Not Your Average Juliet

            Alice slips through the front door, her angel wings rustling as they brush against the door jamb. She pauses, waiting to see if anyone noticed the soft sound. Voices drift from the room to the right, involved in conversation, oblivious to her presence.

            The angel drifts to the stairs and begins the journey up, careful to avoid the fifth creaky riser. At the second door on the left, Alice pauses, her hand resting on the brass door knob.

            With a single finger, she taps softly, twice.

            “Come in,” the voice matches the volume of her knock, and she almost misses it.

            The knob turns with ease, the door swinging silently on well-oiled hinges. Alice enters Max’s room, a smile upon her lips, heaven in her eyes.

            “You look lovely.” Max says, gesturing for her to spin. She does, her skirt floating out like a cloud around her. “Stunning.”

            Alice smiles, “You are looking handsome yourself. I like it,” she nods at the heavy velvet cape draped across his shoulders. “Is it time?” she asks, gliding to Max’s side and resting a cool hand on his cheek.

            Max nods. “Did you bring it?”

            Alice reaches into the folds of her white gown, withdrawing two vials from a hidden pocket.

            Max reaches out a hand, gently brushing the smooth blue glass. “They’re beautiful. Like you.”

            Alice blushes and ducks her eyes.

            “Shall I go first? I don’t think I can watch you do it.”

            Max nods, “Go ahead.”

            The angel hands Max a vial before uncapping the other. “I’ll see you in the next life,” as she brings the vial to her lips and tips the contents into her mouth.

            Alice sinks to her knees, then sprawls back onto the floor, her breaths already shallow. Max kneels at her side, gripping her hand tightly in his own. “Alice, wait…” he begins, but it is too late. The blue has already crept across her lips.

            Momentarily torn between life and death, Max pauses. It is almost too long. But he uncorks his vial and chugs the tiny beverage, falling to the floor beside his beloved angel.

            Alice gasps as she sits up, drawing air deep into her lungs. She turns to see the man laying beside her, her hands moving to his throat, feeling for a pulse that isn’t there. She leans close, resting her lips on his, feeling the chill already setting in. “You know I’ve always loved Romeo and Juliet.”

            Her hands move to his, plucking the empty vial and cork from his grasp, tucking them back into the pocket they came from. Her vial follows.

            Alice pauses near the door to look at her reflection in the mirror. Her skin is paler than usual, lips still slightly dusky. Her fingers reach to pinch her cheeks before she decides that the paleness enhances the costume.

            She glides out the door, down the stairs (again avoiding the creaker) and into the foyer. The voices are louder, now, and music has joined the party. Alice joins it, as well. The angel slides around the wall, taking a spot near the wall, watching the costumed couples dance in the middle of the room.

            No one notices her arrival. They never have.

            She wonders how long it will take for one of them to notice the body upstairs.

            A bottle of ketchup runs into the room, “Call an ambulance! Someone is hurt upstairs!”

            Chaos breaks out, cell phones are dug out of pockets, purses, and bras. Alice is serene stillness on the outside, but aflutter inside. Hurt? He should be dead.

            Alice moves closer to the ketchup, trying to overhear his conversation over the cacophony.

            “… some guy in a cape,” the ketchup bottle states.

            “Did …… for a pulse?” This from a nun.

            “No!” Ketchup turns and runs for the stairs. The angel follows.

            Alice arrives at the door to the room and sees that everything is fine. Max is dead. Ketchup is crying, the nun offering a hand on his shoulder as comfort.

            “Who is it?” the nun asks.

            “I don’t know,” Ketchup sobs.

The nun looks perplexed at tears for a unknown man. “It’ll be okay.” She pats him twice, then looks around the room for someone to rescue her. Her eyes glide right over Alice to the paramedics stepping through the door.

The angel drifts back out of the door and to the stairs, passing a stream of animals, demons, and cartoon characters looking to be part of the story. She moves out the front door and stands on the front porch, her hand resting on a pillar. Flashing red and blue dance across the canvas of her dress and wings.

The angel smiles and begins walking.

Camp NaNoWriMo (or, What I Did on My Summer Vacation)

I just did something crazy amazing.

I wrote a novel.
In 30 days.

You may have heard of NaNoWriMo (National Noveling Writing Month). The idea is to commit to writing a first draft of a novel (50,000 words) in the month of November. They also run Camp NaNoWriMo in April and July, which is the same concept, but with a little more flexibility-- you set your word count goal.

I participated in July. Initially, my goal was 50,000 words. I had a run in with an angry neck that prevented me from doing much more than laying on the couch for two days, so I ended up adjusting my goal down a bit, to 45,000 words. I hit my word count mark on July 30th. I wrote the last scene of my manuscript on July 31st. I wrote a novel.

When I finished, I was shell-shocked. Still am, actually. I printed out the manuscript (about 80 single spaced pages) and held it in my hands, staring at it. What is this? Where did it come from? Did I just do that?

Yep. I wrote a novel. I can't tell you yet if it's any good. When you write a novel in thirty days, there is no going back, no rereading. You are constantly moving forward, writing the next scene. If you realize there is a plot problem, you either adjust the scene you are currently writing to make it work, or make a note for later. There is no going back and fixing. I honestly couldn't even tell you much of what I wrote.

