Writing at last again!

Hello Bloggers! Long time no write, well at least for me. I am sorry for disappearing on you, but I needed to focus on my life for a little bit. I took a trip home just in time to be with my sister when she had her baby. It's a baby boy, Lathan. I am so happy for my sister and her fiance. He's the cutest baby ever, if I say so myself : )

Anyway onto the writing talk: I haven't written anything in a good three months almost. There was one day where I wrote 200 words or something like that, but I didn't write for many days after that. However, I can finally say I have written over 3,000 words in three days and I finished my short story. I have five days to edit it before I must turn it in. Maybe I will post it on here later. Now I just need to start working on my novel again...Well that's all I have to say for now.

I hope you are having luck writing and finding the inspiration you need.

Short Story Sunday

After work, I rushed home to get changed. Riley said she’d pick me up at 10:30 and the clock on my nightstand said it’s 10:15.Tonight is my first night out as a free woman, so I threw on an outfit that he never let me wear in public; a mini skirt and a blue midriff baring tank top. Then I overloaded my makeup, another thing he wouldn’t approve of. Tonight is my personal screw-you-outing. Too bad he wouldn’t see me.  I should be happy he could no longer tell me what to do, but the girl in the mirror looking back at me wasn’t smiling. Her eyes looked dead.

My hand paused on the doorknob when the hallway floor creaked. Pressing my ear up to the door, I listened as Momma walked down the hall and out the front door; starting her nightly drinking routine right on schedule. I rushed to the window to see who gave her a ride to the bar tonight, a silver Taurus pulled out of the driveway, Rob’s car. Rob was one of Momma’s many drinking buddies.

As I watched the Taurus drive away, a blue Kia pulled up. At that moment, my phone started singing. My heart stopped at the sound; it was his ringtone. No longer able to control my body, my hands flipped open my phone. “Hello,” I whispered. Clearing my throat, I tried again, “hello,” I said louder and more clear.

“Hey I was just calling to see how you’re doing?”

See how I’m doing? Umm hello you broke up with me last night. How do you think I’m doing? To him I said, “I’m great, never been better. In fact I’m going out tonight with some friends.” Calling Abby a friend was way over exaggerating the truth, but he didn’t need to know that. Riley walked up the porch steps.

“That’s good. Where are you going?”

I opened the door before Riley could knock and held up my finger to let her know I’d be right there. “To a party.” And just to be petty I said, “I’m wearing a sexy outfit you’d never let me wear. Because I can do that now since we’re you know, just friends,” sarcasm dripped from my mouth.

He didn’t say anything at first. I thought maybe he hung up. He used to do that when we argued. “If you want to dress like a whore,” he said in a low-pitched voice, “that’s your problem.” Did he just call me a whore? My face grew hot.

“You’re right that is my problem.” Riley honked her horn telling me to hurry up. “Well I’d love to stay in chat, but I have people to see, alcohol to drink, and boys to makeout with. Goodbye friend.” I hung up before he could say anything back to me. My phone immediately began ringing again. I hit ignore and turned it off.

“Wow chica you look hot!” Riley said when I climbed into her car.

“Thanks.” My heart still beat rapidly from his phone call. How dare he call me a whore? He’s the one who broke up with me. I know it was for someone else, even if he denies it. At first I wanted to go to the party to forget him, now I wanted to drink to prove that I can do what I want. He’s no longer the boss of me, the stupid pig.

“So you want to tell me what’s going on?”

“What do you mean?”

“Come on Lexi, you don’t drink.”

“How do you know,” I raised my eyebrows.

Riley sighed. “Because I’ve worked with you for three years and I’ve never known you to drink or go to any parties for that matter.”

“Yeah. Well, things change. So where’s this party anyway?” I asked, trying to change the subject. Riley just stared at me with her big brown eyes. “Ugh, fine we broke up, okay. I just want to have some fun and forget about him for a while.”

“I’m sorry. Do you want to talk about it?”

“Not really.” I looked out the window, watching the streetlights pass, my way of saying I’m done talking.

“The party’s  at Ryan’s brother’s house near OSU campus. And let me tell you, he has some H-O-T roommates. A few seconds with them and you’ll forget all about what’s his name.”

“Sounds perfect.”

Short story Sunday

Here’s a couple hundred more words. I planned on writing a little more for this week since I skipped last week, but I got caught up in editing my novel. I also decided instead of posting the same part every week and then adding the newer part at the end, I am just going to post the newer part. When the story is completed, I will post the entire thing together in one post.

