She had seventeen missed calls

She had seventeen missed calls and ten new voicemails.

Writer’s Block

In one sentence is the spark of a story. Ignite.

Mission: Write a story, a description, a poem, a metaphor, a commentary, or a memory about this sentence. Write something about this sentence.

Be sure to tag writeworld in your block!

http://writeworld.tumblr.com/post/55702644927/she-had-seventeen-missed-calls-and-ten-new-voicemails

She had seventeen missed calls and ten new voicemails. She didn’t bother listening to any of them, they would all be from her mother. She could guess the contents. They would have started with the usual Friday night dinner invitation. and then a demand to know why she didn’t show up to dinner, followed by a follow up of where was she? Why hadn’t she called back? Until after a few calls, maybe an are you okay? Or a where have you been? But she doubted it. Her mother was over bearing but not particularly caring. It was the inconvenience to her that usually concerned her the most. Maybe the gravy got ruined waiting for her daughter to arrive.

So, knowing her mother, it would have taken a little longer than a week to reach the stage of caring.

What the hell was she going to say?

She could not possibly come up with a rational lie. She wasn’t that good at lying normally.

I didn’t get the calls because I wasn’t actually in this world.

No.

If she told her mother the truth, she would accuse her of lying anyway. Not because she routinely lied to her mother, but because the truth was so odd. For some reason, she thought that the only person who might understand would be her father. He didn’t ever say much. The family joke was that he didn’t get a word in edgeways against her mother, but he was a good listener. He had to be.

She brought dessert as an apology. Her mother sniffed derisively at the box. A bought dessert was not as good as homemade in her book. She made a garbled apology, blamed the phone company - she never got the messages, she lied.

Her grandmother looked frailer than ever. Her hearing aid made an annoying buzzing sound until they convinced her to turn it off. She couldn’t hear it and refused to believe it was making the noise. She seemed happier without it; lost in a world of her own. The older she got the more easily she fell into the distant past seen with crystal clarity when yesterday was a meaningless blur.

Her mother went to serve the bought dessert.

Her father studied her.

She leaned closer to him.

“Are you all right?” he asked.

“No.” A glance at grandma to confirm her continued absence.

“Wasn’t the phone company, eh?”

“No... I met something.”

He frowned. “Not someone?”

“No... definitely not.”

“Ah.”

“Ah?”

“Nearly ready,” her mother called. She was making custard to cover the rude offering.

Her father looked oddly guilty.

“You know,” she whisper accused.

“I do.” He touched her face. “I know. I often wondered if it would transfer to you.”

“What would?”

“The attraction.”

“How do you mean?”

“The... spark? That is what they called it?”

She closed her eyes in relief. “Yes.” She sighed. “I knew you would understand.”

“Oh, I remember the spark,” said Grandma. She looked dreamy.

“Y-you do?”

She just smiled and refused to say any more.

“I was gone for what seemed like weeks,” she told her father.

“It would. Time is different.”

She picked nervously at her napkin.

“This is goodbye,” he father guessed.

She didn’t get to answer him as her mother bustled back carrying a jug of steaming custard. She patted her father’s hand. They ate the dessert. She didn’t get a chance to speak to him again; he fell asleep in the recliner. She kissed him on the forehead before she headed home. It would have looked odd for her to wake him up to say goodnight. It was just another Friday night dinner.

She sat in the car for some time after she pulled up in the drive. When she got out, she shut the door more confidently than she felt. She glanced at the house but didn’t go in. There was nothing in there for her. She stepped carefully around the side of the house, and walked towards the forest that edged the back yard.

She stood, her hands held nervously together. She breathed deeply, inhaling the scent of the night; of the dark.

A shadow moved. It peeled itself away from the tree and stepped just as carefully towards her. It did not walk on human feet.

As it got closer to her the shadow coalesced into the figure of a man.

