Writing Prompt 4

From Elite Writing Prompts Feb 1st.

Using these three words
envelope
orange
debate

write a short story or scene where you use the above mentioned words in one sentence.

I didn't really want to do one today, but since I didn't do anything else (plan to go back home got cancelled) and I didn't do it last week I knew I must today. These two girls have been running around in my head for the past two or three days. Jamie is the character from my 2008 Nanowrimo story and I'm thinking about rewriting because I have a different idea how to present it.

Petra was talking a mile a minute behind the wheel of her big sedan. I wasn’t listening to a thing she was saying but she knew that. That’s why she was talking. Her voice flew out the windows with the wind. The front windows were all the way down and the back two cracked to Petra’s precise specifications. Our hair did not blow in our faces. If we weren’t careful our cigarette butts came back in.

I chain smoked without realizing I did it and chewed my nails, squinting through the smoke. The warm day and bright sunshine and rich spring colors in the countryside around me went unnoticed. It had been six hours since Petra had high jacked me from the stool in my hometown’s favorite Bar & Grill, Avery’s. She had driven out from the city to see me and found me in an agitation that I could not precisely explain or shrug off.

She dropped herself onto the stool beside me and stared at me with her brilliant brown eyes, framed in glittering blue eye shadow. Her black hair fell shaggily around her ears and in her eyes and featured bright stripes of pink. This week. Her clothing was toned down for the day, only a simple pair of jeans and an over-washed vintage shirt, probably one stolen from her father’s stash. She was beautiful that moment she sat down beside me and that was what I had noticed most.

When she asked me what was wrong I just shrugged and said I needed a drive. She understood that fully and smiled her approval. We bought bottles of soda from Tom Avery Sr. and headed out to her car. I dumped my bag in the backseat along with my stash of art supplies from my pickup. I left my keys under the seat, the window rolled down and the door unlocked. I loved my small town.

We went hundreds of miles taking back roads and main roads through bigger towns and littler cities. We crossed county borders and then stat borders. We made our turning decisions based on an origami fortune teller I fashioned quickly from my drawing paper from my bag. When I finally got around to telling her what was going on she said she needed to stop for gas and smokes. She handed me some change and pointed me toward the payphone and told me to call him.

“James, where are you?” Tommy Avery Jr. asked me when he picked up the phone. “I have been waiting at your house for 20 minutes already.”

“I know, I’m sorry,” is all I could start with. I didn’t know for sure where I was, and even if I did, need I tell him?

“Are you on your way here, or what?” he asked with a hint of hopeful excitement that made me sad and angry and confused all at once.

“No, I’m probably not going to be able to make it back before dark,” I answered him vaguely. My last cigarette is broken so I finagle it back together with the phone stuffed into the crook of my shoulder.

His silence is thick as I flick my lighter flame on.

“Where are you?” he asked slowly.

“I don’t know, some gas station some where. I ran into Petra and we decided to take a drive. We just stopped for snacks so I doubt very much that we’re done yet.” I know how I sound.

“We were supposed to have our date tonight. Right now, in fact,” Tommy said to me.

“I know,” I answered. Not sadly, not angrily, not regretful. No emotion.

“And you left with Petra,” he asked. “Why?”

“I had to get out of town Tommy, just for a little while,” I told him as honestly as I could. Why did I have to get out of town? Would he ask me that, and would I answer as truthfully?

“Jamie, what is going on?” he asked me. I could hear Petra’s footsteps crossing the gravel behind me.

“It’s nothing. I’ll be home later, and I’ll stop by and we will talk. Listen I have to go.”

“No, no Jamie please,” he said. “What’s happened? Why did you leave town?”

“Tommy I can’t talk about it right now, not here in this phone booth,” I told him finally. “I will call you later.”

I hung the phone back up before I could hear another word from his end of the line. I put my face in my hands, careful to keep my burning ember out of my hair.

“You okay babe?” Petra asked.

“I feel like squishing his head like an orange, but I don’t know what to say to him,” I told her as I turned away from the booth. We started back toward the car. “Can we get an orange? I’ll tear it to pieces and send it to him and then that will explain everything.”

“While I am willing to debate with you the sense in putting an orange in an envelope, how about we talk about something else right now instead?”

“Something else like what?” I asked as I rubbed the ember out of my cigarette on the bottom of my shoe. I stuck the butt in my hip pocket. I looked around at the unfamiliar bit of country road where we had stopped to refill the gas tank.

