.
1.I dictated before I wrote every day. It sucked and I hated it. I often switched back to typing after a half hour of attempted dictation.
2. I think you’d be an idiot not to dictate with punctuation, whoever recommends that has marbles for brains. Use all your punctuation. You’ll get used to it, but only if you practice. This is like running the mile, it sucks. Get over it.
3. The first problem I encountered with dictation, was that for the first time I could write faster than I could think. I’m a very fast typist, so I was hitting an easy 2500 to 3000 words per hour typed. With dictation, I would run out of thoughts before I had got to them. There were lots of awkward lulls and pauses. In order to combat that I had to outline, which sucked balls. First my outlines were too specific – and then I just completely gave up on working with them because there was no natural flow to my story. But then, sometimes my outlines were not specific enough – my entire scene was the sentence. “Play night game.” I didn’t know what the game was, or why they were playing it, or the plot. But being less specific actually made me much faster, and when I hit the scene that’s not specific enough I just pause take two seconds to adjust, and plan then dictate.
4. They say when you’re top violinist you play hard, but at such a painful rate that after you practice you often need to nap. I find this to be true with dictation. When I have hit good word counts I often need a nap. If you haven’t worked so hard that you need a nap, you’re probably not working very hard. That’s just the truth.
5. I often dictate with voices, and crazy amounts of enthusiasm. I try to make sure I’m caffeinated, sometimes do jumping jacks first. Get excited – you need to get into the flow state just as you would with writing. Once I stopped micromanaging my dictation, I got way more words on the page. I can dictate seventeen hundred words in ten minutes. And this is only after a month or so of practicing seriously. Say at least three paragraphs at a time before you look it over – if you are looking at your words more often than that, then you’re not dictating you are just waiting and staring at words. You’re not even telling a story – could you imagine if someone was listening to you? They’d be bored to tears. So you must write at least three paragraphs at a time. If any of the dictation is particularly wrong, select the entire sentence and just say it again. It will not only improve your dictation next time – because Dragon is smart and it will learn that it heard you wrong the first time – but it’s also faster than trying to edit one or two words at the time. You want to just select the entire sentence, and restate. Do not do this more than once every three or four paragraphs. I tend to do it at the end of the chapter.
6. When you use lots of voices Dragon have a harder time keeping up. But I do it anyways, because when I go back and edit I can easily fix any transcription errors – but it helps me stay in the story. And staying in the story is 90% of the battle. You should be telling your story like you had children listening, children who are really interested in punctuation, and the story. This is how I’ve improved, and I highly recommend that you keep practicing, work till you’re tired, be enthusiastic, and don’t edit as you go edit at the end.
7. I hope this was interesting or helpful.
8. I feel like lists must stop at ten.
9. See 8.
10. Yeah, I am pretty amazing, thanks for noticing.
December 1, 2016
November 16, 2016
July 28, 2016
Come along kids, into the fire.
The Firelocked Funhouse has been so fun to work on so far. These kids just tried to bury a clown alive.
It’s not gonna work.
Plus, the little one carries around a bear!
Anyways, I’ve been doing excellent, I’ve been being excellent.
10’s dress won at state fair, which means, she’s got to go to the next competition, I wish I had showed her to sew less good. (I can’t decide if I even feel bad. More competitions are vomitous terrible things I have no patience for- but 10 is amazing and deserves to win everything this world has to offer.)
Next week I will have all my children away and I’ll be working ten times harder than ever, and playing ten times harder than ever. Ballroom dancing? Oh yes, it’s gonna happen. I’ve already shined my shoes. The umbrella gun will be finished and I am going to have the most amazing costume for Suicide Squad.
This is the grand finale, the big finish of summer before life gets back into a steady and safe routine. Back to school, back to words. The only sliver still digging away at me is the cats still quarantined. Only one more month. Please rally pretty kitties. I can’t wait to have them home.
I also have all remodeling on hold at the moment whilst I get some books out the door. After I get back into the swing of routine I’ll add ’tiling and painting’ back to my schedule along with “hanging drywall’ and flooring! The attic is desperately ready to be floored. I am impatient. I am ready for my house to start housing and stop constructing. I”m ready for my books to start flying off the shelves, and my days to be less stressful. Let’s skip through my forest and laugh through the nights.
July 27, 2016
Padlocked Penthouse Excerpt
Barnett rode up the glass elevator. He had his leather briefcase in his hands. Inside the case he carried the evidence Vivika would need. The elevator seemed slow but steady. It almost groaned under his weight. Fear crept into his belly. Was this the right choice?
Would it save his wife and daughter?
He took a deep breath as the glass elevator slid into his penthouse. He could see the piano and the little mirror on the wall his wife stood at endlessly. She wasn’t there. The elevator let out a bright cheery ding, and the clear doors parted. His foot touched the smooth marble floor and he found himself wondering what on earth he was doing.
How could he help a ghost walk into the light? It was an impossibility at best.
Fear made his skin tremble. “Aurora? Pear?” He stumbled on a candle on the floor. There was a thin line of salt on the ground. He followed it slowly.
He called for them, but silence was the reply. “Aurora?”
He called louder, pacing his long sturdy steps around the oval penthouse. The candles kept dotting along the salt, but none of them were lit. His vision went blurry, and he recognized he had tears forming in his eyes. What if he was too late?
Finally, he said the one name that would get him a response. “Vivika?”
All of the light bulbs flickered and he was in darkness, utter darkness. “I’ve come to talk to you,” he said, his knees trembling. “Vivika, it’s going to be all right. I brought you some things to see.” The lights shone again.