Well, here you go:

Work was going to suck tonight. I’d call off, but one of us had to be responsible in this household and I knew Momma couldn’t be counted on for that. On top of everything else, I refuse to be homeless. Pulling myself out of bed took all my energy, but I did it.

The guy at table 254 looks like him. I did a double take to make sure it was all in my head. Walking by again I noticed his nose was too long and his face too short. This guy also looked a little older. The guy looked up and smiled at me, probably saw me staring and thought I liked him or something. Too bad I’m dead inside, poor guy didn’t stand a chance. After picking up some empty plates off another table, I hurried back into the kitchen to hide.

Sarah, Abby, Laurie, and Riley all huddled together, talking quietly in the vestibule. “Hey girls what are we talking about?”

“Ohh nothing, just a party we’re all going to after work,” Laurie said in a tone, which implied I wouldn’t be interested.

“Really? Cool, can I come?” Four sets of wide eyes stared back at me, as if I spoke a different language.

“I don’t really think it’s your type of party,” Abby said.

“Why’s that?”

“There’s going to be drinking and other things you’re probably too innocent to comprehend.” The other girls nodded their heads in agreement, except Riley. She looked like she wanted to smack Abby as much as I did.  

I smiled sweetly at her and said, “what’s the matter Abby? Afraid I can drink you under the table?” Riley laughed as Abby glared at me.

“Let’s find out,” Abby smirked. “We’ll see you tonight, if it’s not past your bedtime.”

“Great, I’ll see you there,” I said cheerfully. Challenging Abby was stupid. She’s like the head cheerleader at work and if she doesn’t like you then your life can be a living Hell. All of the younger girls flock to her side whenever she’s working. Good thing I’m numb on the inside and don’t care what Abby thinks, I just need to get out of my head and going to a party seems like the perfect distraction. At least I wouldn’t be stealing from Momma tonight.

Short Story Sunday

I’ve always wondered what makes a person go mad. Now I know the answer and I wish to God I didn’t. After watching my momma drink her life away every night after my daddy left us, I told myself that could never happen to me. If I only knew one day I would eat those words. So what makes a person go insane; love does or rather the loss of love. At only eighteen years old, the loss of my first love turned me into a mad woman.

“We’re done.” That voice once so loving and full of warmth now sounded cruel and cold. No explanation just those heart-wrenching words.

My response stuck as thick sobs clogged my throat. My mind tried to comprehend what his words meant. We’re done. As in we’re over? It was only supposed to be a break. He said by Monday everything would be back to normal. We would be back to normal.

“Is there someone else?”

“No. But if there were I wouldn’t tell you.” Again that cruel, cold voice answered me. What am I supposed to think? Of course there’s another girl. That must be the reason the perfect couple that was us is now pieces in the form of my heart scattered on the floor.

Silence.

“We can still be friends.” Friends? We were passion. We were soul mates. We were a freaking love story that would go down in the history books and now we were—friends?  

“Okay. Sure. We’re friends.”

Two hours later I’m chugging my first bottle of Malibu, desperately trying to forget him for just a few hours.  I knew better than to drown my sorrows in alcohol, but at that moment I didn’t care. I stole the bottle from mom’s secret stash in her closet. Using an empty shoebox to hide your liquor isn’t very creative.  I felt like I needed to teach her that lesson. As I continued to drink my vision blurred and the room spun around me, but his face still haunted me. How do you just forget about someone who’s been a part of your life for the past three years? You don’t.  That would be like losing an arm and pretending you didn’t feel the missing appendage. It was a part of you. You don’t get over losing a part of yourself in a day. It takes time and therapy; in my case self-medicating with the rum bottle until I passed out.

I woke the next morning with someone grabbing onto my shirt collar and violently shaking me.

“Lexi wake up!” I opened my eyes to see my mother’s face in mine. When she noticed my eyes opened, she stepped back and picked something up off the floor. “Did you drink some of my liquor last night?” She held the empty Malibu bottle in her hand.

My head pounded and the sun silhouetting her in light hurt my eyes. “If you didn’t want me to drink any of your alcohol then maybe you should hide it better.”

“Don’t get smart with me. I outta whip your butt for stealing from me.”

“Lay a hand on me and see how long I stick around to take care of you,” I threatened. Momma was hopeless without me and she knew it.

“Get up and go replace the bottle you stole from me.”

