No matter what, "no matter what," I said. But words and action didn't coincide. Life got in the way again.

How many of us out there believing that we can escape the daily grind, a boring career, a demanding spouse, restless children, all of the components of existence, lose it all and become . . . a writer.

Then, fifty thousand or hundred thousand words in, the revision begins, the reality that the words don't match the lustrous vision. And it's daily grind again, but this time parsing out syllables, then words, sentences, paragraphs, pages, chapters, all setting themselves up for butchery.

Yes, I'm revising THE novel again. Can't you tell by that big smile on the scratched-up tableau that used to be my face and eyes?

Good news

No, this isn't a fiction entry, but I've had some good news recently.

Just this last month, I learned that yet another one of my stories achieved an Honorable Mention in the Writers of the Future contest. I've lost track of how many have done so, but it's getting into double digits. Perhaps some day I'll march up to the front?

My article "A Georgia Yankee: The Legend of Johnny Mize" is on the newsstands NOW in The Maple Street Press Yankees Annual. Thank you, Cecilia Tan, for this great opportunity.

More word-a-day entries later . . . off to the races for the rest of this month, at least!

Sleet Revisited

How quickly we can become aware of an unusual concept when it's dropping right outside the kitchen window. It's 32 degrees Fahrenheit, no, 31, and it started as freezing rain, aka sleet, then snow. Before I knew it, two-inch icicles were hanging off the sides of the neon-colored bird feeder, the snow obscuring the hot pink roof. New colors soon emerged. Red and gilded bronze cardinals, strawberry-hued purple finches, scarlet house finches sporting striped pajama bottoms, jockeying for position against their flashy cousins, the goldfinches, and a host of LBJs all crowded the feeders. The "little brown jobs" included a couple of varieties of sparrows, some lost cowbirds, and a flock of pan-handling starlings eating up the snow like it was a special treat.

With any luck, maybe one of the feeder icicles will brain a cowbird or a starling as they waddle along, looking for trouble and devouring most of the feed.

[Revisiting Zed's prompt from last week, now that sleet has actually arrived.]

Elusive

We arrived at the hospital room to find him supine in the hospital bed, his head at the top and his feet dangling over the bottom edge. An oxygen mask covered his nose and mouth. He groaned with every breath, but his eyes were closed, not clenched. The feeding tube was still in place in his nostrils, but no green-brown liquid filled the plastic. The end was looped and clipped to his gown. An intravenous tube hung from a pole, taped at one end to the inside of his elbow. Fluids had replaced his nutrition.

The nurse came in, then a social worker. We spoke in hushed tones or left the room when the D-word could not be avoided. Death was sometimes delayed, they both agreed, but it could not be far off. We worked together to get him into a more comfort-oriented facility. By the second afternoon, all the papers signed, an ambulance picked him up and took him to hospice. He settled in, breathed a while longer for a visitor, and relaxed. The elusive guest arrived when he was alone at last.

[Thanks to Zed for the promt.]

Without words

What is a word? Perhaps it's inspiration from a friend, a note of music, a buzz outside that doesn't quite seem to match the otherwise natural surroundings.

A word is what I need about now. Help me out?

Mr. Winky-dink

The guitars were gone thanks to an unlocked door and my son’s trusting nature. I was having a rough month money-wise and there would be no replacing them. The scene of the crime was three thousand miles away. There seemed to be nothing I could do.

The phone rang, an unwelcome interruption to my one-woman pity party. Before I could say hello, B.J’s voice came on. “Good, you’re in. I’m coming up, she said.”

Her perfume, flowery with just a hint of musk, reached the top of the stairs before B.J. did. She was dressed in a clinging paisley shirt of bright purples and blues, the cut leaving little to be imagined about the shape and lively bounce of her pert breasts. Her denim jeans matched exactly the pale blue of her blouse and also fit snugly on her slim legs and tight tush. Her red hair hung in short curls that framed her face. She smiled, but lines of concern crossed her forehead.

“Darling, I just couldn’t let you suffer another minute over those darn guitars.” She grabbed me by the forearms, her French-manicured nails biting into my skin for emphasis. "Do you have a candle up here?"

I shook my head, but then remembered. “How about that penis-shaped candle you gave me for laughs?” I asked. “Will that do?”

She nodded, pulling me out of the landing and through the door into my office. I broke free and dug into my bottom desk drawer. “Here it is.”

I put the candle on the table. Slender and about four inches high, the top shape was clearly the heft and curve of the head of a phallus, but with whimsical eyes, up-turned nose, and grinning mouth. I pulled on the top and the wick sprung out, an ejaculation in waxed string.

“Ah, the winky-dink,” B.J. sighed. “I hope you’ve got some matches. I don’t smoke, you know.”

I had a pack of restaurant matches, pale blue and bearing the name of Atlanta’s Landmark Diner. “What do we do now?"

“Light the candle, silly. Then, come here.”

At the second stroke, the paper match lit and I joined B.J. in the middle of the office. She held both my hands and closed her eyes. “My friend’s son has had both of his guitars stolen. If he and his roommate are meant to have their music back, we are asking the Universe to return them.” She said this about four times in four different ways, but I don’t remember exactly what she said each time.

After a moment or two, my attention wandered and I closed my eyes, waiting for her to finish the ceremony. It didn’t take too long. Mr. Winky-dink only had one drop of wax trailing down the edge of his column when B. J. said, “and so it is.”

#

“B.J., you’re not going to believe it. The guitars are back.”

“You mean the universe returned them,” my friend corrected me, her voice cheerful and as lifting as a warm breeze on a spring day.

“The thiefs tried to hock them over the state line, right across the street from where his roommate works. One call to the police, and they had the guitars back.”

“Did they catch the thief,” B.J. asked.

“No, he left a fake address.”

“No matter. At least the kids have their music back.”

“Yes, that’s all I care about. Thanks, B.J.”

“Don’t thank me. Give the universe some credit, will you?”

“Sure,” I said, marveling at the power of my friend’s belief.

[Approximately 600 words; thanks, B.J., for the real-life experience.]

Magnitude, bottle

Angry angels were everywhere, in orders of magnitude too large to conceive. Something had gone desperately wrong in the celestial realms. Resentment brewing for millennia boiled over, threatening to consume the world and all of humankind. All the hate, petty jealousies, and plots for revenge had been encapsulated like time trapped in a bottle. But the glass had broken and all the evils of Pandora’s vile box sprang forth. Angelic corps overran the Earth, reminders that devils were really seraphs with bad press agents. Somehow, I was supposed to set things right, but I had no idea where to begin.
[1-22-2010; 100 words; thanks for the prompts to Bryan Jones and Suzanne Church]

Progress on The Artist's Way has yet to begin. T, don't give up on me yet!