by Mayumi-H | Apr 11, 2012 | From Hell (A Love Story), Short Stories, Uncategorized
This is what happens when I take a nap after brunch and a beer (scrambled eggs and bacon, and a Bear Republic Racer 5, for anyone interested):
Once upon a time, there were three boys – Devon, Kent, and Cleve – who worked the counter at Stinky Joe’s Pizza. (Actually, only two of them were working; the third was just hanging around because he had nothing better to do.)
Would you go to a place called "Stinky Joe's"?
Stinky Joe’s Pizza was never very busy. In fact, it almost never got any business at all. The three boys didn’t know why this was. All they knew was that the lack of business made them very bored. And very, very lonely.
One bright day, the telephone rang, and this made the boys quite excited. They’d never received a telephone call before-!
They fought over the handset for a minute, and then Devon – the bravest, the tallest, and the oldest – ventured, “Hullo…?”
“Hello.” The high, gentle voice on the other end sounded very friendly. And very pretty.
Devon smiled brightly at his mates, each of whom smiled back.
“Is this Older Forty-Four?” the voice went on.
Devon wilted. “Oh,” he said, and the other two boys wilted, too, by association. “No. This is Stinky Joe’s Pizza.”
“Oh,” the girl on the line repeated. She sounded just as disappointed as Devon felt. “I’m sorry. You see, I was looking to make reservations, at Older Forty-Four. I thought this was the number listed.”
“No,” Devon said again. Then he brightened once more. “But- why don’t you come here? We have plenty of food!”
The other two boys – Kent and Cleve – gave a chorus of excited cheers: “Yes, come here!” and “We’d be happy to serve you!”
The girl’s voice hummed. “I’m afraid I can’t, this evening,” she said, and then she gave a little sigh. Even that sounded nice, though, and pretty. Then she drew a breath, and Devon could hear in her voice a smile. “But,” she said, “why don’t you tell me your address, and maybe I can come by some other time?”
Devon grinned. “Yes, yes!” he said, and he snapped his fingers at his mates. “Our address… Our address is… um…!” Oh, no! He couldn’t remember the address!
The other two boys – Kent and Cleve – looked at each other, and then began to scramble around and about the counter, ducking beneath shelves and yanking open drawers, trying to find the address. They bumped into each other in their frantic search, falling to the floor in a tumble.
The girl’s voice hummed again in Devon’s ear. “Listen,” she said. “I really need to go. I have to make those reservations-”
“No, no! Don’t hang up!” Devon told her. What if she never rang again? “I’ve almost got it…!” he said, and he shuffled some papers about, trying to sound busy.
“Why don’t you just read it from the menu?” the girl asked of a sudden, giggling softly beneath her breath. Devon knew that she was likely giggling at him, but even that sounded kind.
He smiled again. The menu. Of course! He grabbed one from beside the telephone – how could he have missed it, there? – and scanned the front of the paper, with its drawing of Stinky Joe, and its orange-on-white lettering. Finally, he found it, and he read it aloud to her, word by word.
“Thanks,” the girl told him when he was done. She giggled again, high and sweet. “You have a pleasant evening, now.”
“You, too,” Devon said, smiling and a-flutter and full of joy. Then he hung up.
Kent and Cleve screamed.
“Her name!” Kent said.
“You didn’t get her name!” Cleve echoed.
Devon stared at the phone in his hand, horrified at what he’d done. That girl would never ring back. She sounded too sweet, too smart, too kind, to ring back to someplace called “Stinky Joe’s.”
Mustering his courage, he opened the line again. Maybe an operator could help him find her again. Maybe the police could help him find her again!
The telephone beeped as he pressed the button and brought it to his ear again. But there was no dial tone. Instead, there was quiet laughter.
“Don’t you want my name?”
Devon felt something inside of him soar at the sound of the girl’s voice, already familiar to his ears. “Devon,” he said through his grin. “I mean, my name’s Devon. What- What’s yours?”
The girl hummed a third time, charming him. “Tyne,” she said, and that was all he needed to hear.
Leave the line open
I honestly can’t say what possessed me, to write down the details of this dream. When I woke up, I found it funny – three rather dim, bumbling stoner kids fumbling over finding the address of the pizza place where they worked, just to keep a girl on the line because they’re bored. But, as I wrote, Devon, Kent, and Cleve (though mostly Devon) became more sympathetic to me. Almost sad. And Tyne became much more playful.
The Dude is my all-time favourite stoner character from film, but Brad Pitt's Floyd, from "True Romance", did come first.
I wrote this down in a rush, mostly just to get it down…though, again, I’m not entirely certain as to why. I guess it just felt nice to write freely and straight from the pen, without worrying over craft or thematic meaning.
by Mayumi-H | Mar 31, 2012 | Fearless, Process, Uncategorized
I wonder how many writers out there are like me, and keep relatively close at hand previous drafts of passages, scenes, pages, or even chapters? For every story I write – even those 100 word challenges – I keep a separate document, where I drop all of the phrases, sentences, and paragraphs that don’t end up in the final draft. Some of these “unused” documents are small, of course, but others are hundreds of pages long. When I was writing 1 More Chance!, I put entire scrapped chapters into that standby document…!
