Story From High School

 

While cleaning up my writing room yesterday (now that bat season is over and I can go back up there), I came across this story I wrote in high school. It's embarrassing now, but at the time I was thrilled with the grade I received. Mrs. Petrie was my favorite teacher and the first person to really encourage me to keep writing. Even after this story.

(The assignment was to tell the story that leads up to the moment in the picture. It should also be noted at this time in my life I was fascinated with the police and planned on becoming a cop after high school.)

Pictured here is Ralph and Edna, two lonely people who now live in an old-folks home in Brooklyn, NY. Edna is a retired factory worker and Ralph is a retired cop. In this picture, while playing chess, Ralph is telling Edna one of his many stories of when he was a cop. However, this one particular story he's telling was about one of the worst situations he's ever been in. 


Out of the thirty years Ralph had been an officer of the law, he shot and killed one man. Ralph was driving around in his patrol car late one hot summer night in July, when there was a call on the radio for all units who were in the vicinity of 42nd St, there was a robbery in progress at a liquor store.


After he found out the location of the liquor store, he flicked on his lights and sped to 42nd St. where Al's Liquor Store was located. When he got there, there was only one other police car there. Ralph went around to the back of the liquor store where it was filled with garbage and sneaked through the back door. Up in front he saw the robber with a gun up to the clerk demanding all the money in the cash register.


The cop from the other car came charging through the front door yelling for the guy to drop his gun and put his hands up. Instead, the guy grabbed the saleslady and stuck the gun in her ribs telling the cop to throw down his gun and get against the wall. Ralph was right behind the robber, but the robber didn't know it. 


Ralph went up to the robber, who had the gun up to the lady's ribs, and pointed his gun right up to the guys head and told him to let the lady go or he'd blow his head off. As quick as a flash, the robber stuck the gun to the lady's head and cocked the trigger and was about to pull it when Ralph pulled his trigger instead. His whole head exploded with green slime and his brains splattered against the wall. 


As Ralph told this story, he was once again depressed that his cop days are over, but he's glad he has someone like Edna who will listen.


Now is that a masterpiece or what?  Have you saved your stories from when you were younger?

The Lies We Tell

I posted on Facebook yesterday about an incident at work concerning a cleaning customer who is lying to her husband about us cleaning the house. That got me thinking about the lies we tell (or don't tell) our spouses.

I was shocked at the lady hiring us and keeping it from her husband. In nine years of cleaning houses, we've never come across a situation like this. I couldn't imagine lying to my husband about hiring (and paying!) cleaners.

Now I may stretch the truth a bit by telling my husband I spent $20 on jeans when they were more like $29. But I figure there's a "2" in there so I'm not that far off.

And in a previous marriage I might have been known to buy clothes or shoes, take them out of the bag before going into the house, cutting the tags and ditching the bags, then putting them right into my closet. When I'd wear them a week later he'd ask if it was new and I'd say no. Well, it wasn't brand new. I'd had it for at least a week. (Notice most of my truth-stretching revolves around shopping).

I can't think of anything I'd lie to my husband about. Even if I think he'll be mad about something, I tell him. It's usually better than him finding out later anyway then being even more mad. I might play something down if I think it's going to make him upset (like somebody saying something negative about him, us, etc.), but that's more to protect him.

Do you keep secrets from your spouse or significant other?

Books You Liked But Thought You Wouldn't

I only started reading YA a year ago, but I've read well over fifty books since then. I get a lot of my book recommendations from reading other writers' blogs. There are two series' of books I had no interest in reading, but ended up loving.

Ellen Hopkins' Crank is the first YA book I read.  I didn't think I'd like it since it's written in verse, but the opposite happened. I ended up flying through the novel in less than two days, and went on to the next one, Glass. The third book, Fallout, was just released and I can't wait to read it. Since then I've read Identical, Tricks, and I just got Impulse. If you haven't read any of her books yet, I highly recommend picking one up.

The second set of books I had no intention of reading but ended up loving, are Lisa McMann's Wake series. I'm not normally into fantasy novels, but again, I devoured the three books in this series. I was also lucky enough to meet her at a signing and get my book signed.

What books were you hesitant to read but ended up loving?

Feeling Like a Crap Mom (When You Know You're Not)

I made my son cry twice today. That's two times more than he's cried all week. He's a really good boy and almost never gives us any trouble. We don't normally yell at him because we just don't have to. And we never spank.

This morning I started his day off on a bad note when I told him he needed a hair cut.  I even offered to let him get a mohawk. He said he "didn't want to go to the hair cut store," and suggested I get mine cut instead. I won that argument.