Starting next week, I begin the task of editing. That will start with me reading my story. (I just said my story!) I am sure that there are significant issues. But, here's the thing. My gut says it's not garbage. So my plan is to edit. A lot. Then I will find some kind(ish) souls to read it. To be nicely brutally honest. And I will edit again. Then, perhaps, I will send my baby off into the world. We'll see.

Oh, there is one other, completely random thing. Every time I see the words Camp NaNoWriMo, the theme song for the old Nickelodeon song "Salute Your Shorts" pops into my head. Feel free to sing along:

Ignite

Let me start with how I ended up reading this book.

I am attending CampNaNoWriMo (I'll have more to say about that next week). The WordNerds have been providing short videos to campers. The WordNerds are a group of six women who write. The videos they post talk about writing, publication, and books in general. I like them. They have good things to say, but more importantly, they seem like people that I would like in real life. Which makes me want to read the things they write.

So I hunted down Erica Crouch's first book. Erica is a young author (early 20s), so this book is a snapshot of the birth of a writing career. I have been known to read the complete works of an author, in chronological order. I like to watch an author grow. To watch them develop their voice and style through the stories they tell. I like to think that watching this growth and development will benefit my own writing. After reading this early book of Erica's, I am very interested to see where she goes.

The story she tells in this book is an interesting one. The basic question revolves around polarity. We live in a polar society: black vs. white, light vs. dark, right vs. wrong, good vs. evil. In a world where the majority tie themselves to a pole, what do you do when you realize you can't? What do you do when you realize you can't choose between good and evil? This book does not answer this question, but it is book one of a trilogy. I will be reading the rest of the story to see where Erica takes this!

Mansfield Park

I just finished Mansfield Park by Jane Austen.

Every girl loves Jane Austen, and wants to be a character in one of her books, right?

I definitely do not want to be a character in this one. None of the female ones, at least.

In Mansfield Park, Austen gives us a cast loaded with females that I don't think even Austen intended for us to like very much. We have Fanny's mother, who gives her to her sister, as she has children to spare. Even when Fanny comes "home" to visit years later, there isn't much maternal love to be had.

We have Fanny's aunts. One of whom will not let Fanny forget her place (beneath them all), and another who either can't think for herself, or just won't. She asks her husbands to make all of her decisions, even asking which game she will enjoy playing after dinner. I wanted to reach into the book and smack her.

Fanny's cousins might be slightly better. One marries a man that she doesn't love, perhaps out of a sense of duty, then leaves him for a tryst with the womanizing man she favors (this does not end well). The other wisely elopes and removes herself from the story entirely.

We are left with Fanny, the "heroine" of the story. I think we are supposed to like her. She refuses to marry a man she does not love. She does everything she can to make her family's lives easier. She asks for nothing.

I don't like her.

Fanny does not seem to do anything in this story. She moves through her life, going where she is told, doing what she is asked. And nothing more. She sits back and waits to see what life will give her, rather than going out and getting what she wants. This is not my kind of woman.

The Oresteia

I have a confession to make.

I tried to make myself read Aeschylus' The Oresteia (Agamemnon, The Libation Bearers, and The Eumenides). I couldn't do it.

I know there is a great story in there. There's war. Sacrificial virgins. Prophecies. More war. Cassandra (my all time favorite bit of mythology) is in there. But I just couldn't do it.

I hate reading Greek Dramas.

I have another confession. I hate reading Shakespeare, too.

Don't get me wrong. I love Shakespeare. I love watching his plays. I love acting in his plays. But I can't make myself sit down and read one.

Maybe this makes sense. Greek dramas and Shakespeare weren't written for someone to read off the page. They were written to be performed. To live on the stage.

Does anyone want to act out The Oresteia for me?

The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon

I have been working my way through all of Stephen King's books. Again. I finished The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon last night.

It's a story about a girl who gets lost in the woods and is saved by baseball.

Really. That's it.

But like all of us, Trisha (the heroine of the tale) has that little part of the brain that I like to call the What If Generator. You know, that part of your brain that is most active in the dark of the night. The part of your brain that takes the innocent creak of a house settling and asks "What if it's a giant, hairy monster that is coming to eat you, starting with your toes?" Imagine what this part of your brain would do if you were nine years old and lost in the woods. That's the story.

That little part of your brain is why Stephen King is a genius. He has taken his What If Generator and allowed it to grow. If you can do that as a writer, then your job becomes just writing down everything your What If Generator comes up with.

Last Words

            Your last moment with someone is important. It should carry some weight. Some emotional significance.

            My last moment with my mom before she died was just horrifically average. On my way out the door to school, “Bye Mom, see you this afternoon.”

            “Have a good day,” her reply.

            No sense that that was the last moment.

            I would have preferred to have an argument. Nasty, spiteful words would have been better than what we actually said. A fight would have proven that we mattered to each other- we cared enough to try and change the other.

            From what we did say, we could have been strangers.

            I wish we had chosen that moment to have one of our ritualistic arguments over my holey jeans and the fact that it was cold outside and I should be wearing a jacket. Even though those arguments were usually filled with mean, hurtful words, they proved that we cared enough to fight.