I chuckled as I covered my eyes with my hand. “I’m underage. No one is going to sell alcohol to me.”

“You should have thought of that when you decided to steal from me.”

Sitting up I took in momma’s appearance. Her dark hair hung in strands around her face. Her blue eye shadow smudged around her puffy eyes. Her black slip dress had some kind of white stain on the hemline. No wonder she just now came into my room, she was out all night at the bar.

“Tell you what momma, when you stop spending our bill money at the bar then I will replace your alcohol.” Momma stared at me in surprise for a moment then she waved her hands at me as if I wasn’t worth the argument as she walked away. I listened to her footsteps until I heard her bedroom door close. After drinking a couple more beers, she would sleep the rest of the day.

It took me a moment to remember why my insides felt like they were scooped out with a spoon.  For the first time I could sympathize with how momma felt when daddy left. I’m surprised she didn’t laugh in my face and joke about me no longer being perfect. For all the lectures I ever gave her about drinking; I turned into a hypocrite overnight, but I didn’t care. Hollow, empty, and numb; that’s all I felt.

Short Story Sunday

It’s short story Sunday again. The Last week’s paragraph is reprinted first then the new stuff is in italics. Every week I will continue to add to it. Enjoy!

I’ve always wondered what makes a person go mad. Now I know the answer and I wish to God I didn’t. After watching my momma drink her life away every night after my daddy left us, I told myself that could never happen to me. If I only knew one day I would eat those words. So what makes a person go insane; love does or rather the loss of love. At only eighteen years old, the loss of my first love turned me into a mad woman.

“We’re done.” That voice once so loving and full of warmth now sounded cruel and cold. No explanation just those heart-wrenching words.

My response stuck as thick sobs clogged my throat. My mind tried to comprehend what his words meant. We’re done. As in we’re over? It was only supposed to be a break. He said by Monday everything would be back to normal. We would be back to normal.

“Is there someone else?”

“No. But if there were I wouldn’t tell you.” Again that cruel, cold voice answered me. What am I supposed to think? Of course there’s another girl. That must be the reason the perfect couple that was us is now pieces in the form of my heart scattered on the floor.
Silence.

“We can still be friends.” Friends? We were passion. We were soul mates. We were a freaking love story that would go down in the history books and now we were—friends?  

“Okay. Sure. We’re friends.”

Short Story Sunday

I want to try something a little different for today’s post. As a way to share my writing with you, my awesome followers, I am going to start posting my short stories here. But I am not going to post the whole story at once, because to be honest I won’t have the whole story written yet. This will force me to work on something besides my novel I’ve been reediting. It will also keep me from going insane from working on my novel.

How it works

Here’s how Short Story Sunday is going to work. Every Sunday I will post a little more of my short story. Today I am going to make it easy and start with the opening paragraph I’ve written. Hopefully it will entice you to want to read more. Because I want to be a Young Adult/Children’s writer each story will deal with this genre.

I encourage you to share your ideas with me. I might make some of these suggestions for the next part of the story. Without further ado, this week’s story:

I’ve always wondered what makes a person go mad. Now I know the answer and I wish to God I didn’t. After watching my momma drink her life away every night after my daddy left us, I told myself that could never happen to me. If I only knew one day I would eat those words. So what makes a person go insane; love does or rather the loss of love. At only eighteen years old, the loss of my first love turned me into a mad woman.

Exciting news!

Chuck Sambuchino, one of Writer’s Digest’s editors held a contest in celebration of his new book coming out, Red Dog/ Blue Dog. All you had to do is comment on his post. He would pick three commenters at random to win one of his books and a free query critique. Also, if you tweeted about his contest, you can send him the first 10 pages of your manuscript and he will edit it. I jumped at the chance for a query critique because as you know I have been struggling with mine.

Yesterday I opened my email and saw a message from Chuck letting me know that I’m one of the lucky winners! I couldn’t believe it! The best part is there is no time limit on the query critique. I can send it to him a month or a year from now.

I also decided I want to attempt writing short stories. It will be a challenge. This may sound strange, but I’ve never actually written one before. I played with my own writing prompt the other day and realized I didn’t have to write a novel every time to express myself. I can then post my stories on my blog or somewhere online for free to see how the public views my writing. I will still write in the Young adult genre, maybe dabble in MG because that’s the type of professional writer I want to be. Literary magazines publish short stories all the time. It would be a great way to get my name out there.

Have you written any short stories? If so, do you find them more or less challenging than writing a novel?