#SaturdayScenes: No. 8

#SaturdayScenes has been a lot of fun. As an unpublished writer, I long to have people read my work, so appreciate this opportunity to share my words with an audience. I've really enjoyed this venture, begun by +John Ward , which asks writers to share bits of something they have written for public enjoyment. Following the hashtag is a great way to get a little taste of a wide variety of writing.

I received some beta-reader feedback this week, and used it to do some mild rewrites on His Other Mother.  I've posted a couple of other scenes from this novel previously (chapter 3: the kidnapping; and a thoughtful chapter with Kirk at the beach). So, if you like it, you can check out some more.

This chapter comes in the second section of the book. It was one of the first scenes I wrote for the book. Sherry, the main character, is on a baking binge as a coping mechanism for dealing with her latest disappointment in her fertility struggles.

________________________

Sherry had spent her sick day baking, trying to knead out her frustrations over the failed final round of Clomid. If Clomid wasn’t going to work for them, they were running out of options. In vitro was almost as expensive as adoption, with no guarantee of a baby at the end. Sherry wasn’t sure she could take it if they tried it and it failed.

Slamming down the last loaf, now ready to rest and rise, Sherry thrust her hand into the middle of the first one, punching down the dough and her worried thoughts—the usual litany of self-blame for past mistakes or for waiting too long--if, if, if, if only—the usual whining self-pity that even her subconscious recognized and scorned as weak.

The dough sank satisfyingly, releasing a burst of yeast-scented air into the room. The oil on the outside felt good between her fingers as she worked out the blisters. She began to form a round loaf out of this one, a “rumpy” as she called them. No-manners bread, Gram called it. She had been partial to it, too. Her bread was the kind you could tear hunks from when it was fresh from the oven, warming your fingers in the steam. Eating the bread like this was as much a part of the ritual as kneading and baking.

As Sherry cut the traditional criss-cross pattern into the loaf, she eyed the knife and thought about putting similar markings into her forearms, thought how that might let something out, relieve a pressure valve. She put the knife down with a clattering force, shoving the thoughts away roughly and turned up the volume knob on the little red CD player perched in the windowsill. She hadn’t done it, but her imagination had supplied a stunningly clear vision of what the cuts would have been like. Obviously, she hadn’t yet succeeded in shutting down her over-active brain. “Stop torturing me,” she said aloud, wondering if she was talking to herself, the doctors, or the gods.

Sherry was wrist deep in dough when she heard the front door open. Kirk didn't call out or come straight to her with his backpack still on and his keys still in his hand like he would have six months earlier. A year and a half made for eighteen disappointments; eighteen nights spent soothing his bereft wife—who could blame him if he was in no hurry to face another one? He knew the calendar as well as she did. He had hoped, too. She could hear him close the door gently, hang his keys on the hook, place his backpack in the closet and head quietly to the bedroom for a tee shirt and jeans.

By the time he appeared in the doorway, watching her with that careful, questioning look she had come to dread, the loaf was coming out of the oven. That was good because they didn't have to talk. She wondered if he had stayed out of view on purpose, listening for the sound of the oven door opening before coming in. She set the loaf on the stovetop, and, without giving it time to cool, ripped into it with her hands, glad to feel the mild burn on her skin, and offered a hunk to him.

He took it, stepping nearer, but still staying at arms-length, watching her while he chewed. They stood like that and ate the whole loaf while she finished making the others. It was the only supper they ate that night before taking their respective sides of the king-size bed and turning back to back to stare at opposite dark walls. That was probably when Kirk gave up. Sherry was sure he didn't even hope with her anymore. If there was to be any more hope, it was up to her. Sherry didn’t think their odds were good.

___________________________

My other #SaturdayScenes contributions:

Week One: Elopement Day from WIP, Cold Spring

Week Two: Linda Makes a First Impression from WIP, Her Father's Daughter, sequel to Going Through the Change

Week Three: Claiming Alex, from unpublished novel His Other Mother

Week Four: Things Get Hairy for Linda, from unpublished novel Going Through the Change

Week Five: a poem: A Clear Day in Kodiak, Alaska

Week Six: a snippet from an idea barely begun, Lacrosse Zombies

Week Seven: Mathilde's Visit, from WIP, Cold Spring

The pleasures of silly surveys

 PlayBuzz, Survely, and other such companies are pumping out silly little surveys lately. I see them most often on Facebook. Normally, I don't play Facebook.

I keep a Facebook account basically so I can see the highlights of the lives of people I no longer see regularly (former students, friends in places I used to live, etc.). I don't play any of the games or engage with the site that way.

But I've been kind of addicted to these little quizzes that promise to tell me which character in this or that I'm like, or what category of monster I am.

