I loved Follow Friday so much, I decided to take part in this week's Book Blogger Hop! This week's question? "What do you consider the most important in a story: the plot or the characters?"
But...when I'm not writing, I'm a music fanatic of (seriously) infinite proportions. And in my book, "Turning Home" by David Nail (a fellow Missourian, I might add) is the song of the year. I've played this one enough, all my neighbors know the words. Love it, love it, love it...
Rules of the award:
1. Thank and link back to the person who gave you this award.
2. Write 7 things about yourself.
3. Pass the award along to 15 bloggers who you have recently discovered and who you think are fantastic.
4. Contact the bloggers you've picked to let them know about the award.
Okay. Seven (surprising!) things about me:
1). I met every member of every hair band who played in Springfield, MO in the late 80’s / early 90’s.
2). I end just about every phone conversation with my brother by saying, “Go with eggs!” (It’s a reference from Paul Newman’s NOBODY’S FOOL.)
3). I have a serious love of chicken pot pie. Serious. Serious love.
4). My elbows hyper-extend, bending back the wrong way. Freaky.
5). I have been knitting the same sweater since 2007.
6). My body temperature is actually a few degrees below “normal,” and I have a tendency to get cold very easily.
7). I’ve always loved to dress up—heels, the works. But my single favorite piece of clothing is my twenty-year-old Harley Davidson T-shirt, complete with a giant swirling dragon…
And my fifteen blogs?
One Sparkling Star
The Juniper Breeze Is Blowing In
…Thanks to The Mod Podge Bookshelf! An award makes a gal’s Friday…
Ta-da! November’s flash fiction’s here! This month’s prompt comes courtesy of Melody at Melody’s Reading Corner…When I asked for objects to write about, Melody suggested magic. Love that idea! Love…
“Free Of Charge”
Holly Schindler
I’m not a kid person. Not a coochie-cooer. Maybe I don’t have much age on the boy behind the cash box who eyeballs me. Maybe the last time I went in for a haircut the stylist said, “There you go, kiddo,” when I stepped out of the chair. Still. The way the little boy just keeps staring—like he’s about to say something to me—gives me a tight, uncomfortable tug in my gut.
Not sure why I even walked up the drive to their garage sale. It’s not like I have any money in my running shorts. And I’m not exactly presentable. In the mirror attached to a ladder (“only $25!” the tag screams,) I look like some trampled-through, tortured puddle, the way sweat rings cling to my underarms, sweat splatter dots my back and chest. I’ve run five miles—far longer than I’d intended—and now I’m the kind of exhausted that makes me wish I could just flop down on the nearby duct-taped bean bag chair ($2).
Five miles from home—feels like a hundred, but it’s nothing compared to the distance between Missouri and Puerto Rico, where Dad’s dragging me to live.
“Part of the US,” he insisted. “English is an official language.” But Spanish dominates. I’ll learn it, sure, but a word at a time. Casa, I’ll say. Gracias. Si. And nod, a nervous smile on my face because I can’t keep up with full-sentence Spanish. My classmates will avoid me the way I dodge little kids, because talking to someone too inexperienced to truly understand you is just plain boring—and too much work. I mean, a conversation shouldn’t involve heavy lifting.
Folding tables around me support the used-up fragments of life: Frayed sweaters folded into puffy rectangles. Tarnished candle holders. Old cassette tapes.
I’ll be a trinket, too, after I move. A birthday card in the bottom of a junk drawer. A photo yellowing behind fifty Post-its on a bulletin board.
I’ll be some dated, lame thing that eventually gets sold or pitched. Some girl I used to know, my boyfriend will call me, if remembers me at all.
I’m still sweating. Four miles ago, I was crying. Puerto Rico...
The little boy slides off his plastic chair, slips behind his mother, who’s defending the price of a cracked McCoy vase, and reaches into a fish bowl. I see a glass grave. Wonder if they even remember their long-ago pet’s name.
I start to back up, but he rushes, screams, “Wait!” His mother’s watching, too, so I feel compelled to stoop and cup my sweat-sticky hands. The mysterious little creature pours old goldfish tank pebbles into my palms.
“Genuine magic rocks,” he insists. “Free of charge.”
I almost snort a laugh when the pebbles—and a new rushing tide of belief—start to warm in my palm. Calm spreads through my chest.
“Gracias,” I whisper, surprised to find the word doesn’t sound so awkward coming from me, after all.
…Remember, December will be the last month to get in on the Flash Fiction Challenge! I’ll be putting up details soon…
Congrats on the sale of you next novel, MYSTERIOUS WAYS! Can you tell us about it, or are you just going to BE mysterious?
Okay, all you ghouls and goblins, I’ve got a Halloween story to turn your stomachs…I received a super-cool setup from Kate Higgins—she sent the prompt for September’s entry in the Flash Fiction Challenge, remember? I’ve included the original text she sent below; the only change I made was switching from second person to first:
The crescent moon had long since set.
The nearby river’s nighttime gurgle and rush begins to sound like voices, voices talking about you, blaming you. You shut out the sultry, oppressive September night and pull down the shades and turned on your desk lamp.