She breathed him in. He smelt like the air after a thunderstorm to her. Ozone. That was what he smelt like; dangerous and addictive. Rich and pungent.

“Did you say goodbye?” he asked.

“Not really.”

Silence.

“But I will go with you,” she added.

He smiled. She saw sharp teeth and a gleam of red eyes. The glamour hid most things, but she heard the rustle of wings.

She held her hand out to him and he took it. She felt his reptilian scales.

He stepped backwards and she held his hand and went with him.

The fairies in the bottom of the garden were not always tiny and bright. Just as many were clawed creatures with sharp teeth and wings made of leather.

~~~~

© AM Gray 2013

World building

I saw this quote recently:

“I think the tendency to over-explain and over describe is one of the most common failings in fantasy. It’s an unfortunate piece of Tolkien’s legacy. Don’t get me wrong, Tolkien was a great worldbuilder, but he got a little caught up describing his world at times, at the expense of the overall story.”

—            Patrick Rothfuss (via writingquotes)

I kind of agree. I have been struggling with world building recently but I keep reading how incredibly important it is and how you shouldn’t even START writing until you’ve sorted out your whole world etc. See this recent article from io9 http://io9.com/7-deadly-sins-of-worldbuilding-998817537

Number 6 on their list is: “Not really giving a strong sense of place, like what it smells like after it's been raining.” Surely they are kidding?

Kid 3 wanted a book to read and I handed her the first part of the Dragonriders of Pern by Anne McCaffrey; a series that I adored when I was the same age. She complained that there was no explanation of why things happened. And I thought no… not for another three books or so do they even work out what thread is, or where it comes from and it didn’t matter to the story. It was there are you had to fight it and the dragons could do that, even though the people had almost forgotten how. It didn't matter to me why it existed, clearly it matters to her. Is this an affliction of modern readers? 

Or if the writer has believable people who inhabit a believable world, then do they need to explain everything? In our world you drop an apple and it falls. Do you tell readers what gravity is? Or do you assume they know? They do live in this world, I suppose unlike some fantasy worlds.

Stephenie Meyer’s Twilight vampires walked in daylight and didn’t have fangs. She never explains why. But without that, Bella would never have met Edward in the well-lit and safe school cafeteria, not the dark and scary cemetery at midnight. SM literally defanged her vampires and made them sparkle. Admittedly her world has some major issues, (how exactly can a vampire get a human pregnant?) but I don’t need to know who takes out the garbage to imagine the characters walking around the town.

In the Hunger games, it doesn’t make sense that thirteen worlds would be evenly separated and have totally different environments and produce different things, but it isn’t a deal breaker for the story. In fact, she needs to have the worlds set up like that, so that district thirteen can fall off the map. What? It’s gone? It was here a minute ago. Is this a flat earth? Was there ever a district fourteen and if so, what happened to it?

Or in another example, every person takes a crap but a writer doesn’t describe it, unless going to the bathroom is necessary to the story, so why would I be dropping in which night is bin night? Characters also eat and drink, but I don’t need the recipe for dinner. 

I don’t call that world building, I call that clutter.

He didn’t think much of it at the time,

He didn’t think much of it at the time, but as the weeks progressed, he found himself dwelling often on the scene he’d witnessed that night.

Writer’s Block

In one sentence is the spark of a story. Ignite.

Mission: Write a story, a description, a poem, a metaphor, a commentary, or a memory about this sentence. Write something about this sentence.

Be sure to tag writeworld in your block!

