When I was still a baby, my mother died giving birth to my stillborn brother, and so I was raised by my grandmother Antonia and my aunt Julia. My grandmother was a wise, stern woman befitting her years and station in the family. My aunt loved me dearly, showering me with affection from my earliest memory. She could not bear to ever speak harshly to ( Read more... )

I had high hopes for this story; I thought I had a really spectacular idea for it, which is especially unusual since it was an idea for an original story. But as usual, I think I failed in my execution. It seems much shallower than it should be. The ending is dead corny and the only reason I don't change it to something else is because I think I ( Read more... )

“Fabulously,” Caitlyn said, because she was pretty sure that was what they said in Hollywood. Jackie beamed at her.

Jackie’s best friend Amy moved away at the end of second grade, and Jackie chose Caitlyn as a replacement. Caitlyn was awed once more, and she spent third grade eating lunch and spending recesses with her, listening to Jackie talk. ( Read more... )

ZOMG.

I just wrote something. (Original.) And I freaking like it.

(When has this happened before? Pretty much never!)

It's for an assignment - due tomorrow, naturally, though I actually wrote the first two parts last week (the night before I thought it was due). I'll put the part I'm excited about on top, though.

(Do not ask any questions. There ( Read more... )

 There's something charming about having "fuck" as the first word of dialogue in a story.

If Daniel had to pick only one day to remember the three of them, the choice would have been simple: the Halloween when they were nine years old.  His mother had never gotten around to getting him a costume even though she’d promised, so Jackie stole a sheet out of the linen closet in Caitlyn’s house.

“Don’t worry,” she told Caitlyn as she cut ( Read more... )

Coming up: rabid minks.

Hey, let's post something else which I wrote a year ago!

This is interesting. It was written as my black belt thesis, when I was testing for my black belt. It's true (and rather awful) that I deliberately refused to angst about every word as I normally do, because I wasn't turning it in to writing professors, but the head of the school. Not that ( Read more... )

My last "full-length" short story for the class. I just got back my critiques this morning, but it really needed the least amount of work of any of my short stories this semester. Also, about an hour ago I finally figured out a way to do what I had been pondering all evening (develop a couple characters before I kill them off). Yay.

It's ( Read more... )

NaNo: I got to 38,000 words. And as a sign of how much pure determination counts, that was my word count the 27th, when I realized I had too much to do and felt too unmotivated to push out the words so I couldn't catch up to reach 50,000. Maybe so, but I really meant to write at least another couple thousand words to say I reached 40,000. But no ( Read more... )