LZFiction Blog

random scene

2012-02-02T06:00:00.000-05:00

Trying for a bit of vivid writing...

The morning sun streaming in usually made her smile. Today Tanya greeted it with a grimace and shut her eyes tightly as she tied off the curtains of the south-facing window. The cool air hovering near the glass passed over her bare arms causing her to shiver. She tilted her chin up, catching the sun's furtive warmth on her throat. Her equillibrium shifted and she took a half-step backward. She grimaced again, laying her left hand over her abdomen where she'd felt the cramp. After a deep breath and slow exhale, she crossed the bedroom to her bathroom, stepping around the leather steamer trunk at the foot of her bed.

In the bathroom, she flipped on the switch, illuminating the fluorescent bar above the simple rectangular mirror. On the counter sat the box purchased furtively among some feminine hygiene products the night before while driving home from work. With a population of 10,000 people, Tanya was fairly certain, despite not recognizing the 20-year old behind the convenience store counter, the rumor mill would carry the information along quickly. Everybody knew someone who knew someone... And Tanya was too long connected with those who held the reins of power in Loganville -- namely Lucas Logan -- for it not to go unnoticed that she had purchased a pregnancy test.

She should be happy. She was 35, but healthy, and she wanted children. She had even wanted children with Lucas. She'd put him off for more than three years. They'd dated for a little more than a year. Perhaps he would have proposed. But that was all academic. Because he was dead. She didn't know what she'd do if she was pregnant. She'd never thought about single parenthood, and they'd been careful. Obviously there were failure rates to everything. Now she had to think about it.

Lucas already had two children with his ex-wife, Britt. Tanya didn't spend a lot of time around them, but she knew the eldest was a teenage girl and the younger a boy, seven or eight years old. They were both blonde, like their mother. Lucas was, or rather, had been -- some might feel clever saying -- as dark as sin. She pictured his face, rather square-jawed under perpetual five o'clock shadow. His deep blue eyes had always grabbed her attention when cast her way. She'd caressed the clean, prominent patrician features, framed by his black-as-night hair, which he kept swept back and short. He was the very definition of handsome in Tanya's -- or anyone's -- book. Or, at least, he had been.

She picked up the box and slit open the end with a plain but well-manicured nail. Retrieving the chemical wand, she held it in her left hand while unfolding and reading the instruction sheet with her right. She inhaled and exhaled again. Okay. In one minute she'd know.

About ninety seconds later, Tanya sat down on the toilet seat again, her knees gripped in her hands to keep all of them from shaking so much. So, it was true. She was pregnant with Lucas's child. She glanced up at the ceiling and felt her lips tug into a wry smile: well, Lucas, you're a father... again. In just that moment she knew she would keep the child, imagining a younger version of Lucas running headlong toward her from a playground, Tanya yearning to keep him safe.

She glanced at the mirror again, finding the small year-long calendar she kept pinned in one corner. Lucas had died just about one month ago, on an early autumn evening in October. The report said he'd been racing along the rural Georgia roads at dusk when he lost control and skidded off, slamming headlong into a stand of trees. She could believe it; Lucas had liked his cars sporty and fast. She recalled a number of times as his passenger requesting he slow down. Which he had immediately done. Lucas was not a stupid man. He might have played the games of fast cars and fast women, but Tanya was sure something had been shifting in the last year while they'd been dating.

Lucas had become more circumspect, working more at the Logan Enterprises offices and overseeing the healthy growth of its many subsidiaries. He'd even become civil with Britt, his ex-wife. Both of them had been looking forward to hosting his daughter's birthday party when she turned sixteen sometime in early spring. But a moment of reckless abandon had left them all bereft.

Standing, Tanya again brushed her abdomen. Time to schedule an appointment. Once she knew what to expect, she'd figure out who needed to know what next.

What am I doing?

2012-01-28T06:00:00.000-05:00

It's been two weeks since I posted last, despite my desire otherwise. So... what am I really doing when I'm not posting words for all of you to see?

Well, I'm doing a lot of different things. I'm deep in the midst of college coursework for my professional teaching certification. This semester that means four classes, one that meets in person and the other three online, but with in-school components that mean I'm putting in classroom time in a school observing and working with a mentor teacher.

If that wasn't enough (this past week I wrote 4 papers!) I'm also a mother and wife, and have a household to keep functioning. I'm also trying to fit in earning an income around that, as a substitute teacher, as often as humanly possible. In the last two weeks, I've substituted 7 out of 10 work days. I already have three days in schools next week, plus an observation day for my coursework.

