Victims of the Knife: The New Guy

From the shadows under my desk comes a concentration-busting drone of sobs. I turn away from edits on A Broken Race and search for the culprit.

I discover a blubbering blue mass of tentacles. Ms. Wildstar sits beside it, patting one of the long, thick appendages. She glares at me. "What did you do to him?"

"I wrote him a nice letter."

"You call that nice? You dumped him."

"I dumped him nicely. I have other projects to work on and his wasn't going anywhere. Remember my resolution of LESS? This falls under cutting losses so I can devote my story-fixing peroclating time to stories that have a hope of getting published."

"But you hoped his story would get published. Why would you up on him?"

"He was created for a specific prompt. When he was rejected, I changed him for a wider market. He never quite flowed right after that. We covered this in the letter." I turn back to my laptop and the more promising story waiting for me.

A tugging on my leg proves just as distracting as the sobs had been. "What now?"

Drooping eye stalks atop a climbing mass of blue tentacles make their way up my leg. His prolific tears soak into my pants.

I sigh. "Since you're intent on not going away, I suppose you want to meet everyone?"

He bobs his eye stalks.

"Everyone, this is Blue. He's an alien. He's blue. Thanks to being horribly misled by our government, he's now very paranoid and will not be taking any vacations in the desert. He enjoys filing thorough reports, good food, females and the familiar comforts of his spaceship. And apparently most things beginning with the letter F. His dislikes are people that won't listen to him when he tells them their world is about to be destroyed, his boss, probes of any sort, and misinformation."

Blue raises a tentative tentacle and waves it. A shrill female voice says, "Hello." Blue turns a shade bluer and bangs on his translator. A booming male voice says, "Hello. That's better. Worthless piece of malfunctioning crap. I look forward to meeting all of you."

"Happy now?" I ask him.

"For the moment. Got anyone around here that can fix translators?"

Ms. Wildstar beckons to him. "Let her get back to work before she axes someone else out of spite. I'll show you around."

I let the two of them be and settle back into editing in silence.

Absence makes the heart grow...balls?

Dear short story,

When I wrote you well over a year ago, I loved you. You were witty. You were dark and you made me laugh.

Then I took you out to meet my friends. They didn't get you. They confided that you weren't quite right for me. That maybe you weren't as funny as I found you to be. Some were gentle, knowing that I loved you, while others outright said that we'd never work. Their words made me sad because I really thought we had a future together.

That's when we did that little stint in heavy duty counseling. I told you what I loved about you. You offered to change the things I didn't. We worked hard on our relationship for a few weeks. Tweaking things here and talking it out there. We even tried a little bit of a different direction, but it was never quite as fun as it was at first. We both knew that.

You went away for a while, promising to come back when the time was right. I moved on, though secretly waiting for the day when you'd show back up, all polished and trim, ready wow me and bring me back to that wonderful feeling we first had.

But it's been over a year and I hadn't heard from you. So, wondering how you were doing, I peeked in--not that I was stalking or anything, honest. You agreed to meet and I was excited. But when we sat down to catch up, all I got was a clammy, limp handshake.

You hadn't polished anything. In fact, you were far more lackluster than I remembered. Those weeks of intense counseling ruined you. They sucked out your humor--dark and misunderstood as it might have been. They turned you into something I'd never intended you to be.

While I had captured our magical first days together on my flash drive, we're too different now. I've moved on. That magic is gone. It's time for you to move on too. Thanks for the laughs, short story. We had some good times together. But its over. I hope you understand.

-Jean

Some Cyborg Weasel Fun

Immersed in editing mode as I am while A Broken Race works its way through its first round of critiquing, I've been staying busy with other little creative projects to get my 'make something new' fix. Sewing has been fun, but since spend most of my workday in front of a computer, sometimes its easier to sneak in some creative moments there.

So last night, I retired my two year old cyborg weasel cling and borged this little guy. Now he's armed and ready to stalk me during all those times I'm wandering around on the internet rather than writing.

I'd attempt to take some better close up pics of all the little details but the darn glossy finish made it very difficult to get even this pic to turn out half decent. Who came up with the idea of a glossy finish on a laptop anyway? Windex and paper towel manufacturers had to be in on it.

Thanks to Ian, I just had the realization that I have the file for this. Duh. How about I just crop some bits of it for close ups? *smacks forehead*

The temptation of a shiny new plot

I'm sure you've been there, set on a plot, in the middle of one, bored with one...and then along hops a plot bunny. It sits there, staring at you, enticing you with its promise of something better, something fresh, sparkling and new. Ooooh shiny!

It captures you with its hypnotic stare. Never easing. Never resting. Taunting you while you slog through your current project. Sowing seeds of doubt over which thing you should be working on.

"Just take a few days to get to know me", it says. Try this out. You might like it. You might like it a lot better than that thing you're working on.

But you know what? If you give in to the plot bunny... more will come! They breed like...well, bunnies! Lock them away until you need a new idea, but don't give in to their hypnotic stares. Oh, and keep them separated!

Yes, another NaNo raffle prize is born. Bunnies, monkeys, birds... what could be next?

Six Sentence Sunday: A Broken Race 3

Time to hop back on the SSS train. This week we meet the Matron and William. William is pretty ticked that I picked one of his less than shining moments to share with you, but he'll have to get over it.

In this scene the Matron isn't happy with the fact that a Jack has managed to break into the women's room and harass her charges.

“You take care of this, William, or we’ll all be sorry. You hear me?”

He put on his most placating smile. “I will.” 
“Oh save it, you impotent ball of fat. This is about reviving humanity, not about getting me to stop nagging you." 

Check out all the other Six Sentence Sunday excerpts here.