Monday, May 25, 2015

God willing and the creek don't rise

Yes, I have plans for this week.
This story of mine needs to be put all in one place so I can start working on what needs to be added, what needs stringing together and what I can possibly do without.
There have been more words written, but I sincerely doubt it is near 85K. One of my best buddies loves to "write tight". But there is tight and there is "slight", which this may be.

First mistake, as I have mentioned time and time again, was writing out of sequence. A thought here, a bit more here, writing what I felt like writing at the moment...dumb, dumb, dumb. Stupidest thing ever for someone who is so linear. Granted, I did start this after the first cancer and wrote some of it between and then wrote some stuff while undergoing chemotherapy. Whoa! You oughtta see some of that crap! Or, no, really, not. It is such garbage, but I had to write something and until I totally went off into the time travel delusion/nightmare, the WWII story suffered.  Luckily, there isn't much of that garbage, but the time travel story...oh, Lordy.  Karyn says it is the absolute pits.
We shall see.
That, at least, is novella length.
Unfortunately, I wrote it in Livejournal and copied and pasted it onto paper. It did not do well. I would have to retype the entire story into the computer.  Oh, boy. Not fun.

So. Plans for this week:
Place the hard copy of the additional words into the proper stack of hard copy so I can locate it in the computer then copy and paste it where it should be. If I can find where it should be.  There may be things I have recently written that need their own chapter piles!

Dumb, dumb, dumb. If my mind is failing, I'd better hurry while I can still manage to handle this. I hope with concentration, I can get things in order. If not, I'm going to require the assistance of my artistic kid. Or the ultra-logical one who is hardly ever around. She did help with the initial hard copy sorting, so perhaps she can help with this.

Never, never, never again, Irene. You have had the entire story plotted for seven years. Yes, seven! You just need more words in the right places.
This is my most favorite story ever.

Ever.

Tuesday, May 12, 2015

Meet me again in Dreamland

She was about 17 or 18.  Popular, pretty, smart.
Perhaps too smart.
That's why they came for her, in the dark, searching outside the second story bedroom with lights and small flying drones, peering inside the two small windows on either end of the housetop.
They'd been by before, rising over the house across the street with their huge moon-colored ship, hovering without sound, suspended over the neighbor's house...waiting.
She'd seen them, the only one on the block to see that huge ship. No one spoke of it, no one in the tight little neighborhood had been awake.
Or perhaps, they slept in induced sleep, caused by them.

After the sighting came the calling.
Through dreams and echoing in her head to the point where she thought it madness.
But always, always quiet and urgent.
What would happen if she ignored the summons?

She did.
She hid.  She kept away from windows at night, not wanting to see that big ship, not wanting for them to see her.

They called.
She refused to answer.  She refused to allow them into her mind.

In dreams, they got her, but not for long.
Her mind refused to allow them control and she would awaken and force the thoughts from her mind.

Nights without sleep. Long summer nights of hiding.
Threats against her and her threats against them eventually must have worked.

The ship stopped hovering. Perhaps they had been seen by someone else. Perhaps they picked on someone more susceptible to their calls.
They are now only hauntings of her willful mind.
But, they are gone.