“The beautiful gas station attendant who was willing to sell us cigarettes has given me directions to the hottest dance club in the city about 15 miles from here. If we get back on the road we can get there before the stores close. We’ll get a snazzy new outfit and then we’ll go dancing,” Petra peeled the cellophane off of the illegally purchased cigarettes and pulled one out. “How does that sound?” she asked as she lit one cigarette then placed it between my lips.

“I think I could use some dancing,” I agreed easily. Mindless jumping around and sweating seemed just the thing to get two idiot boys out of my mind. Tonight was to be all about Petra and Jamie, two girls with nothing on their minds but dancing.

Revising Sucks

... totally, completely sucks.

it's not writing. it's lame-o correcting.

here i sit at the coffee place with my au lait that tastes kinda like a cafe miel. and i have music and the screaming kids aren't even bothering me. all filled with super bright creative energy and ready to work.

but yesterday, oh yesterday, i started the fourth one. and it was shiny. because starting new stuff is fun.

but now i'm stuck here revising... blech...

My plan originally was for the sequel to take it one chapter at a time in the revisions. I realized that was idiocy when I saw how much more needed to be done to the whole story. So then i delayed my plan to take it a chapter at a time until i had a primary revision to work with and a clearer understanding of everything i wanted to say. Then, i would begin to take it a chapter at a time, and then i would be able to start posting the chapters on authors den which is the whole point in this venture from the very beginning and the reason i got myself gold membership.

but now looking at the first 4-ish chapters i realize i'm going to have to delay again. (a quote comes to me: "I can't afford any more delays and you're one of those fish that causes delays. Sometimes it's a good thing. There's a whole group of fish . They're delay fish.") The whole beginning is in the wrong order because I didnt know before how i wanted to present the start of everything. because the beginning is what leads to the middle, and the end comes after that, and thats where i want people to stop reading...

now i have a Plan for the first 3 chapters, plus the Unknown Chapter i wrote during revisions and have to break down and slip into the right places.

revising sucks, and this here coffee isn't exactly taking care of everything like it should...

...sigh... back to it i go...

Addition 4:17pm

i got no more than 2 pages done. haha. awesome.

then i found more ways to procrastinate, went shopping and got stuff for the dark tower wind chime. came home and wrote a crafty blog about it.

http://www.mycraft.com/restlesslyrandom/blog/2010/02/22/idea!!

and now i'm going to go clean my craft room. screw writing!!

Accomplishment

Today I did write "The End-ish" at the end of the spaceship story. Finally. It is as wonderful as I knew it would be, but also filled with the deep empty sadness of finishing, before the imagination void can be filled with the next project.

I am not complete unless I am making something I believe.

The next thing I have great desire to make is a Dark Tower wind chime. I peed myself with excitement with the very idea of it and it all came together so quickly that it was sort of startling and i could very much make it RIGHT NOW if only i had all the pieces.

but THIS is not my craft blog!

I spent two days of work revising my revisions of the prequel and doing addition writes and rewrites. Next is the process of attacking the first few chapters. I believe one day this week will be a coffee and writing day and that excites me.

as much as the hand spun crocheted wristers for the auntie mommy that i'm dreaming about

but dammit. not the crafty blog!!

And now, for the thing that made me happy today. I watched this silly gymnastic movie ONLY because jeff bridges was in it (I swear, you can't prove anything different) but this was the best part.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LxUZ0R00T1g&feature=related

wei wei on the balance beam might be my new favorite thing in the world. and i had to then add that song on my lala and the hilarity got me through my day.

Goin' Back To Work

Still totally bummed about my lamo crappy feeling weekend. And today I feel great, all full of bright and shiny energy. I know that if I were to walk into my craft room I would have the whole thing clean and orderly before Mr. Darcy's utterly charming "i love, i love, i love you."

But I decided today that The Prequel is going back to work with me today. It just feels right, and that's always how I know.

Another short post. There's a slice of cold pizza in the fridge calling my name.

Sara Feels Icky

It is not fair that sara has spent the last three days of her weekend feeling like crap and then tomorrow she has to go back to work.

Sara doesn't feel like writing today, so there will be no week 4 writing prompt today. Sara doesnt feel like doing much of anything with this stupid head ache, with this stupid studied disinterest in absolutely everything.

Sara may just go and read a little "Half Asleep in Frog Pajamas" to knock her out of her third person speech... perhaps a little second person will fix her right up...

Update: 5:53pm.

Sara just spent exactly 15 minutes cleaning her craft room. nothing really was accomplished, but it's more than nothing!