Most of the time, what goes into the scrap heap stays in the scrap heap, but, on occasion, I go back to the well. Sometimes I do this just because I’m bored, and it’s interesting to see what I’ve edited out. But sometimes, I’ll pick up some discarded piece of prose and find a new use for it, with a new group of characters or a new situation. (Does this mean I’m plagiarising myself?)
A “draft” of any of my stories will usually undergo a great deal of change from inception to completion. That’s not to say that I don’t know what’s going to happen in beginning, middle, and end. But the plot (especially for the longer stories) will jump from Point A to Point D to Point G, before moving on to the originally-planned Point B. Even Fearless has done that, a little bit, and I’ve known since the first sentence how that one is going to progress.
I suppose that all of this has to do mostly with the fluidity of stories. It’s not an issue for me, despite what you may glean from the above musing. I just wonder if I’m the only one who holds on to everything to come before. Not that I’m going to change the way that I write. I mean, I like letting the characters and situations take over, for a while. After all, doesn’t that help to make the writing true?
by Mayumi-H | Mar 24, 2012 | Process, Uncategorized
Like all of my posts, this is just my personal observation, about my own writing and editing habits. But, I’ve found time and again that this particular habit of mine could be used by others.
As writers, many of us are used to creating on deadline. There are few greater reasons to finish a project than a circled date on the calendar. But I think that many of us also have a desire to have our work seen, read, and appreciated. That’s normal, right? What a lot of writers often do, though, is jump that gun, and publish (online, usually, but I’ve seen it happen in print, too) without really looking at what’s been written.
Take a note, fellows: Take a breath, put the manuscript (or article, or drabble, or blog post) aside, and just walk away. Not for always, not for forever, not to forget about it entirely. But put it away, for at least a day, before you press “Send” or “Publish” or “Okay.” And for your day of freedom from that manuscript, take a walk, play a game, whip up for yourself and your stud-muffin a big, home-cooked meal. Do something – anything – to get away from those words you’ve put down on paper. I guarantee that, when you do come back to it the next day, you’ll see it with fresh eyes.
Because that’s what’s really important: seeing your own work as everyone else will see it: new.
Our brains have a tendency to fill in the gaps when we’re writing and reading, especially our own work. We’ll auto-correct our own mistakes, if you will. Especially if that work is still actively bouncing around in our brains. But if we leave it alone for a while (at least overnight), when we come back to it, we catch all kinds of simple, stupid mistakes. Those mistakes often separate a gifted writer from a disciplined one.
I’ve had a lot of students bring me work that I know they finished in the last minutes before showing it to me. They’re not fooling anyone. The rush shows. So I tell them the exact same thing I’ve mentioned above: take a step back, leave it alone for a while, and then come back and read it with new eyes.
Now, I’m guilty of the rush job, myself. Whenever I finish a post or a chapter, I’m always chomping at the bit to get it seen. Because I want people to read. I want people to tell me what they think. I want the approval…! But I’ve learned that it’s better for me – and better for my readers – if I just relax and follow my own advice to my students:
Don’t rush it. Leave time to set the work aside, and come back to look at it later, when the mind’s recovered from all of those bouncing, beautiful words. Trust me. You’ll be doing yourself a favor.
by Mayumi-H | Mar 12, 2012 | Process, Uncategorized
I’m going to be honest. My husband – whom I love – has not read anything of mine since our uni days. Articles, short stories, drabbles, novellas, monstrous works of fan fiction: they’ve all gone unseen by his eyes.
He’s not the only one in my family who doesn’t read my work, of course. My parents are probably afraid to know what I write, and my in-laws don’t want to spend much time around my husband, let alone me, so they’re out of the loop, as well. My sister reads my work occasionally, but she has a family of her own, and our tastes don’t exactly match up. I have an aunt who takes an interest from a creative standpoint, but even her feedback is very general, and I get the impression that she’s being supportive of my writing simply because I’m following my muse, not because she thinks my work is good. And the girls…well, let’s just say they’ve got more primal interests (food, naps, playtime) on their minds.
So, I often get left to ponder and second-guess myself whenever I put down more than a few words on a piece of paper.
Now, I’ve spent most of my life huddled up at my desk, scribbling or typing away the words of my imagination, so I’m used to the solo aspect of writing. And, for some of it, I wouldn’t want anyone to see. It’s for me alone to read, like a personal journal expressed in fictional characters and adventures. Or, it’s just plain bad. So, I can’t really complain about that.
But the husband thing… The husband thing bothers me.