After his hair cut he asked if he could buy Halloween make-up. I took him to four different stores to find what he wanted. He started to throw a fit as we walked to the last store, and I snapped at him telling him he should be thankful I was carting him around trying to find exactly what he was looking for and not whining.

He immediately burst into tears and said, "You yelled at me." We hugged it out.

Later at home he wanted to put his make-up on, but I had to make us lunch first. He whined and argued with me and I yelled at him again.

Again he burst into tears. I felt like a terrible mother for making him cry twice. Sometimes I forget how sensitive he is. It's so hard not to snap when you do so much for your kids, and they don't seem appreciative. Like when we'd let him play outside all day until nine at night and when it's time to come in, he screams and cries that we never let him do anything. I know that's just part of being a parent.

But it's one of the harder parts.

Unconscious Habits

Not all habits are bad. When my four year old is in the car or concentrating on something, he likes to sing. The songs rarely make sense, but he's in his own little world.

He's also a head banger (and has been since he could lift his head as a baby) and will watch TV while banging his head back on the couch. It relaxes him. But it has to have the right feel. He's been known to test-bang on a couch or bed to see if he likes it.

He'll also bang in his car seat and (face down) when he first gets into bed and in the middle of the night. It's usually accompanied by humming, which is the reason we've never been able to go on a vacation and share a room with him.

For the last few nights we've been getting ready for Glee's new season by watching the last season on DVD. Our son  loves the show and we've been letting him stay up late with us to watch. He'll sit next to me and bang his head back on the couch while the Glee members sing. When he gets tired he'll lay in my lap and close his eyes. But as soon as they start singing again, he pops back up half asleep and bangs until the song is over.

I've noticed I have this terrible habit of biting my nails whenever I'm writing. It's usually when I'm so wrapped up in my story I don't even know I'm doing it. I try sitting on them, but then I just stare out the window thinking about my characters or plot and I realize I'm biting them again. When I grow my nails out and put nailpolish on I don't bite them. It's once I start, I can't stop.

Do you have any habits you do unconsciously?

I'm Not a Routine Girl

Creativity is 

the opposite 

of routine.         
                                    I'll never be a soccer mom, because I can't guarantee I'll get my son to the   soccer games. I keep our family pretty busy with activities, but most of them are spontaneous. We signed our son up to play baseball with our local homeschooling group, and we made one game. Every Monday night I not only completely forgot about it, but when my son said he'd rather play outside, I let him.

We don't eat dinner at the same time every night, I can't stick to a writing routine for the life of me, our four year old doesn't have a set bed time, and if we have parties we wait til the night before to plan our menu.

I like that we're spontaneous and we can pick up and leave to do anything. And I think we keep life interesting by deciding to eat hot fudge sundaes before dinner. And we love our house cleaning business because our schedule is wacky.

My husband doesn't know why I'm this way since I'm so organized in other areas of my life. He's the way he is because he wanted to be total opposite of his parents. That's easy.

Our son has 4-5 speech, OT and psych sessions per week. It kills me that I have to be home at certain times every day. I hate it. If it wasn't incredibly selfish of me, I'd cancel all of them (I wouldn't do that b/c I know he needs them).

Maybe some day we'll eat dinner at 6pm every night, our son will play sports (every week!) and go to bed at the same time every night. For now we'll enjoy our hectic, fun life.

Are you a routine person? Or do you fly by the seat of your pants like us?

Writers and A.D.D.

My husband and I were cleaning a house for a psychiatrist or psychologist or one of those ists the other day. We were talking about my writing and I mentioned that I have a hard time finishing my work. I'll get gung-ho about a new shiny idea and think about it day and night. Then I'll start to work on it, think it was stupid or not be able to come up fantastic ideas, and quit. I don't throw it out, I just put it aside and either move onto the next shiny idea or work on my last shiny idea I'd abandoned. I also have a terrible time making decisions. Which is a major problem when it comes to working on plot points. It's so bad that I can't even decided which project to work on, so I don't work on anything for a while. I'm wasting a lot of precious writing time.

Before I even finished talking, she said that she thinks I have ADD. It all made sense when she said that. My dad says he has the same problem with finishing projects and deciding what to work on. I haven't researched it enough to know if there's another answer besides Ritalin, but I hope there is. People telling me to "just pick a project and finish it" doesn't work. If I could do that, believe me, I'd have a ton of novels done by now. I have way more ideas for novels than I have time to write.

Anyone else have this problem? How do you deal with it?

On Death and Sleep

I found out three days ago through a Facebook email that a childhood friend had died. The person who died was a guy I hadn't seen in thirty years (I'm forty). His death unexpectedly hit me harder than anyone's death has (including my grandmothers'--whom I took care of--last year) since my mom died eleven years ago.  I was floored by his death, and not just because he was only thirty-six and had kids.