http://writeworld.tumblr.com/post/55418955357/he-didnt-think-much-of-it-at-the-time-but-as-the

AN: maybe it was the Tor rewatch of Buffy that got me thinking like this. They are up to Smashed - one of my fave episodes. http://www.tor.com/blogs/2013/08/buffy-the-vampire-slayer-rewatch-larrys-gay-larrys-dead-and-high-schools-kinda-over

He didn’t think much of it at the time, but as the weeks progressed, he found himself dwelling often on the scene he’d witnessed that night. Not that he was entirely sure that he had seen what he thought he had seen. So he can’t have seen a guy with long teeth, sucking at the neck of a girl in the alley behind the bar.

He looked very exotic. Lots of leather... what did they call it? Gothic? That’s what he looked like.

He put it out of his head. He was drunk. He had to be.

Vampires were creatures of fiction. They didn’t really exist. If that was what the guy was or just a Goth who wanted to be a vampire... yeah. That made sense. A whole lot of people were into that scene.

So, the next time he snuck outside for a smoke, and a bit of fresh air to clear his head, he wasn’t particularly surprised to see Goth guy (as he now called him in his head) in the alley. He was with another girl.

He watched them surreptitiously. She didn’t look as eager as the last girl although she fitted the Goth profile. She protested. She asked to go back inside the bar.

The thought crossed his mind to be a hero. Try to rescue her.

“Don’t even think about it,” a small blonde girl whispered as she moved past him. “Leave it to me.”

He wanted to protest that she could not help. But the next second, she leapt out of the shadows and yanked the girl away from Goth guy. He hissed at her. Seriously hissed. Teeth bared and all.

The tiny blonde shoved the girl behind her, knowing he was there to help her. He shepherded her out of the way and back to the bar fire exit, but looked back over his shoulder.

The blonde bounced lightly on her feet. And in such a modern setting, she had a hand whittled wooden stake in her hand. She held it back handed. So that her thumb was pointing towards her chest and the point protruded from below her hand. She seemed like a gymnast rather than a vigilante, she moved so fluidly. Running up and kicking off the walls, she kicked him backwards and then she stabbed that stake into the Goth guy’s chest.

And he just turned to ash.

One second he was there and the next he was gone!

“Did you see that?” he asked the shaking girl.

He had been drinking and it all happened so fast. Later it occurred to him that it was too fast. People could not move that fast. And tiny blonde girls could not kick a guy twice their size in the centre of the chest with a booted foot and throw him feet backwards into a wall. He knew his physics. That wasn’t possible.

But he told himself he hadn’t seen it. He was drunk. It hadn’t happened like that.

But he thought about it. He kept looking for that girl. He didn’t see the Goth girl around anymore. He started to go out later. Hang in alleys at odd hours.

And once he did, he started to notice a whole lot of weird things he had never noticed before. Guys with no suntan like the Goth Guys with serious dental problems. Women with black eyes. It was as if the blinkers over his eyes had been removed. Now he saw the world clearly.

And then he did see the tiny blonde, but not where he expected her to be. She was on an excursion with the local high school. A group of them walked past him in the street. She was in high school? She wasn’t old enough to be in the bars she was protecting.

He tried to catch her eye and she skilfully ignored him.

He understood. She could not explain how she knew him without blowing her cover.

He kept trying to look for her at night, at least until a vampire asked him if he wanted a fangbang. At least the vampire took no as an answer. He had been stupidly reckless. He couldn’t look after himself like she could.

It shook him out of his obsession. He started to live in daylight hours. He got a job and he stopped hanging in alleys after midnight. But he never forgot her and her never forgot that the city had a dark underbelly and a bite that could hurt.