He waited and all the hairs on the back of his neck stood up straight. Everything seemed so intense. The bright, tart lemon scent suddenly burned his eyes and nose and throat. He gasped and coughed.
“Vivika, it’s going to be okay.” He held back a little choke. He was being smothered by lemon; it hung thick in the air like skunk spray. He could feel it reaching into his lungs and burning, burning into him.
“I want to show you what I have.”
He fumbled for the briefcase latches in the dark. He rubbed his eyes with his hand slowly, trying to make the burning stop. His nose and tears were running from the potent scent.
“Do you even know what happened? You’ve been dead a long time.” He tried to recite some of the facts from memory. “Mikaela and Roselle were your daughters, and you and Frans… I’m sorry, but none of you made it out alive. It must be devastat-” He felt the scream rather than heard it. It hurt his chest and he fell to the ground. A nasty wind rushed around the penthouse in a big sweeping scream and his ears! They were bleeding from the force of it, from the intensity. The wind pelted him with bits of salt. The scream hurt his chest and his belly and it was like he had screamed.
No, he was screaming.
His lungs burned from the effort. He let out another shriek of terror. He shuddered and tried to get a grip, but fear had won; every bit of him was frightened. She was so much bigger and more monstrous than he had ever imagined. She could swallow the city whole if she wanted. She was darkness, hate, and bittersweet. She was angry and had no intention of stopping any time soon. She was fire, and oh, she burned. She burned within him.
Then, with a pop, she went silent, and he was alone and scared.
July 12, 2016
Firelocked Funhouse Excerpt
A bell rang, like a casino machine ringing in loads of cash. And the ceiling opened a panel and down dropped a long pink stretch of fabric. It fell all the way to the floor like a long rope. Immediately kids began to grab at it and try to climb it. Until they heard the loud booming voice.
On the long silk scarf was a clown. She had big pigtails that were pink. Her face looked happy. She had the brightest freckles painted on her face. Her laugh was like a tinkling fairy. She held on to the scarf with only her legs and slowly spun down it. She was juggling three pink balls as she slid down the scarf. “Hello children! Do you want to play a game?”
Everyone stopped manning the ball guns, and dropped what they were doing. They slowly gathered at the base of the scarf, enchanted by this new clown. She had striped stockings on her legs and a fluffy yellow skirt.
Miles, Lorelei and Gregory stood back nervously. They didn’t trust clowns anymore, and at this point in the day it was only about to get worse.
She stopped juggling as she got to the bottom of the scarf, her feet daintly set upon the top of the balls below. It was like walking on water. One arm still wrapped around the scarf as she balanced seemingly on nothing.
“Do you want to play a game?” The children cheered. Miles stuffed Colorado back in his pocket, so he wouldn’t get lost. Then he gripped his sister’s hand. The three of them stepped backward again.
“Come closer, children, this game is going to be super fun.” She said again, but there was a look in her eye, when she glanced at Lorelei that was frightening.
“It’s a game of hide and seek. You hide. And we will find you.” She said. And then the ceiling panels opened again and the fat, scary clown rolled down in his own scarf. He was holding a knife. The long legs of the super tall clowns started to slide out of the ceiling. Their face paint had been smeared so their eyes and mouths were running down their cheeks and up their noses.
“We are going to count to ten.” The children shuddered underneath. Several screamed, and at least three of the kids were crying.
The clowns were talking together in unison now.
“One”
“Two” The girl clown covered her eyes with her feet, still dangling from the scarf.
“Three.” Gregory whispered, “Let’s try to get back into the bouncy room. And then up the slide.”
“Four.” The three kids backed up quickly, looking for the soft wall that they had climbed through.
“Five.” Lorelei was too frightened to cry, and too frightened to scream. She held tightly to Miles. He was shivering again, and had wet his pants.
“Six.” The super tall juggling clowns were on the ground now, tossing sharp knives back and forth. One of them paused, and threw a sharp knife into the wall next to Gregory’s hand. Gregory screamed.
“Seven.” The children that had gathered underneath the girl clown were now scrambling away on platforms. A small girl was sobbing and pressing the big red button, trying to dump the funnel of balls.
“Eight.” Lorelei whispered frantically to Greg, “I can’t find it. Where did we come in?”
“Nine.” Greg looked at her, and said, “We will have to fight them.” And he pulled the sharp knife from the wall.
“Ten.” All four clowns started laughing hysterically, in shrill terrifying noises. The fat one wasn’t laughing, he was roaring.
And the floor beneath them fell.
Somebody hold my hat
The roof is done. I’m exhausted from all this ridiculous nonsense.
Roofing a house is not fun
Staying in a hotel is not fun after say, week two
I have spent 100+ hours on bats, roofs, rabies, and insurance this summer so far
I would have preferred to spend that time remodeling, writing, or playing with the world’s best kids
My Harley Quinn umbrella gun is almost finished and I’m excited.
Suicide Squad is coming out very soon. Try not to wet yourself.
Firelocked Funhouse is coming out, not as soon. But I’m trying!
I’m working on a thriller book, and it is super fun. Sometimes the books write themselves
I’m pretty sure I’m not actually that good at cosplay, but I sure try.
I am going to have to paint some shoes.The roofers allowed water into my house, and I have some painting to finish now.
I think that’s listy enough for today. I’m working on an excellent poll for anyone who joined my mailing list, I am absolutely certain it will be fun.