From these surveys, I've learned recently that:

• I am Athena
• The kind of woman I am is: Loyal
• The song "You're Beautiful" by James Blount was written about me
• I am 68% scientifically literate
• I'm 10% stereotypically white
• I've read 62 of the 100 books the BBC says we should all read
• I should star in Sweeney Todd

As I clicked on another one today, I asked myself why I enjoy these silly little surveys so much. It's not that I put stock in their assessments of me. After all, how does what kind of kitten picture I pick tell you about my beauty or intelligence?

But I am curious. I want to know what they'll say. I love to agree with or dispute the results just like you might with your Chinese fortune cookie ribbon or your newspaper horoscope. I love it when my Facebook friends take the same quizzes and we compare our results. 

Really, I've always liked surveys. Even though I'm not a beauty magazine girl, I always take the relationship quiz when I'm waiting to have my hair done. I like the simple organization. The idea that complex things like people can be analyzed by simple check-boxes and conclusions drawn. It's soothing and entertaining.

Plus, they just told me I'm Athena. That's a compliment I'll take :-)

Summer Reading: Week Two

It was a rough week for me in terms of reading. I'm truly exhausted at the end of the school day from riding herd on a surging tsunami of middle-schoolers fit to burst with excitement about summer. But, still I am reading, just not as much or as quickly as I want to.

This week I finished The Golem and the Jinni by Helene Wecker. I read it in paperback as a choice for a neighborhood reading club. 

I really enjoyed it. The premise was a joy, though it sounds like a joke: a golem and a jinni walk into a foreign city. The author did a beautiful job pulling it all together into what felt like exactly the right ending to me. I did get a little bored during the second third of the book, when the characters were established, and we weren't yet in the crisis moment. That second third is tricksy . . .I'm struggling with it in the rewrite of one of my own novels. There are a lot of good quiet moments in Wecker's book during the part, but the quietness might be the problem. So again, not a perfect book, but a good book. One I would recommend to each of you.

I've also continued reading Greatshadow by James Maxey this week. It's my bedside book, and I've not lasted long for bedtime reading in my current state of exhaustion, so I didn't make a lot of progress. But I continue to really like Infidel (the main character: a woman with indestructible flesh and a mysterious past), and am engaged by the unusual choice of narrator. Where I am in the plot, the adventure is really about to begin. We've gathered our motley crew of heroes/mercenaries and are off to find the dragon. It should make good reading this coming week as I appreciate my first student-free days.

I just started Lilith Dark and the Beastie Tree by +Charles C. Dowd . I've been following him on G+ for a

while and knew I'd eventually get this book to share with my seven-year-old. There was a sale recently that suited me, so I bought it. It's perfect for my daughter, featuring a fierce little girl with a powerful imagination as the main character.  I'll probably finish it this weekend and pass it on to the Small Fry. It reminds me of other graphic novels I've enjoyed with my daughters like Ernest and Rebecca by Guillame Bianco and Antonello Dalena or Courtney Crumrin by Ted Naifeh.

Other than that, I've been working on a beta read for a friend. Her novel is quite good! I hope to be able to tell you where to buy it a few months down the road.

NJ (7) has really jumped into summer reading with both feet. She's very motivated by the little chart where we record our reading numbers. She's recorded somewhere between 75 and 150 minutes each day . . . and I suspect we're under-recording her a little bit. If you leave that child sit anywhere near a book, she's reading. :-)

She brought home a darling picture book from school: Slugs in Love by Susan Pearson and Kevin O'Malley. It's a sweet story about a girl slug with a crush who writes poems to win his heart. NJ is such a romantic soul. When she finished reading it, she said, "Mommy! That was the best book ever! And you have to read it right now!" So, of course, I did.

She's been devouring Tiny Titans since our last trip to the library as well.  I think she's read each volume that we checked out at least six times. She loves Beast Boy. He's just her kind of silly.

In the car, we're listening to Horrible Harry. He's new to us, and I appreciate the change of pace after nearly a yearlong obsession with Frannie K. Stein and Junie B. Jones. Harry's got an obsession with gross things that suits NJ's sense of humor right now, so I think it's going to be a hit.

The older daughter (14) is almost finished with Fangirl, which I read last week and passed on to her.  She doesn't like it as much as another book by the same author (Eleanor & Park), but she says it's pretty good. She just finished Cress by Marissa Meyer, the third in a fairy-tale derived cyborg series. I read the first two with her and really enjoyed them. She said the third one is more complicated because there are so many more characters now, but that it's still well worth the read.

Next on her list is The Evolution of Mara Dyer by Michelle Hodkin. It's another one that I read with my school YA reading club and passed to her. I liked it, though some parts of it disappointed me. I suspect M will like it better. She is, after all, the target audience and is much more interested in angsty teen love than I am :-)

So, there you go: another week of reading by the Bryant girls. I love summer.

