Cooking the Hook - NEW

The first text (in bold) was received 1.11.13 12:45am. (the words in italics were my responses. I have no idea who the sender was)   I hide the body can we eat it? No Nigga I burned it wtf Whats wrong wit u? Waste a good meat! I wont it Shit are you on bath salts? Bath Salts and Pepto...goes down smoooth No try it with Lyn youll get fucked up.  It'll help you to dont feel like you wanna eat human mea t. But I LIKES fresh flesh..mmm, tasty. All this zombie shit has made me a believer.  amen! Amen! Go to bed stupid zombie Aint a shieet you trippin zombie wasting words texting is  the leading cause of nut and brain shrivel, doncha know Gomer ? damn looks like someone is in a bad mood now So who was it you ate? Ill get you some meat so you can chill out stupid zombie Man how is life? Life  is long and hard if you dont mend your ways I need an advice from your smartself About? Be honest with me tho. No bs Best I can Sho...

The streetlights and the traffic light over the intersection stuttered once and failed when the truck glanced off the power pole at the crest of Main Street at the top of the quarter mile glide down into town. Engine dead, headlights blind, inertia carried it forward and gravity gave it wings. The sky’s blue hour pulled the last purple edge behind it and, with the glare of the streetlights gone, Bea looked up at the sweeping arc of stars aligned in the blackness over her head.  In the moments after the lights went out there was a three count before the fireflies and crickets struck up a round of applause and then fell back to the serious business of finding husbands and wives before dawn. from "Murders in Monkeytown" c. Deborah Lacativa 2014

Sticks & Stones  Gather wood against the weather Pile up stones against the sky String of lights like pearls between us And the heavens' blackest eye Tell the hour Go take another Go down Moses Without a fuss Taken to the Lawless water And send that later boat for us Chorus: Sticks and stones Blood ash and bone I shake the tree Swim out alone Turnin' over the dark Missouri Now that every new leaf I had Is gone Moon's near empty, a swinging saber Keeping every prayer at bay At the throat of love for ransom From the dull approaching day There's no law That rides this border No fences stretch this far To show How times will side Against another As one arrives and others go [Chorus:] Whores are dressed in fire and feathers On a beach, sit in a row Climb the bank through scrub and tinder Disappear where rabbits go They had nothing That I needed But I gave them All I had Just to share Some dirt between them As w...

(continued from) With so much strife going on in the US, not to mention the world, and my own ongoing melancholy, it was a pure pleasure to lose myself to the self I was in December, 1960 when the teleplay, starring Mary Martin first aired in dingy black and white. I tried showing a tape of the show to my sons when they were old enough but they were like fleas on a griddle and didn’t last ten minutes. Me neither.  I remember laying on the floor in the living room watching it on the big console TV that dominated the room, indeed, our lives. Beyond that I am shy of situational details – who was there, what I was wearing - the kinds of things I usually have plenty of. I was oblivious to the world because I was completely absorbed by the story. As overblown and self-indulgent as it remains, there were elements of the story that really got my eleven year old attention. Here was a family asunder and yet, the kids were the focus and they were having a hell of an adventur...

I had to save it. It was a good scene, hot as hell. Too hot. Hot but pointless. So I took it apart, line by line, threw out the ones that didn't serve and crafted new ones. I poured cold water on the lovers, retarded their spark and made the waiting serve the story. Ding.

Lately, whenever Inspiration and the Muse want to go  for a ride I  can't  find the damn keys. A friend said "get out and push it."

"Writing is like sex.   If you’re doing it right, you will not be thinking about success."  (From somewhere on the internet, font of all wisdom, right?) Wow. What if you are writing sex?   Damn.

"Using vintage fabrics in my art is a constant and welcome reminder of the character and original purpose of this cloth - beautiful utility. Old damasks and linens take to contemporary surface design techniques , such as dyes and resists, in unexpected and satisfying ways. This composition came about while waiting in my car in the winter sunshine outside the laundromat and observing several women inside go back and forth between heated arguing and companionable agreement as they watched their own laundry churning. "The fabrics of our lives" seemed to be the theme of the day for all of us." Artist statements have been the bane of my existence, but they are required for many exhibitions. Just LOOK at the shit folks!  This piece was juried into Art Quilt Elements in Philadelphia, PA and sold the last night of the exhibit. I miss it.

