Too Familiar for Comfort

by Robin Layne

            While I was on the way to the dentist’s with a toothache, I saw this red-haired teenage girl on the bus. I thought she looked like Carletta, but I see a lot of girls who do. This one sat in the seat in front of me. She took a little book out of her backpack. To my surprise, it looked just like the journal I used to have, pink with cats all over it. Were they still making that journal? My sister sent me mine in the early ’80s. What was particularly amazing about this journal was that my character Carletta has one like it.

            I looked over her shoulder and saw her writing in the journal. The cursive was a bit messy because we were on the bus, but the best I could make out was:

            That Jack is dead meat! He’s harassed my boyfriend one too many times! I sure hope you don’t keep me from (illegible------) (illegible------).

As she wrote the rest of this sentence, her hand tightened around the pen. She stopped, lifting and dropping her shoulders with great sigh.

Another coincidence, I thought. In my story Carletta kills a football player named Jack Sloan for repeatedly harassing her boyfriend Hugh. If this were Carletta, I knew what the illegible words would be: “burying the body where it would never be found.” My imagination was surely running away with me, but I found myself staring at the girl in front of me. The way her hair flipped at the back and gracefully covered her neck was very familiar. When she turned her head to smile at a teen boy across from her, I noted how her freckles dotted the tops of her cheeks and, just like Carletta’s, were nowhere else to be found. She even wore sunglasses; Carletta did, too, because her eyes were so sensitive to sunlight. I almost expected to see fangs when she smiled, but it seemed that her hypnotism affected even me. Hypnotism? What was I thinking? This couldn’t really be Carletta. I invented Carletta.

            The first time I saw that character was in a dream years ago. I dreamed I was a teenage girl spying on her boyfriend, who danced on a restaurant patio with another girl. The temptress had short red hair, and she bit the boy in the neck and drank some of his blood. There was more to the dream. It laid out some of the plot of the story, enough to get me started. I filled in details from there, and, over a period of years, had written a whole novel. I named the teen vampire Carletta, and the boy she stole from the main character I called Hugh. In my novel, Hugh gets too caught up in her charms to notice the reports of missing persons and dead bodies in his hometown since she moved in. She continues to kill until she is stopped.

            The boy across the bus aisle looked up from his video game and caught the girl smiling at him. “Hey, Carletta!” he said.

            I felt my face flush. Surely I had heard wrong. You don’t run into a Carletta every day in the first place.

            “Wasup, pretty girl?” he said, leering.

            She slipped the diary and pen into her backpack again. She removed her glasses and batted her eyes at him—just like my character does whenever she wants to influence someone—and it looked like her eyes were gray like my vampire character’s, too. “Could you do me a big, big favor, pretty please?” she said with a grin.

            How many girls really talk like that? Carletta does, though.

            “Anything,” the boy said. He had brown curly hair and was wearing a football jersey—like the kid in the English class whom I never gave a name to.

            “Would you tell me where Jack lives?” she asked.

            “Just on my way there now!” the curly-haired boy said. “If you’re in for some action with us, I won’t tell Hugh.”

            I fell out of my bus seat, which set my bad tooth to throbbing. I cried out from the pain and the shock.

            Carletta turned and squinted at me. “What’s the matter with you, lady?” The unnamed boy was laughing.

            They got off the bus. Giving up on my dentist appointment, in spite of the pain, I got out and followed at what I hoped was a safe distance.

            It wasn’t.

            The boy pointed to a house on the right. Carletta looked back at me, and her hands went to her hips. She said something I couldn’t hear to the unnamed boy. He turned around and, to my amazement, pulled a knife out of his boot. I didn’t imagine the football player in my story would wear boots, much less a knife.

            “You can’t kill me!” I blurted out.

            “Why not?” he said.

            “It—it’s not in character for you,” I said.

            “How do you know?”

            Meanwhile, Carletta kept walking up the driveway to the house I assumed was Jack Sloan’s. This was totally crazy, but I felt I had to stop her. I turned to follow her, but the boy blocked my way. He advanced, holding out the knife. “You don’t know what I’m like. You never even bothered to give me a name.”

            How did he know that? More to the point, how could he be the high school boy I had invented?

            Before I knew it, he held the knife against my throat. I saw Carletta nodding at us from the driveway.

            “If you kill me, you’ll disappear,” I said to the boy.

            “How do you know?” he said. “Maybe we invented you!”

Glimpses of Past Rekindled and Shown Anew

There comes a time when people off all ages, given glimpses into their past, are given unique experiences whereby they are shown something magic. A glimpse of something spectacular, in childhood, or in their lives, never knowing what it is or from whence it came (only a sliver of perception/knowledge by which to glean), and manifested through overwhelming passion and drive, inklings through their minds--nagging, pestering, scratching, clawing to get out, to get noticed, to be remembered!

It has only been due to my research skills which have been hefted up throughout the years (and in no small degree thanks to the miracle of the Internet and modern technologies like YouTube) that I have managed to acquire the means by which to find this sliver of lost consciousness. Thereby, providing the unique opportunity to discern whether that childhood vision was truly worth all the hype my childhood mind placed upon it, or whether it falls, manifestly, upon the shoulders of an older, more "critical" eye that shoves the child into a cupboard, never to be seen or heard from again.

I shall now see:

Yuel Ball at the Clackamas Public Library presented by Adam the Alien

Thought you guys might enjoy this video. It was created by a new friend of mine named Adam. He's a vlogger (video blogger).