#Saturday Scenes: No. 7

This week for #Saturday Scenes (the brain child of +John Ward ), I bring you a scene from Cold Spring, my current WIP. It's a historical piece set in rural Kentucky in the early 1900s following the lives of two sisters, Lena and Freda. At this point, it's looking like it might be a three or four books series, following these sisters through the decades.


This scene is near the beginning of the novel and introduces the older sister, Mathilde, a minor character who now lives in Lexington. It's 1915. Mathilde is 23 and married, but without children. Lena is 16, and has been running her father's household for two years, since the death of her mother. Mathilde has just arrived for a visit.

___________________________________________________________

Mathilde stood when their father came in. She held her hands primly at her waist and watched as Gustav

http://www.familytreemagazine.com/upload/photos/100900.JPG

hung up his hat, removed his boots, and washed his hands and face in the basin Lena had placed for that purpose. She smiled in greeting when he raised his eyes, but their father walked past her without acknowledgement and headed for his usual chair near the fireplace.

“Why is my tea not waiting, Lena?”

Heat rushed to Lena’s face. After her sister had just praised her household skills, it was embarrassing to immediately be called on the carpet by Papa. “It’s here, Papa, at the table. I thought you would want to sit and talk with Mathilde.”

The man looked at his older daughter briefly, then turned back to Lena. “I will have my tea as usual, daughter.”

Lena scurried to bring his cup and biscuit to him at his accustomed seat by the fire, not sure what to make of Father’s treatment of Mathilde. Mathilde’s face was frozen, set in an expression of shock. After a moment, she recovered. “Quite right, Father. It is nicer here by the fire.” She picked up her own cup and plate and seated herself opposite Gustav in Mother’s chair.

No one ever sat in Mother’s chair. In fact, Gustav had once given little Freda a hiding for sitting in the chair. Lena was shocked by her sister’s audacity and, at the same time, admired her for it.

“How is the farm, Papa? What did you plant this year?”

“Why would you care?”

“I only meant to inquire--”

“Be nosy, you mean. It’s no business of yours. Not anymore.”

“What?”

“I’ve heard about what you’re doing in Lexington.”

“What do you mean?”

“You’re one of them--one of those ridiculous ladies marching and meeting to get the vote.”

“Papa!”

“Maybe if you stopped going to useless meetings and stayed home like a woman should, you’d have children by now!”

Lena knew that her sister had struggled through a difficulty pregnancy at the beginning of her marriage only to bring forth a stillborn son. She couldn’t believe her father’s cruelty in attacking Mathilde with her tragedy as if it were a personal failure. Mathilde’s face showed the sting in the verbal slap. “I nearly died, Papa. The doctor says--”

Father brushed off her words with a gesture of his hand. “If you can’t give your husband children and me grandchildren, what use are you?” He paused, long enough to put down his cup and leaned menacingly towards his daughter. “Your mother was more delicate than you, yet she birthed me six sons.” Lena noticed that the three daughters were not listed among her mother’s accomplishments.

“And it eventually killed her!”

Gustav stood then. It seemed as though his body had grown with his anger, the hulk of him filling all the space in the room. “Get out of my house.” He grunted between gritted teeth. When she didn’t immediately move, he took a step towards her, and shouted. “Get out of my house!”

Evil Children

What is it about evil children in movies and television? Done right, they can be so chilling.

http://s1.ibtimes.com/sites/www.ibtimes.com/files/styles/v2_article_large/public/2013/07/29/walking-dead_0.jpg

The first episode of The Walking Dead begins with a flash forward. The first live zombie we see is a little girl. From the back you can see that she was a beautiful girl, long and lean with long blonde hair. You can see the softness on the main character's face, as he calls to her, "Little girl?" He wants her to be okay, but, even before she turns around he (and we in the audience) know that she won't be.  Sure enough, when she turns, she is revealed as a zombie and Rick has to shoot her. Heartbreaking. There are others in the series, too. Carol's daughter, Sophia, and the Governor's daughter, Penny.

Hmmmm. . .just noticed they are all girls, too, all somewhere between eight and twelve years old. That probably means something, too.

It's not just zombie children that are creepy though. Think about The Bad Seed's Rhoda Penmark played by Patty McCormack in the 1956 movie. She's so cold, dispassionately admitting to the violence she has wreaked on others. McCauley Culkin played the boy version in The Good Son.

Or possessed kids like Regan in The Exorcist or Carole Ann in Poltergeist.

Or ghost children like the Grady twins in The Shining or Samara from The Ring.

Or vampire children like Claudia in Interview with The Vampire or Eli in Let the Right One In.

I think what makes them all so effective is that they so not-child-like. Children are full of life and movement. Sure, they can be mean, but they are not cold or calculating. They are not still. Not unless something is very very wrong. There's something visceral and soul-chilling about the evil child that no number of evil adults can match.

Maybe it speaks to the fears in us all about children--about failing them, all the bad things that can come about if adults don't protect the young the way they should.