I knew he'd come. The same buttery moon who kissed me between the eyes last evening,  now probes my eyelashes from the blueblack of the west. I got up, shed my gown and stepped outside  to show him what a woman has to offer.  “Bring it braggart.” I said  and give him a twirl. Back inside, my husband was watching from the warmth of our bed. He pulled me in all chilled to points  and said “He'll have to wait his turn.”

It's not the first time it's happened, but I'm going to make sure that it's the last. While I was doing the dishes this morning a half dozen scenarios, threads of action and dialogue camped out briefly in my head. Rather than peel of those rubber gloves and take off after those ideas, I parked them in my brain. Right. And forget to set the parking brake. A busy, emotionally and physically taxing day passed and by the time I sat down here, all the birds had flown the coop. Next time I do the dishes (it's not a daily event) I'll make sure that the laptop is down in the kitchen with me. This is NANOWRIMO month. Rather than commit to pounding out what might be 50K of nonsense, I plan on culling the 110K that I already have and reading a couple of novels that have been on my list and celebrating someone elses  hard fought victories.  

Have I mentioned the fine pack of jackals that I run with twice a month? I used to think that being a visual artist working in textiles was a solitary pursuit, but stitchers  everywhere are finding ways to "bee" together. They gather in public places, gang up in each other's living rooms, or meet in the ether through the web. They knit, spin, crochet, quilt and embroid er  for each others edification, envy or the pure pleasure of just sharing. It's nice. There is nothing as solitary as writing. Long periods of being alone inside your head with your characters and your doubts will make you crazy. Getting together once and a while with similarly plagued individuals is both daunting and uplifting. We learn about the craft from the more experienced members of the group and take turns reading from our works in progress. It's a diverse bunch. We meet in a local, family style restaurant where we used to command a back room, but lately have had to share the space an...

Right there on that beach blanket cobbled together from my husband's old blue jeans. I have a radio plugged in, books and papers and stuff strewn along the edge, stuff weighted down with sweaty bottles of whatever. I stand in the water, armpit deep, and scribble long hand on whatever paper is laying around. The next morning I sit at the computer and decipher the scribbling. It's been going good lately and I'm wondering how this is going to work over at the public pool during the winter months. I'll probably have to go back to writing in the car. ______________________________________________ "She watches him play chess in the park with strangers. He is ruthless, but he loses as often as he wins. "Why don't you read the other player?" she said. "It wouldn't matter. Chess is a game of skill. There is no chance involved. The only way to lose is to let your emotions get in the way of logic. It happens, but the fight is always fair....

I was celebrating my blood pressure being normal for the first time in memory, at the grocery store, of course. I dumped everything out of the basket onto the belt at the register. The commander at this checkout was a 40ish woman with her red hair in braids and pale pink lipstick. She was either bold as hell or a time traveler. The bag boy, a very small teenager from somewhere in the middle east, name tagged "ELVIS", slouched at the end of the counter. Together we studied my choices; Doritos, raw cookie dough, two six packs of beer, a pound of roast beef, a bag of pizza rolls, salsa and a quart of coffee ice cream. "Looks like a frat party." she said "You got everything but the condoms". (Cue the rimshot ) "Aisle six." said Elvis. It was a three-way, silent eyeball showdown to see who would laugh first.  I lost. 

The two men sat at the kitchen table with a pound of compressed marijuana in chunks on sheets of newspaper between them. They were cleaning the pot and making up ounces in  baggies  by hand and eye . It was not their kitchen. So the guy says to me 'thirty bucks for an ounce?' And I say 'yeah, that's right.' So he says 'I only got two twenties.' And I say 'I got no change.' So he says 'Keep it.' and he takes the weed, but he gave me three twenties.  I swear I didn't notice until a half hour later. They look pretty real. Jack reached for a fresh  baggie  and said “That's your ineffable charm, Donald.” “In-eff-able ... unfuckable ?” “That's right, my man. Can  not  be  fucked .”  Jack said.  Donald looked down at the pile of weed he was picking at, wiggled his fingers and brightened.   "I'll use them to pay that parking ticket."

