I’ve been blocked on Tayce and Mattie. The sad thing is that I know exactly what I want to happen in Tayce, but when I try to write it, it sound stilted and pathetic. The other problem I’m having with Tayce is trying to show relationships between the characters. I want to slowly indicate her changing relationship with Henry: from distrust and dislike to grudging respect to trust to friendship. There are major events that spark each change in that relationship, too. I also am having trouble showing Cotter’s jealousy at this new, blossoming friendship between Tayce and Henry. I also have a large chapter where Cotter’s creation is finally revealed — and the only way I can think of doing it is with flashback, and flashbacks are a PAIN. I always think when I write in-scene flashbacks they are kinda cliche, you know, “cue fade-in” kind of stuff.

ANYway, I decided to try and get my writerly juices flowing again, I’ll try to write a short story with Morgan (in the timeline, the short story is before the novel). I’ve been meaning to write a few short stories, I need to practice with them — and maybe I’ll learn to tighten my writing if I write some short stories — and I wouldn’t mind sending them off to magazines and having something published. ??:

I really like how I began the short story, so I decided to add it here as a snippet. Enjoy!

The crow flew low to the ground, following the coastline of the mainland. The beach was called Mariner’s Dream, but it was a craggily and uninviting beach, and a man-made one. The coastline was jagged and there was coarse sand between large pebbles. This was not a beach meant for walking barefoot; one had to wonder what kind of dream the mariner had to create a beach like this. Every once in a while, the crow passed a large beach house built just before the beach with large windows that gapped at the water, as if still disbelieving that the coast had come to Arizona.

The crow veered away from the beach to fly a straight line towards the pier that jutted out like a tumor. It flew so close to the water that for a moment it looked like the crow’s feathers could break the water’s surface, but at the last moment it banked and beat its wings to gain some altitude. There was something in its foot, kept tucked close to its body, and the crow carried the object with care. It was a small pier meant for the wealthy who bought their beach houses on the fake beach to moor their yachts, speed boats, schooners, and sailboats. There were about a dozen of them, and nestled amongst them, like a wolf amongst the sheep, was an old PT boat. Although the guns and torpedoes were hidden by white sheets so the boat looked more like a sheep itself, the straight-cut, no-nonsense lines of the PT boat belied its purpose. It was well-kept, the paint was still white even if it had faded a bit, and it rocked gently in the water. On the side, in red paint and block letters, was written Attila.

The crow landed on the railing and settled its feathers. It kept the one foot tucked up so it looked like a small, black flamingo. One black eye watched the young woman lounging on a lawn chair. She had a newspaper and was chewing the back of her pencil. She glanced up when the crow landed, then went back to her newspaper.

Her name was Morgan and she was the captain of the Attila. She knew that single crows were bad omens, but she had never believed in superstition. She sighed and said, “Five words, ‘a type of influenza that, in the year 2025, jumped from chickens to humans and killed thirty-one percent of the population in Counterbell, Iowa.’ Damn, history was always my worst subject.”

The crow cocked its head and said, “Avian.”

Warning: I haven’t edited anything yet. So sorry about any grammar errors, etc.

1:48 pm | Category: Morgan, Writing | |

Leave a Reply