Time traveling pasta

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See this innocent-looking box of pasta? I bought it at the grocery store about a month ago and put it in my pantry for emergencies. Not my normal brand, but it was cheap.

I’m a label reader. Before I opened the box I automatically checked the expiration date.

I was so surprised by what I saw that I had to show it to my husband after I read it 3 times.

This box of pasta expired nearly 7 years ago. October of 2010, to be exact!

Now I know the store is VERY careful about pulling expired merchandise, which means…

TIME TRAVEL DOES EXIST!

But who, or what, is doing it?

Was the pasta sent here as a test? An experiment with an inanimate object to make sure all was safe before a human jumped through time?

Or is that box of pasta the beginning of an invasion?

If I hadn’t checked the expiration date, I would have tossed those noodles straight into a pot of boiling water.

The water would have reanimated the noodle creatures, setting them free and allowing them the flexibility they’d need to take over the world.

Bwa ha ha ha!

I can see them now. Slimy creatures that creep through each neighborhood, intent on destroying any non-wheat based creature that gets in their way.

Shiver!

We can’t let it happen.

We’ve got to band together and check those expiration dates.

It’s the only way we can stop the noodle invasion.

 

Treasure Trove (working title)

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A few months ago I had every intention of starting a new screenplay. I thought through characters, plot, themes, and even a twist or two.

Then I dropped the ball. Not only did I not start the screenplay, but I failed to write down even a sentence to remind myself of all that brain work I’d done.

When life got exciting most of what I’d worked out got shoved out of my head. POOF, gone!

So today, I began again. It isn’t much, but it is enough to get me going. I think instead of my normal outline-like-crazy method I’ll just go with the flow. Any mistakes I make I can fix in the rewrites.

Excerpt:

INT. AMUSEMENT PARK RIDE – DAY
Water ride filled with robotic characters, trunks full of fake jewels, and a constant line of rider-filled boats.

AUDREY, 20s, on a mission to have fun, grips the bar and grimaces as the boat halts beneath a huge beam that has been made to look like it will crack any second. The BEAM CRACKS, shifts downward toward the riders’ heads, the boat moves on just in time. Audrey and several other riders scream.

Audrey breathes a sigh of relief and relaxes as the boat glides gently past plastic replicas of forest creatures and trees. The boat goes around a corner and into a cave scene with trunk after trunk overflowing with rings, necklaces, and jewels of all sorts that sparkle in the spotlight.

A flash to Audrey’s right nearly blinds her. She throws up her left hand to shield her eyes. The boat jolts and drops as they go over a waterfall. Audrey panics and throws her hand sideways to grab the side. The RING with a red stone on her finger slides off, flies across the water, and CLATTERS into the treasure trunk.

Audrey screams at the drop. Water splashes everywhere. Audrey wipes the dirty water from her eyes and looks at her empty finger. More panic as she pats her surroundings for the ring.

She glares at the woman who had used a flash, but the woman ignores Audrey as the woman posts a selfie to her social media.

Gnats and the police

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I was visited by the police yesterday.

Seems the neighbor behind me called them because, in his mind, I am harassing him. (Read the Lavender and ground cover post to see how I’m supposed to be making his life miserable.)

The police and I chatted for a bit while I told my side of the story. Then I asked what the neighbor thought I had done that warranted a phone call to the police.

They told me that his car had been ticketed for being illegally parked. He was furious and sure that ticket was proof that he was the victim of harassment. By me.

As if I had any pull whatsoever with the City of Seattle.

If you could see me you’d see a woman shaking her head in confusion. I’ve heard of people not taking responsibility for their own actions, but…

Never mind. Our back fence is now installed, so with any luck we’ll rarely have to see the gnats that live in the house behind us.

Because that’s what they are, gnats. Whatever their agenda is, I want no part of it.

So I’ll do what I always do with gnats. I’ll ignore the pesky little things. They’re not worth the brain power it would take to think of them.

Of course, they may believe ignoring them is a form of harassment.

Wouldn’t that be funny!

Lavender and ground cover

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We bought this house a little over 2 years ago, and we’ve been working hard to fix up every inch of it.

Our project this summer was the great outdoors. Or at least, our small portion of it. So we took down the old, ugly fences and built new ones. Then we bought tons of plants and planted our little hearts out.