I am reporting from the Whine Mine on the day BEFORE the full Flower Moon - the moon of compassion and healing. I can't wait until tonight!!! The Scene & the Players: Young Miss-On-the-Job in upscale mall ragshop approaches three customers who are busily pawing through the piles of $50 graphic T's straight from the child labor sweatshops back East somewhere. Sig -MOMMA, per her neck tattoo (size 22, platinum teeth and a diamond studded ear piece blinking frantically) complains loudly and profanely to Young Miss-On-the-Job and her phone that there is nothing in this store in her size and it's DIZCRIMINASHUN!  Meanwhile, BUGZY (face piercings, bald head, giant plastic breasts) is busy at the T table stuffing stacks of shirts into her booster bag, but her erstwhile assistant/lookout, ANGELFACE (tiger face tats, three different colored wiglets and 2" red toenails hanging out her sandals) has fainted away under the same table - the drugs finally k...

A train of thunderstorms passed through the area  last night. Brief, violent and not wet enough. The power flicked off while I was wrapping up a long report for a customer. Whoopee! No power means I'm offline until it's restored. Of course, it also means I don't get paid for the missing time.  But, oh well, act o' god and all that. It was too early to sleep and I caught the bones of a good story while paddling around in the pool earlier in the day. I took a few notes at the time, but couldn't read them in the dim light so I just started from scratch scribbling away by candlelight. Five minutes into it,  I heard a huge splash from the pool and went out on the deck to investigate. A large limb fell from one of the overhangs and circled lazily with all the other tree trash that happens every night. The drizzle stopped, the clouds parted and a brilliant moon turned everything blue-white. I shut off the flashlight, took my tarot deck and went down ont...

" The Waterwitch " Now that I can hear them again, my characters are talking to me, talking to each other. Every he said and she said is a stepping stone forward. Dialog is the connective tissue that the story's flesh and bones have been missing. They wake me in the night.

HOLY CRAP! I watched our writing group leader line edit a chapter for one of the members the other night and I have been paralyzed at the keyboard ever since. I try to pass myself off as a tough guy, but now I know I'm made of glass. I need to get over myself. Taking time out for input only.

"Sometimes, when accepted and welcomed, divine wisdom and enlightenment flow freely like a calm river. The rest of the time, wisdom is blocked until it rages forth like a tidal wave and crushes anything in its path, including the recipient of the wisdom.  This is the energy of the Tower card, an energy very similar to Death in that it is both a destructive and a creative force. When a building is old and decrepit, it must be demolished so that a new structure may stand in its place." J. Rioux  I'm trying hard to not be crushed  (I'm a great floater),  but the words "kill your darlings" were never more true. I'm only glad that I won't continue polishing pearls without properly grading, setting and stringing them for a really effective outcome.  For the next week I can't even dwell on the revisions ; they  will only be happening inside my head. Family duties have to take center stage.  Thanks to TH, CL and a close revisit with " Shake...

That's what it feels like when all you have is a cool title and only a vague notion of what you are going to do with it. In the writer's group I belong to one member put forth the notion that all you get from an editor reading your manuscript is 250 words before they roll their eyes up in their heads and pitch it in the trash or hit "delete". I did some grubbing around on the web but couldn't find any yeas or nays to corroborate this, but it wouldn't surprise me. I won't let it bother me much either. Maybe I should have called this blog "Honing the Hook" but that sounds vaguely pornographic, which, given the genre I'm attempting, is not all that far off the mark. I was rummaging through old notebooks with the intention of not letting them go to waste when I found the dry leaves and the hard cash  in the notebook that holds the bones of my first two novels, both patiently waiting their turn while I get this one done.  I pissed the...