Fantastic piece in The Guardian in which various writers give their "rule for writing fiction": part one and part two. I especially like Elmore Leonard and Margaret Atwood in part one ( Read more... )

The first thing Marian unloads from her satchel after her morning rounds is a dirty, tattered Christmas elf of plastic and felt. She scooped him from the gutter on Main Street, where there is always traffic, but Marian looks before she steps into the street, she is careful ( Read more... )

It was just a drop. A drop of blood. A tiny stain on her pillowcase ( Read more... )

I've been writing a lot of haiku lately, and while I was waiting at the doctor's office today (why do they leave you naked in the stirrups for so long?) I thought of a completely inappropriate one:

Itching and burning
You gave me an STD
What is your excuse?This is not based on my life, it's just based on reading too many of those "Chlamydia: It's ( Read more... )

Maybe I've been thinking about Eowyn too much lately, because as I drifted in and out of sleep this morning, I dreamt/imagined that I was turning back into stone. Some Pygmalion had sculpted me, but now the magic was fading and the stone particles were aggregating in my blood. This was why my hands are always cold ...

First she quits her job ( Read more... )

Time stretched in the sticky heat that summer. As day's warmth prowled the dark, so did we, waiting for the heat to tire and crawl to bed ( Read more... )

A different pet name every time ( Read more... )

She still habitually, not to say obsessively, checked her rearview for tails. She was throwing backward glances as she left the grocery store, but tried to mock herself back to reality: There was, she knew, no intrigue swirling around her bran cereal, vegetables, or frozen pizza. But her instincts refused to acknowledge her retirement ( Read more... )

The phone rang. It was her ex-boyfriend, Andy, saying ( Read more... )