I can't define it well, but it gets me every time. (Shiver).

Summer Reading: Week One

The little one and I went to sign up for summer reading at our library today.  We don't need a special program to read, especially not her. I'm always having to tell her to put down a book because there's something else we have to do (and laughing on the inside, that I, of all people, am telling someone to put down a book).

But, we love the summer reading program anyway. It's not about finding motivation to read, it's about spending time in that energetic buzz of rooms full of people who love to read. Especially rooms full of very young people who love to read and librarians who love to help them find the right books for them.

So, this summer, I thought I'd post each Monday about what NJ (age 7) and I (age 43) are reading.

Me: I just finished Fangirl by Rainbow Rowell. I read it in hardback. It came to me via a bookclub at school (a bunch of middle school teachers who read young adult literature together).  I liked it. It was light fun, and became more engaged in it than I thought I would at first. I didn't love it. While I connected with the character at some levels, at others, I didn't. Plus, I'm getting old . .. and right now, the age of people who make me want to roll my eyes the most is people in their early twenties. I'm sure I was equally intolerable at that age, in very similar ways, but it doesn't make me want to read books about people who are college age.

I'm a multi-book reader. I keep books in different locations and read them when I am in that location

(bedside, car--not while driving, but while waiting for children--, near the sofa, etc.).  So I'm in the middle of two other books right now, too. The Golem and the Jinni by Helene Wecker, and Greatshadow by James Maxey. Both are good choices for me at the end of the school year because they are fantasy stories with a lot of good escapism.  The Golem and the Jinni is lagging for me a little right now, but I've heard it's worth sticking with to get to good stuff at the end. Greatshadow, on the other hand, is rocking right now. It's a very interesting premise and even more interesting female protagonist. I'm anxious to see where it goes!

I also need to find time for two unpublished novels I'm reading for writing friends and Faulkner's Absalom!Absalom! for a library book club on classics. Good thing school is almost over and I can clear more time to read!

NJ: We just returned most of the library's collection of Charlie and Lola books by Lauren Child. Charlie is an amazing big brother with a clever and amusing little sister. NJ really enjoys the dynamic between the two siblings. I've caught her trying to convince her own teenaged sister to be more like Charlie :-)  Norah has devoured all of these books much as she devoured Mo Willems books a few months earlier.

We may finally be done with Babymouse for a little while.  This is the

first time we've left the library without a Babymouse in many months. Babymouse may have caught the short shrift this time because there were so many awesome books in the kid-appropriate graphic novel section and because our library just reorganized some shelves making those books more prominently displayed. This time, she picked some Tiny Titans and a new-to-us Papercutz series called Béka and Crip: Dance Class: School Night Fever.

NJ definitely loves graphic novels. She is both an artist and a reader, so this makes perfect sense to me.  It's a lot of fun when we read them together and pick different characters to voice. She's even beginning to write a series herself. They are one page scenes called "Family Disasters."

Watch out. All three Bryant girls might be available in a bookstore near you before too long. In the meantime, I'm heading outside to read for a while.

#SaturdayScenes No. 6:

For #saturdayscenes this week, I bring you a little piece I'm playing with. I think it might be a middle grades novel about a girl who learns witchcraft as an academic pursuit, and her friend who helps keep her grounded. Right now, it's only this little snippet and I've promised myself to finish my other two WIP before taking on a new project, but I think it will be fun when I get there.

_______________________________________

The lacrosse boys were turning their sticks in their hands, moving their wrists in small motions, the tai-chi of restless thirteen year olds waiting for the game to begin. From the stands, Maxwell watched. He noticed when the movements of the boys seemed to synchronize. It happened bit by bit, boy by boy, until all of them moving together: twist, twist, twist, flick right, flick left, twist, twist, twist, repeat. 

He turned to point it out to Sam, but the words died on his lips when he saw her. Sam was staring out at the field with a focused intensity usually reserved for her lab experiments. Her eyes were wild and her lips were twitching. Her hands were clasped hard against her thighs. Sweat was dripping down her cheek even though it was a mild spring day. “Sam?” Maxwell spoke gently, feeling oddly as if he were waking a sleepwalker. “Sam?”

Suddenly, she went limp. Glancing back at the field, Maxwell saw the boys moving normally again, no more eerie choreography.  The other five or six kids in the stands for the Wednesday afternoon game didn’t seem to have noticed anything. They still looked at their phones or nodded their heads to music streaming through their headphones.  

“Sam?” This time she looked at him, wiping the sweat from her cheek as she pulled her long dark hair into a ponytail. The movement revealed the small scar in front of her left ear. She saw him notice and dropped a lock of hair in front of her ear.  When he looked into her eyes, she returned his gaze steadily and Maxwell felt ridiculous for what he’d been about to ask. He decided to change the subject.