He was best friends with my brother when we were kids, and I was best friends with his sister. Like a lot of neighborhoods in the 70s, us kids were allowed to run around all day going from house to house and came home when the street lights came on.

I felt terrible having to call my brother and tell him about his friend dying, even though he hadn't talked to him in years. We still always considered the kids on that street our friends even if we hadn't spoken in years. He was crushed and felt terrible that he hadn't called him when I had given him his number, after finding his sisters on Facebook. It was just one of those "I'll call him soon" things.

I haven't slept much in the past three nights and his death was pretty much all I've thought about. I found out my brother's felt the same way. I couldn't figure out why this was hitting us so hard. We finally came to the conclusion that, in our minds, our years living there were perfect. We lived in this neighborhood from when I was three up until I was ten, when my parents suddenly split up and we moved. That time was the best time of our lives. Our parents were together, we had tons of friends and life was all-around great for us. Life changed drasitcally for us after that. But in our minds, those years on Sterling Street were wonderful for us. But when our friend died, it shattered a bit of our perfect world we hold so dearly.

I was a bit of a wreck going to the calling hours tonight. My husband came, as did my brother and his wife. I was afraid of seeing old neighbors and kids (now adults like me) and having that change my perception of my childhood. It ended up being very sad to see our friend who died and all of the pictures of him and his family.

But it was truly wonderful to see our old friends and neighbors. Most of them remembered us, some didn't. We talked about old times and laughed about stupid things we did. I feel like a weight has been lifted off of me tonight. I'm praying hard for his family tonight, and that they can somehow feel peace.

I only wish it was a reunion that had brought us together and not the death of one of us.

RIP Mike. I will always remember you and how much fun we had as kids.

Write On Schedule

I learned something the other day from Darcy Pattison's website, Fiction Notes. She recommends writing one page a day, five days a week. I'm working towards that goal, but for now I've started doing what she used to do: write for fifteen minutes a day. It doesn't sound like much at all, but compared to getting nothing done, it's a lot.

I'm usually home with my four year old all day and our days stay pretty full. We have lots of museum trips, park exploring, games and activities we make up and play dates. In a few days I'll be starting a regular schedule of homeschooling for him. Needless to say, I feel too guilty to sit and write during the day. He's constantly asking me to play with him and I can't say no. Every day I think I'll write when my husband comes home, but it just never happens. My son is glued to me anyway, so trying to sneak off for a while to write almost never works.

Last Thursday I hung a calender in the playroom (where my temporary desk is until bat season is over), and decided to write just fifteen minutes a day. Every day. No matter what.

The biggest reason I wasn't writing much is because I'm determined to finish a chick-lit-type novel I started years ago, but that's not what I'm passionate about. I'm passionate about YA, and I have a few YA novel ideas that I'm dying to get to. So I spend the fifteen minutes every day writing the chick lit novel, then if/when I have any free writing time after that, I get to work on my YA stuff. It's a perfect reward system.

The first day was easy, as was the second. The third day I knew we'd be going to a clam bake and wouldn't be home until late, so I made my family wait to leave the house for the party until I had written for fifteen minutes. It's a great feeling to write that W on the little calendar square. I want to see the calendar fill up with W's and no X's (like the one I have for Sept. 1st becuase I hadn't started yet). By forcing myself to write for fifteen minutes I'm slowly moving along on rewriting. And when I stop at the fifteen minute mark, my brain keeps going on what I'll write the next day.

Do you have a system for writing? How do you reward yourself?

Me & Sarah Dessen

I tried. I really tried. I got through Just Listen, then I tried Lock and Key and This Lullaby. And I just couldn't finish the last two. I like the plots of her stories, I just feel like they start to drag about midway through the book.

I don't have any time during the day to read, so I read novels at bedtime. I know when I'm dreading going to bed because I don't want to read the novel I have next to my bed, I've got a problem. I'm still at the point where I can finish This Lullaby if I wanted, but it's just not keeping my interest. If I wanted to pick up Lock and Key again I'd definitely have to start over because I've forgetten most of it by now.

On another note, I found a great book thanks to someone's blog on here (sorry, I forgot who). Jennifer Brown's Hate List has been keeping me up late at night. I'm halway through it now and hope I finish it soon so I can get some sleep. It can be a little dark and depressing, but it's a very good read. She really draws you in with the main character who is questioning her involvement in the school shooting her boyfriend did. I'd recommend it!

Next I have Lisa Yee's Absolutely Maybe waiting next to my bed. I heard her read an exerpt on a podcast and got it from the library the next day. Looking forward to that one!