This is my mate. The person whom I’ve chosen to lean on when times are tough. Not sharing something so integral and personal to me such as my writing feels like I’m keeping a secret from him. A secret that I want so badly to tell.
When we first started dating (and I hesitated to use that word, since our relationship was not your typical pick-up, go to dinner and a movie situation), I made the utterly stupid mistake of showing him some of my younger work. That stuff was terrible, and I’m certain that that is what soured him to my fictional musings. But I’ve grown so much since then…! And I want to be able to talk with him about this part of my life which is so important.
So, I write away, tapping at my laptop and note-taking machine that on rare occasion doubles as a telephone, and I wonder how to get him to open up to what I do. He says he’d like to read my stories…but I don’t want it to be like mowing the lawn or taking out the garbage. I don’t want this to have to be a chore for him. I want his support. I want him to know what I’m capable of doing. But I feel like he needs to come to it willingly. I’ve even given him the easy out of just reading some of my 100-word drabbles. “They’re only a hundred words,” I tell him. “You can read them in less than a minute!”
But, no.
He does support my writing in other ways, of course. When I need to work without distraction, he lets me do so. He takes care of the girls, handles the chores, whatever, so that I can lock myself away and get down to some serious writing. But I don’t think he’s ever actually read anything that I’ve created in the last ten years.
He’s my husband – whom I love – and I don’t want to give up on this. But maybe it’s time I do so.
by Mayumi-H | Mar 2, 2012 | Persona 4 Fan Fiction, Songbirds, Uncategorized
“Adaptation” is a short Doctor Who–lite story I wrote for the one-off characters of Sally Sparrow and Larry Nightingale, as presented in the television series episode “Blink” (Series 3, episode 10).
Nothing like a romantic little one-off, eh?
I fell in love with this pairing almost immediately, and I’ve written about them more than once. “Adaptation” was my attempt at drawing parallels between classic literature and personal relationships.
It’s not often that readers entirely “get” what I’m trying to do with my stories…but, sometimes (occasionally; rarely), a sharp, clever reader will absolutely nail it. The feeling of elation I get when that happens can last me for days.
Reader Rokesmith wrote:
This is my favourite of your Songbirds stories. It says such wonderful things about these two incidental characters and the relationship that sadly we only got a glimpse of. But mainly, I like it for what it says about relationships, Sally’s slow uncovering of Larry’s deep rooted insecurities about how an introverted geek is supposed to maintain a relationship with a bright, beautiful girl with whom he shares very few interests. This is something I imagine a lot of geeks find themselves confronted with in relationships at some stage, which is why the resolution is so touching: Sally’s gentle but inescapable affirmation that no matter what their differences in interests and dreams, they love each other and that’s what’s important. And it’s all brilliantly tied together by a comparison to ‘Sense and Sensibility’ that fits so well with Sally herself. A perfect meeting of Doctor Who, classic literature and compelling romance, which is everything this pair should be.
Of all of my fan fiction outings, I think I love my Songbirds series the best. It’s not nearly the most popular, either for the pairing or in general, but the stories are very simply about two people romantically entwined. There’s no grand adventure they undertake, beyond that of life and love. Though, in some ways, that’s the best adventure of them all.
by Mayumi-H | Feb 27, 2012 | Fearless, Process, Uncategorized
I’ve been told that one of the qualifying rules of a good romance is that it has to have a happy ending, where the hero (or heroine) gets the guy/girl (or whatever couples permutation the romance takes) in the end. But who decides what makes an ending happy or not?
I enjoy a fine romance, myself. Or, at least, I enjoy examining the relationships that exist between people, whether they be family, friends, or lovers. (Enemies count here, too, I suppose, but they don’t exactly fit into my topic of romantic relationships.) Just as relationships come in many forms, though, so, too, does what constitutes the “happy ending.”
Disney-fied romances tend to happy-end with the heroine (it’s usually the heroine on the quest) marrying the hero, the man of her dreams. Tragic romances, of course, end with the hero and heroine falling in love but then losing each other in some way, usually death. (Here it could be said that death ends all love affairs, whether successful or not, but that’s a topic for another day.) For my own tastes, I like seeing the hero and heroine finding happiness…but what brings happiness to one couple might be very different for another.
Ross, the hero of my (first? real?) novel, Fearless, starts out a rather typical self-centered young man, who finds himself falling completely in love with a girl, for whom he’d overcome damn near anything. (And he’s got to overcome a lot, over the course of the story. But then, that’s where the title comes in.) But sometimes the happy ending for which many of us long just…isn’t what’s meant to be. Life gets in the way; events interrupt. And people change. A hero should change for the better, through his story, and whatever his quest may be: a challenge from the heavens, a challenge from a rival, a challenge from without or even within. But even a changed hero sometimes just doesn’t fit into the stereotypical happy ending.
For the characters in this book, being fearless is about more than just facing up to the challenges that block your path to the happiness you seek. It’s also about letting go, even when it hurts you more than anything.
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