~~~~

© AM Gray 2013

The tiny blond one belongs to Joss Whedon et al.

I think too much

I am the person who insists on sitting facing the restaurant when I eat out. I adore watching other people and I do it all the time. Always have. The couple having an argument, the awkward get-togethers and the families - I watch them. The people who are trying not to look like they are arguing are intriguing. The glasses banged down too hard, the body language - they lean away from each other, they don’t make eye contact and they don’t talk. And my plot bunnies hop off to make all sorts of situations up for them; how did they get like this?

Once I blew a couple’s secret affair wide open because I noticed at a dinner party that they did not interact at all. I thought there was only one reason why two people would ignore each other. Even if they hated each other they’d be snarky or roll their eyes when one said something the other disagreed with.

One day I was in the Medicare office. There was a large poster behind the service counter. As I was being served I looked at it, and I commented to the lady serving me that it was wrong. She asked me what I meant. The poster was of a woman with a small child standing near her, she also had a smaller baby on her hip and she wore a wedding ring. She was passing across her Medicare card. She was smiling happily unlike most of the people actually in the Medicare office. Queues… sigh.

Now, if she was registered correctly, her card would have her name, her spouse’s name, and all their children listed. There was only one name on the card she was handing to the assistant. I explained this to the lady and she said ‘you think too much.’

True that.

And I often think about why people do what they do, if that makes sense. For example, lunching with my children one day I watched a woman walk through the mall towards us from the railway station. She was carrying a largish handbag, but what caught my eye was that every few seconds she would look down into the bag or touch it with her other hand. I wondered what on earth she had in the bag that she was so concerned that it was still there, that she needed to actually check. She did it several times in about fifty meters. If I was a bag snatcher casing the crowd, I would have chosen her as a mark. Maybe it was just a nervous habit, but I don’t think so. And whatever it was in the bag; it was important or valuable.

And that’s the beginning of a story; or the yoghurt starter as I call it… was it the ransom for her kidnapped husband?

Go back upstairs and put on the clothes I laid out for you

Go back upstairs and put on the clothes I laid out for you.

Writer’s Block

In one sentence is the spark of a story. Ignite.

Mission: Write a story, a description, a poem, a metaphor, a commentary, or a memory about this sentence. Write something about this sentence.

Be sure to tag writeworld in your block!

http://writeworld.tumblr.com/post/56923156756/go-back-upstairs-and-put-on-the-clothes-i-laid-out-for

“Go back upstairs and put on the clothes I laid out for you,” he ordered.

“No.”

“What?”

“They are not right for me.”

“You dare to defy me?”

She stepped back a little. He frightened her. “I-I d-don’t want to wear those clothes. The colour is wrong.”

He stood right in front of her. He was much taller and bigger than her. “There is no choice in this matter. You will wear what I tell you to.”

She was terrified of him but she managed to whisper, “And what if I don’t?”

He looked down at her. His head tilted slightly as he studied her. No one ever defied him, she knew that and she could not say what made her do it now.

“Then I will carry you upstairs and I will dress you myself,” he said. It didn’t sound like a threat; more of a statement.

She blinked. He had not touched her since the ceremony. She wasn’t sure how to deal with him carrying her anywhere let alone into their bedroom. The bedroom he didn’t sleep in. And undressing her? She must have looked very nervous. The thought that he had laid out her clothes worried her, too. She hadn’t known that.

He added, “This is a meeting of all the nation’s leaders and their consorts. The dress is traditionally worn by the female of our nation, my consort.”

“Why didn’t you tell me that?”

“I just did.”

“No, I mean if I know this in advance, then I can understand why it’s necessary and I can pick my own dresses for times when I can choose.”

“You can’t choose today. It matches my outfit.”

“I understand. So just tell me things.” She stopped suddenly as she realised she had most definitely crossed a line. “Please,” she added.

He raised one eyebrow. “Do you need my help to change?”

“No.” She paused. “Thank you.”

He jigged his head towards the stairs.