One area we planted is a 10 ft wide strip of land located between our backyard and the street. It’s an odd little strip of land that leads nowhere but to our backyard. It was overgrown and ugly but before we planted anything I went to the permitting office to get the proper permit.

I’m a bit of a rule follower. I look up ordinances and laws and follow proper procedure. But that’s just me.

After waiting for nearly 4 hours I was told that the area was our planting strip, and therefore our responsibility. They said, “No permit needed. YOU MUST maintain that area.”

I wish they had given us a permit anyway, because the neighbor behind us, well, let’s just say he’s not cooperative. As soon as he heard we had plans to make the area pretty he began parking both his car and his trash cans there.

Skip to yesterday. While we were working in our backyard, the neighbor, his wife, and grown daughter popped over to chat.

First out of the daughter’s mouth was the accusation that I had been aggressive with her dad. Later in the conversation I discovered that he thought I had knocked too hard on his door one day, a year ago. I guess my super strength got away from me, because it had felt like a normal knock.

But wait, there’s more. The daughter then accused my family of targeting them because we’re racist. She also claimed we had made her parent’s home too unsafe for her to bring her two small children by for a visit.

Huh? In the 2 years we’ve lived here we’ve talked to the man maybe half a dozen times. I thought it was all pretty friendly. So either my very voice sounds threatening to him or it’s all about the planting strip. But that still doesn’t make sense, because how does planting ground cover and lavender make us racist or add danger?

The conversation lasted much longer than it should’ve, with the man repeatedly saying we needed to compromise. His version of compromising meant we would do exactly what he wanted.

But wait, there’s even more. We were then accused of stealing from them, and by the end of the conversation we had also been called crazy and childish.

To round it all out, they ended the conversation by saying they planned to sue us.

I still don’t know over what.

And all the while the man kept saying, “I want to be a good neighbor.”

Too bad he doesn’t know what that means.

Fixin’ up the house

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Every summer we do something to make our house better. This summer one of our projects is the front fence.

It took a whole month to decide on the style of fence, to design it, and to make all those little decisions that would make the fence our own. Luckily for me, my husband enjoys doing things like that so all I had to do was make a few suggestions here and there.

Then we built it. From scratch. Nothing came prebuilt, not even the flower boxes.

Here’s what the old fence looked like:

Not much to it and the neighbors said it had been there at least 30 years.

Here’s the fence we built.

I like it much better.

When an author gives you a book…

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…Please, please, please let her know you read it. Or you started it and didn’t like it. Or you’re planning to read it in ten years, when you’ve cleared out every other book you have piled up in your living room waiting to be read.

Whatever you do, don’t just say nothing, as if you don’t remember that the book exists.

Authors act tough, but in reality they are fragile creatures. They’ve sweated long hours and bared their souls to create that book.

The worst thing that could happen to it would be for it to fade away into obscurity. Because if the book is invisible, so is the author.

Silence is torture.

Which is why I was so happy when my sister called to talk about my newest book, Time Without, the other day. She chatted about the story, said how she would have ended it, and suggested a few new characters for future stories.

I appreciated every minute. To have her call and chat about the book was the best gift she could have given me.

Too often I give copies of my books to friends and family and I never hear another word about it. It’s as if when I hand them the book it slips sideways into a black hole and is sucked away forever, never to be seen or heard from again.

I don’t know if they read it and hated it, or simply threw it into the trash.  ‘Cause it must be one of the two or they’d have some sort of comment to make.

In the past I tried asking what they thought of the book, but that was so awkward I vowed to never do it again. It felt like I was on a fishing expedition for compliments, and I’ve never really liked compliments.

Sigh.

There are drawbacks to being a writer. I can’t help but imagine all the ways a reader might dislike my books. The book’s too long, too short, not exciting enough, too exciting, blah, blah, blah. You name it, I’ve probably thought it. And to make matters worse, my imagination never sleeps, even when I do.

So when an author gives you a book, read it or don’t. But whatever you do, respond! Throw that poor author a bone!

A crisp new novel

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My newest novel, Time Without, has been out about a week now.  I’m so excited!

There’s nothing like the thrill of a freshly published novel. So invigorating!

There was one troubling hiccup, though.