You adjust the central air to 'cooler' and sit back down to your computer.
The low hissing tone refrigerated air begins to pour out of an ancient floor registers beneath your desk, blowing out new cobwebs and old dust around your legs.
Then a shallow, beseeching, breathless voice, somewhere deep within the register whispers, “Hollleeee………I’m…….here…….here. Holleeee?……..why…...…. why…..….did….......you……... do…….it……….”
…But in order to find out what I did with Kate’s Halloween setup, you’ve got to watch the video. In the meantime, I’ve got to run…Katy Perry called, and she wants her wig back.
Happy Halloween, everyone!
...And now? She's hosting a fantastic interview and a giveaway of a signed copy of A BLUE SO DARK! Yup, coolness runneth amok.
Okay, so I said I wanted scary…but October’s prompt actually made me think of scary in a new way. The prompt comes from Darlene Beck-Jacobson, who can be found online at darlenebeckjacobson.com. She sent this phrase: everyone has them.
…And here’s what I came up with:
…Until The Laughter Dies
Holly Schindler
I figure we probably look a little like fifty-year-olds in prom dresses, the way we’re clustered on sleeping bags in front of the TV.
I mean, seventeen is way too old for slumber parties. But when Marie flunked the over-the-counter pregnancy test, we all decided to celebrate old-school. Even gave it a theme—80’s night, complete with tightrolled jeans and Mom’s VHS tape of FOOTLOOSE. Mom’s gone for the weekend, after all, and will never know we tunneled through her memorabilia.
“To not being forever linked to Dylan Street,” Marie shouts, and we touch the tips of our unwrapped candy bars in toast.
We laugh even louder than the girls on the tape, rolling into a heap of out-of-date concert T-shirts.
Until the laughter dies, along with the lights.
Blackness saturates my basement.
Lacey and Vanessa laugh again, snickering like the little girls we’re pretending to be.
“…breaker box,” I mumble, but as I grope through the dark, the door to the stairs slams shut. The unpredictable lock clicks.
Snickers again from the cluster of sleeping bags, softer this time. This laughter has a question mark behind it.
“I’ll—just—“ I say, pointing to the door to the outside.
A knock explodes against a window near the ceiling. Vanessa shrieks. I jump, turn, but darkness has dyed the glass, too.
The knock returns. Three knocks, this time. Each. Spaced. Evenly.
I grab a flashlight, fighting the fear that turns my arms slack. I feel every breath in the room being held as I inch toward the window.
When I flick on the beam, the window fills with hunter-orange—a ski mask. And an angry snarl of a mouth.
The basement explodes with screams; I drop the flashlight and the face disappears.
The door to the outside rattles beneath repeated blows.
I try to tighten my trembling fingers around the shaft of the putter Mom left beside the couch.
But I should have reached for the deadbolt instead.
The knob turns; the door creaks. Screams pelt my shoulders like winter rain.
Four against one, I think, trying to lean on odds.
I’ve barely started to lift the club when the ski mask steps in, snatches it from my hand.
I have nothing; I’m absolutely naked with defenselessness. I open my mouth, but I’ve lost my scream.
Moonlight stretches through the open door, lands across the ski mask.
Screams circle like sirens all around me as Marie, Lacey, and Vanessa charge to my side. Screams intensify as the man in the doorway grabs the mask beneath his chin and begins to peel it.
Lights pop, illuminating his face.
And Dylan Street dissolves into gotcha laughter.
The girls at my sides moan. Their laughter returns—staccato, hesitant. Still—laughter.
I try to shrug, playing like I’d suspected as much. I’m humiliated by the goose bumps racing down my arms…until I realize everyone has them.
Even Marie, who already knows that the only thing Dylan’s good at is scaring girls.
See what I mean? Really—what’s the scariest event here…the ski mask or the over-the-counter test? We all face really frightening things in our everyday life…far more frightening than any slasher movie!
Thanks to Darlene for giving me a bit of a fresh take on scary…and congrats to her as well! She’s now in the running for that holiday prize.
…And stay tuned for the details for November—coming soon! (I’ve got a super-fun idea for that one…)
"Is teen love 'real' love? Are the problems one faces in high school nothing compared to the problems one faces as an adult? Holly Schindler faces these questions head on in her excellent second novel, Playing Hurt. Clint and Chelsea, two ex-athletes, meet in the Minnesota wild. Chelsea is recovering from a physical injury, Clint from an emotional one. Together they explore the sometimes painful, sometimes passionate road to healing. Schindler does not sugar-coat the agonies and heartbreaks of first loves, first losses, and first disappointments. Anyone who says 'kids today have it so easy' should pick up a copy of Playing Hurt."—BRIAN KATCHER, AUTHOR OF PLAYING WITH MATCHES AND ALMOST PERFECT
Super-fun new interview at Things Liz Loves! Really love the "pick one" segment at the end of the chat...which reveals that I am still pining for my long-lost lizard loafers, 1987-1991. May they rest in peace.