She ran.

~~~~~~~

She couldn’t find her servants so she had to get dressed by herself. By the time she got back downstairs, he was waiting for her; fully dressed. They did match. She had never seen anything like it before. For the first time she felt like his consort and not just a contracted partner.

“Much better,” he said. He held her by the arm and pulled her over to the gigantic wall mirror. He placed his hand on her hip. “This is the wheat that grows on the plains.” His hand moved to point at her chest. “This is the timber in our forests, this is the-“

Now she could see the patterns woven into the material. “Oh, I see. That’s the fish… right?”

“Yes.”

The pattern was not painted on, but was intricately woven into the material itself and then expertly cut and sewn so that no symbol on her costume was obscured. She had not appreciated it earlier. It was worth a fortune. She turned around to look at the back of her dress.

He frowned at the state of the lacing.

“I couldn’t find the maid,” she explained. She was still embarrassed to order them to help her.

“Breathe out,” he instructed. He tightened the stays expertly.

She watched him in the mirror and wondered how many women he had dressed (and undressed) in his life. He knew what he was doing. Her breasts popped spectacularly.

He glanced up and caught her looking.

She lowered her eyes quickly and stared at the floor.

He reached around and lifted her chin to see their reflection. “Look, see how well we match?”

His fingers were rough and hard against the skin of her face. No man had ever touched her before, but he had every right to do so. He was her husband and had been for weeks. They were a matched pair but not in every sense of the phrase.

His scrutiny was too much for her and she blushed.

He noticed. His hand dropped.

He sighed. “I am sorry I have not been… attentive of late.”

She didn’t know what to say to that. She couldn’t breathe. Had he done the stays too tight?

He stared at her.

What if he kissed her? Did she want him to kiss her? What if he didn’t kiss her? All of the options were terrifying.

She tried to move away from him but he stopped her with his hands on her shoulders. They slid up the bare skin of her neck to cradle her face. “May I?” he asked.

“My lord?” She swallowed nervously.

“Kiss you. I want to kiss you.”

“I am yours.” He could kill her and no one would stop him.

“I know …but it is well to ask.”

She couldn’t speak so she nodded quickly.

His thumb brushed over her lower lip. She kept her eyes open. She wanted to see.

His face hovered over hers. His eyes looked… puzzled. And the tiniest bit sad.

Her mouth opened to ask him why he was sad when his lips made contact with hers. He held her where he wanted her. One hand moved to hold the back of her head. Her eyes closed and heat bloomed through her body as he kissed her. When he withdrew he got his fingers caught in her hair.

Her heart thudded painfully in her chest and she felt as if she was underwater. He was apologising for messing up her hair but she couldn’t hear him. She kept staring at his moving lips. She thrust her face back at his but banged their noses together and mashed her lips into his before pulling away.

“Oh…oh… I did that wrong,” she wailed.

He grabbed her to stop her running away.

She was mortified. She tried to put her hands over her face but he stopped her.

He chuckled. “It’s all right.” He held her in his arms. “You have surprised me twice today.”

She gave an awkward shrug. Her arms were trapped between them.

“So, I need to tell you things and-” His voice dropped. “-show you some… other things.”

Like how to kiss properly. She reached up and carefully touched his face.

“Tonight?” he asked. “After the dinner.”

She nodded. She thought her heart would explode.

He held her hand during the ceremony. She had to cling to his arm with her other hand; frightened she might float away. Observers saw how attentive he was of her and everyone noticed when they made their apologies and left early. It was also noted that they didn’t emerge from their bed chamber for a full twenty four hours.

~~~~

© AM Gray 2013

The escalator to hell

A photo prompt from Writeworld. It was of an escalator with very dark red walls and they looked like rock; they had texture.

Writer’s Block

A picture says a thousand words. Write them.

http://writeworld.tumblr.com/post/52389907498/writers-block-a-picture-says-a-thousand-words

Mission: Write a story, a description, a poem, a metaphor, a commentary, or a critique about this picture. Write something about this picture.

Be sure to tag writeworld in your block!

He glanced down the red tinged passage. “I’ve heard of a stairway to heaven but I never knew there was an escalator to Hell.”

“Very funny. Just get on it.”

“Is the highway to Hell reserved for new inmates?” he asked as he stepped onto the top step. The escalator started with a jerk.

“Yeah, and the escalator is just for visitors,” she said. She stepped on behind him.

“Cool. So we aren’t staying?”

“Not if I can help it.”