So maybe it's reasonable I haven't done much fictional writing. Maybe there's a threshold of words per day and I've been expending them in all this non-fiction writing and not having anything left over mentally or physically to express the lives of fictional characters. My lack of production is still personally disappointing, and I have taken stabs at story notes, or half scenes, but without a clear direction, nothing is, IMHO, worth sharing yet.

I also have been able to do a little leisure fanfic reading, to unwind for a few minutes before falling asleep. The outcome of the last two weeks: I ran across an author's work only to reach the end of a long series of novel-length works -- that ended in an unfinished story. Looking for the finished part, I found out that the woman passed away 5 months ago. The community of readers and writers debated for a little while whether a small group should get together and finish the story or not. I never even had a chance, since I hadn't even started the stories before she passed, to tell her how much I appreciated the skillfulness and enjoyed the many nuances of the story plots and characterizations.

I wasn't involved in the debate, so my opinion doesn't matter, but thinking on it my vote would have been no, as this community also eventually decided. An author's vision of her story is unique. And it should remain hers, even incomplete. Will I miss never knowing what she intended for the rest of this story? Yes. But I don't want another "voice" to telll me what they think. That would cheapen her efforts, IMHO.

Our voices are the only things we authors have. Certainly income is fleeting and minimal. Preserving the story as it is, is the most fitting memoriam, IMHO.

What do you think? Fanfic is such a gray area that it's "communal" property, or is an author's words, no matter how incomplete, their sole legacy and should be left alone? Or do you have some other take on the topic?

Drafting

2012-01-10T06:25:00.001-05:00

There's a bit of a double-meaning to today's post title. If you can figure it out, I applaud you.

Nothing new from me for the moment. I'm passing along instead a kick-in-the-pants post from another blog writer. Maybe it'll help me to remember this as well: The Curse of Perfectionism and the Value of Crap.

Happy Tuesday!

perspective and paths

2012-01-09T07:00:00.000-05:00

A journal entry, to gain some perspective on what's been happening to all my nice planning for my career future...

"Down to Gehenna or up to the Throne,
He travels fastest who travels alone." ~ Rudyard Kipling
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Software rave

2012-01-08T09:00:00.000-05:00

Anthemion's Writer's Cafe

Looking at the bright side, I did write every day this week. If you lived around me last year you'll know why this excites me.

Toward the end of 2011, I got a new writing aid software called Anthemion's Writer's Cafe. It's freeware,
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weekend ramble

2012-01-07T19:03:00.002-05:00

It's been a hard week. I started out very upbeat, positive. I was working on the premise that I would have a permanent job offer by the end of the week.

Friday that all came to nothing. I found out I did not get the position. So I have to start over again in the search process, practically from the beginning. In my current career changing line of work I can't apply again at the same place if they've turned me down. Because why they turned you down simply will be the same for whatever position you shoot for. Without going into more details, the bottom line: that sucks. This is definitely a business where they have got to get to know you, and that groundwork takes time. *sigh*

Anyway... As my strain worsened through the week -- I guess I felt the likelihood of not getting the position coming unconsciously -- my daily writing fell off. I did manage to write every day, but the amount of time got less and less. Friday's writing was 5 minutes.

On Friday after work, I went out and commiserated with friends about my lot. Pity party. Woe is me. I hate myself when I get like that. Anyway, then I woke up sick this morning. I'd felt it coming on, and my son was finishing a week of being sick, so I should have expected it. But it still sucks.

So now, instead of the weekend being a chance to recharge my general batteries to strike out for another week, I have been laying in bed reading, medicating, and sleeping.

Maybe I'll feel better by next weekend. Hope y'all are having a decent weekend doing the things you want to do.

2012-01-02T07:24:00.000-05:00

A ramble springing off yesterday's quote on Goodreads...

“Hope
Smiles from the threshold of the year to come,
Whispering 'it will be happier'...”
— Alfred Lord Tennyson

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I hereby resolve...

2012-01-01T01:00:00.000-05:00

I hope everyone is having a fabulous first day of the new year! I hereby resolve to write a note much more often than I did in previous years. Today the topic is traditions.

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2011-12-31T17:36:00.000-05:00

All previous posts have been deleted. Tomorrow I begin anew. Fresh and clean, to go along with the fresh start afforded by a new year.