(The prompt was “tradition” this time around).
It was that time of year again.
The time to drag all the members of the household to the local graveyard and stare at the sky.
Andrin hated this tradition.
For one thing, it was freakin’ cold.
For another, it was a freakin’ graveyard.
And for the last, freakin’ Alina always hogged the freakin’ blankets.
But there was nothing for it. November 1st had come and by golly, the parental units were committed.
The theme was rom-com…one of my least favorite genres….and all I can say is, it started out fluffy? #sorrynotsorry
First comes the meet cute,
Boy meets girl or girl meets boy
Or boy meets dog or…no, wait a minute…
Wrong story.
Anyway, they meet. Words are exchanged,
A few flirtations, some warming of the cheeks.
She of the long, luscious hair and he
Of the strong jawline. Continue reading
Our theme at the the Third Coast Writers’ blog this month was Halloween/ghost stories. I can’t write scary to save my life, so here’s my offering instead:
Frederick Crimweather Larkin was not scary.
And that was okay. Many people aren’t scary and they get through life just fine.
But that was the problem.
Frederick wasn’t a people.
Frederick was a ghost.
I did not post last month….I had a vague thought of doing so….but I was running away from that beast: NaNoWriMo.
And guess what? I got away! Glory hallelujah, it is over! So I thought I’d recap my experience during the month of November with quips, anecdotes, and gifs.
In honor of this creepy holiday, here’s a “spooky” short story I wrote a few years ago. 🙂
The Crumptons were your average, happy family with one boy, one girl, three dogs, a ferret, and a toad named Phillipo. They lived in a charming two story house, complete with a delightful brick fireplace. The father would work, the mother would teach her children, and the animals would wreck good-natured havoc throughout the day. They lived by routine, right down to the very sandwiches they ate for lunch, which, of course, always consisted of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.
It is almost that time of the year again. That time where I feel like Marius up there. That time where I abandon sanity and structure (more so than usual, at least) and attempt to write 50,000 words in a month. Yep, it’s National Novel Writing Month.
(Image taken from: http://fm.cnbc.com/applications/cnbc.com/resources/img/editorial/2014/09/17/102010093-torn-family.1910×1000.jpg)
The door was open.
I hesitated halfway down the staircase, looking into the yawning cavern. Mom kept the door shut because you could see right into the room.
Soft reminders echoed in my ears.
“Close the door. I don’t want to see.”
“Close the door. I don’t want the reminder.”
“Close the door….just….close the door.”
It was one of those fall evenings where the light starts to fade earlier and everything feels much later than it should be: the night, the projects due, the dinner that no one’s gotten to yet. The symposium had gone well…what little I could understand of it. Sometimes I wondered how I even got into college and even now I felt like an infiltrator, sitting in the back of the classroom, pretending I could actually be a part of this world where people defended their papers to their peers.
I’ve been reading through Pat Schneider’s Writing Alone and with Others, which has been a super helpful resource in getting me over writer’s block and back on track in seeking publication. She has a lot of different exercises at the end of each chapter and one of them was “write about a time your writing got rejected.” So I decided to give it a shot…bear with me as I recount the tales of a woe-begotten nine-year-old. Continue reading
I recently discovered the musical, Hamilton. For those of you who are like me and want to dismiss it out of hand just because it is popular…please don’t. It really is just as amazing as people claim and well-worth listening to, even if you don’t like rap/hip-hop. The album gave me a new perspective on several situations in my life, but one song in particular resonated with me: “Wait for It.”
ali oleary 