One of my daughters wanted to be supportive (thank you, sweetie!), so she bought a copy of Time Without on Amazon, even though she knew I’d give her one.

When it arrived she showed me what she had been sent. The book was tattered, torn, and dirty.  The box it came in appeared to be in great shape, so it wasn’t a packaging issue. But in no way did the new book she paid for look new.

She was so disappointed! And so was I.

I could replace her book easily enough, but cringed at the thought of some unsuspecting reader out there receiving a similarly beat up copy. Ugh!

I may not have control over everything about my books, but I know it reflects on me nonetheless. So I want to state for the record:

I am not, repeat NOT, a dirty, tattered, and torn book type of person.

So whoever played hockey with Time Without and then packaged it up and shipped it to my daughter, get a new hobby. Anyone who purchases a new book should get a crisp, clean copy, not one that is battered and bruised. End of story.

 

Mission, Method, Result

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The mission: Adapt one of my screenplays into a novel.

The method: Convince my brain that it’s not a screenplay, but an outline. I always outline my stories.

The result: Success! A rough draft ready for rewrites.

INT. CHILD’S BEDROOM – NIGHT
A THREE-YEAR-OLD TORI sleeps peacefully with an angelic smile. A mist forms, whisks over her forehead, and blows hair across her face. She wiggles her nose.
The mist blows her hair toward her ear. She scratches her ear and sticks her thumb in her mouth while flashes of red light dance on her face. In the distance is the CRACKLE of FLAMES.
The mist whips a strand of hair straight up toward the ceiling. She slaps at her head and turns over. CRACKLE of FLAMES gets louder and red flickers of light more steady. A thin haze of smoke surrounds three-year-old Tori, masking the mist.
Three-year-old Tori’s hair whips wildly. She opens her eyes, sits up, looks around with fear in her eyes.
THREE-YEAR-OLD TORI
Mommy?
Smoke pours in through the open door. It SLAMS SHUT.
THREE-YEAR-OLD TORI
(screams)
Mommy!

In an upstairs bedroom of the oldest house on the block an angel slept. Not the type of angel that hangs out in the clouds and flies around with wings, this angel had too much dirt on her feet to fly and thought clouds were pillows for airplanes. But the smile on her face was certainly angelic, and her grandmother almost always called her a little angel.
The angel’s name was Tori, and she was three years old.
As she slept peacefully in her bed, dreaming the dreams of the innocent, a mist formed over her and whisked across her forehead. Several strands of hair blew across her face, tickling her and causing her to wriggle her nose. But she slept on.
The mist, which seemed to have a mind, next blew Tori’s hair in such a way that the ends danced across her ear.  The hair ballet tickled enough to make her scratch her ear, but then she simply stuck her thumb in her mouth and sighed.
Flashes of red light danced on her face as in the distance the crackle of flames could be heard.
The mist now whipped a strand of hair straight toward the ceiling. Tori, still asleep, slapped at her own head and turned her face to the pillow.
The crackle of flames filled the room, as did a thin haze of smoke. The mist was no longer visible and the entire room glowed red.
Tori’s hair suddenly began to whip about wildly. Finally awakened, the child sat up and rubbed her eyes. As she looked around her eyes widened in fear. Her room looked alien, not at all like the room she had gone to sleep in. What had happened?
“Mommy?” the terrified child whimpered.
Smoke began to pour through her open door. It slammed shut.
“Mommy!” Tori screamed in fear.

Oops!

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About a month ago I came up with a new story idea.

I planned to write it into a screenplay, and I was rather excited because the leads were sisters. I spent days plotting and planning and talking ideas over with family members.

I almost had the entire plot worked out, including several twists, when my personal life exploded and all my routines were thrown out the window.

Don’t get me wrong, it was the good kind of explosion. But it did have the unintended consequence of knocking most of the plot right out of my head.

Because I did something I almost never do. I didn’t write it down. I kept telling myself that the precious little plot was safely locked away in my head and I could, at any time, write the whole thing out.

Only, now that I’ve got time to write it down, I’ve forgotten most of those little twists that I’d spent so much brain power working out.

Sigh.

So much for knowing better!

I love to make lists. They’re the best way I know to keep from missing any of the details.

I should have taken twenty minutes and created an outline, that oh-so-handy list of story points.

Shame on me!