It was an interminable ride down. They rode rather than walked, to preserve their energy. He hummed and eventually started singing. He transposed the lyrics to Highway to Hell with escalator. It didn’t fit.

She gave him an exasperated look. The song would be stuck in her head all day, now.

They stood on the same step, facing each other and not touching anything. It seemed safer that way. She used the time to triple check her weapons and ammunition. He watched her.

“Nobody seems to come up the other way,” he commented.

“No. Not often.”

“What makes you think we will?”

“I’ve done this before.”

“Right. I knew that.” He paused. “So you have a contact?”

“In a manner of speaking.”

“Hmmm. She doesn’t want to talk about it… so that makes it … an old boyfriend or-”

“Drop it!” she barked at him.

“-Or family,” he finished triumphantly.

He got an eye roll for that.

“Ha! I knew it!” He clapped his hands together. “Wait… fallen angels can’t have children.”

“No.”

“So you can’t be Satan’s daughter, he’s a fallen angel.”

“Or Lucifer’s.”

“Which Hell are we going to?” he asked with a frown.

“Now he asks. And you said it was Hell, I didn’t.”

“Shit. We must be going to the Underworld and that makes you Hades’ daughter, Macaria.”

“Yep. You know I prefer Marcie.”

Silence as he processed what she had said.

“Huh,” he said. “We should suggest they get an elevator. Although the music might make me crazy, but it would make it easier for next time.”

“Next time?” she asked with an eyebrow raise.

“My soul is in your hands,” he said.

She snorted. “More than you know.”

~~~~

© AM Gray 2013

Can I talk to you about this later?

Can I talk to you about this later?

Writer’s Block

In one sentence is the spark of a story. Ignite.

Mission: Write a story, a description, a poem, a metaphor, a commentary, or a memory about this sentence. Write something about this sentence.

Be sure to tag writeworld in your block!

http://writeworld.tumblr.com/post/55991858519/can-i-talk-to-you-about-this-later

He grabbed her by the upper arm, stopping her from moving away from him. In the crowd she suddenly moved against the flow of students going to class.

“Hey?” she demanded.

He looked around and tried to pull her backwards with him.

“Stop it! What do you want?” She hauled her arm out of his grasp.

“You said we’d talk later.”

“I did not.”

His head drew back as if she had slapped him. “You did. You said ‘can I talk to you about this later?’ And it’s later. Way later.”

She had hoped that he wouldn’t remember. “I don’t want to talk about it, now.”

“Why not?”

She pursed her lips and didn’t answer him.

“I’ve got time now and so do you. I know you have no classes until eleven.”

“What? You read my uni timetable now?”

“No, don’t you remember, last week? You told me you were free on Friday morning.”

“Thursday night,” she said.

“Jeez... don’t tell me you forgot that.”

That was indeed the problem. She hadn’t forgotten and she could barely think of anything else. She had been trying to avoid him all week as a result.

“What’s wrong? You’re avoiding me. You won’t even let me touch you.” He shuffled his body in closer to hers. “After what we did,” he whispered. He brushed her hair away from her face.

She inhaled and closed her eyes. This was going to hurt; it was going to hurt so badly.

She shifted her bag on her shoulder and took a step back away from him. She couldn’t do this if he was touching her.

“Oh, that,” she sneered. “I try to do that every Thursday night. It’s bar night and I get a little horny with a few drinks under my belt.”

“I don’t believe you.”

“Pfft. You don’t even know me. And you were drunk.”

The look of betrayal on his face pained her.

“Not that drunk. I know something weird happened. That was not normal sex,” his voice had dropped to a whisper. “And you said you would tell me what it was. Later.”

“I-I can’t.” She shook her head. “Just leave it alone.”

She turned and she hurried away from him. She risked a glance back and he was still standing there looking gutted. He saw her look back and she knew he wasn’t going to leave it alone. She had made a big mistake, chosen the wrong guy and underestimated him. She would probably have to move.

~~~~

© AM Gray 2013