My friend Amanda Runion, who is part of our group, but hasn't been able to make a formal meeting (the one we tried attending was on a day no one came, and I messed up timing with Robin not realizing she was not coming until the afternoon).

In any event, please let me know what you think. Apparently, one German viewer found me rather entertaining, which I find mildly bemusing.

Have a great night!



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qxwav-CyPBM&list=UURWYIloA3Mh4T9OobZMbH_g&index=1

See you Friday!

Watch "Jacksonian Revelry During Mayan Apocalypse" on YouTube

Writing Prompts for December 15th, 2012

Hypothetical Essay:



I. People often say that fashion never dies; instead, it retires to Florida and only shows up like Arnold Schwarzenegger in The Expendables 2--'Daddy's got to pay his alimony.'" Only in the case of fashion, it can be a return to an enlightened age (ergo, "steampunk") or a decent into madness (I'll let you figure this one out for yourselves)--or, to use the old geezers from Florida as a "creative metaphor", it returns on those rare occasions whenever the country needs someone to screw-up a national election.



If you could bring back any style from its perpetual retirement (or death), what style would you stand over like Dr. Frankenstein from the 1931 classic and cry, "It's alive! It's alive! In the name of God! Now I know what it feels like to be God!" [Insert random lightning and thunderclap], and what style now existing would you cast into the eternal void beyond time in the scion of Van Helsing plunging eir wooden stake into the heart of one of Dracula's brood--praying that this shall be their final requiem?



II. If you could possess any superpower, what would you choose? Why?



III. Of all the possible worlds in which you could inhabit, why do you like the one you now call home? If you could change anything, what would you like to change?

Fictional Story

I. Tell this story: You walk into your local cellular telephone store on a particularly gloomy day after your phone was obliterated [insert creative licensing] and walk up to the counter. After looking at all the phones available and feeling dissatisfied, the salesperson offers you a special smart-phone for VIP customers. E claims that the phone is capable of performing one specific task of your choosing, besides all the normal things a smart-phone does, this phone will allow you to perform any operation you could imagine—from changing the weather to adjusting the sunset color scheme to muting that particular irksome manager from HR. The only caveat is that you must choose what special feature you’d like your phone to perform, and once chosen, that setting will become a permanent feature of the phone—also, you only get one “special feature”. There is no limit to what said feature will be (besides the imagination of the user), nor the number of times said feature can be used.

Tell a story where you (or one of your characters) utilizes this device where the “special feature” comes in handy. Tech Optional: The phone uses cartridges to perform impossible things. You get one cartridge for every “wish feature” once the feature is imprinted upon the card, it can no longer perform another task and is permanently that feature (the card, not the phone). How would “switching cards” be useful to your characters? What would you do in real life if you had such a device? What features would you want?

Non-Fiction Story/Getting Ideas:

I. People say, “Life is stranger than fiction.” Tell a story illustrating a time when your life was truly stranger than fiction and how it impacted your life (or the life of one of your characters).

Non-Fiction Essay:

I. With all the social tension in the air of late—China and India moving ever closer to war over the oil fields in the South China Sea (and America increasing troop and armaments in the area); the December 21^st being the end of the Mayan Calendar and people fearing an apocalypse; mass shootings happening within days of one another; the global recession and America’s Great Recession; fears over government invasion of privacy rights; outrage by preteen girls that Justin Bieber didn't win the Grammy Award, let alone even receive a nomination—what are your plans for a possible Zombie Apocalypse?

For your enjoyment...Jingle Bells Indian Bhangra Style

Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells Jingle all the veyyyyyyy. Oh Vhut fun is to ride on a one horse open sleihhh. Oh Balle!

I laughed so hard when I saw this.

I will not forget when Chris and Robin were trying to correct my "V" and "W" pronunciation. It'll be a while till I stop saying "wampire" instead of vampires LOL 

Awaking from Longest Sleep

I awoke a brief time ago to my true self. Whatever chains that hindered me fall upon the Earth. They lay decoupled and remiss in wear and use. What purposes shall they now render? What good is that which hath lost its use to mortal kind? Is it to be cast aside, forever lost in a whirlwind of change and remediation? Is our world to forget the transient nature of its existence?

We so humble few, so deject and lost of this fair mortal coil, where have we gone astray? Where did our lives fade from their true enigmatic purpose in this World? Are we sheep so lost we may never find our pastures?

I walk alone on the soils of my brethren, coasting across faded shores which have been ignored and abandoned so long ago. Land long since abandoned, remiss for so many an age.

Where are you my people? Where is the love in these lost columns? Hath man no need for your shimmer, your piercing majesty? Are we to see these planes of conception and experience as they are, as they will us to be, or are we the lost bands of travelers roaming from place to place, never to find our home--neither here on this fertile soil, nor across the vast ocean of stars shining out across a distant night sky?

Academic Notation

by Robin Layne

            I woke up this morning to the phone ringing. Someone I barely knew from college was begging me to help with homework—or go out for a beer, or karaoke, or whatever. Who was this guy? Certain he had evil on his mind, I tried to brush him off. Just then, the phone beeped, telling me someone else was calling. Another near-stranger, a neighbor who barely had done more than exchange hellos, gushed, “Oh, Robin, you’re home! I can’t wait to get together with you and talk!”

            “Who are you,” I said, “and what have you done to my neighbor?”

            She giggled as if it were the funniest joke I’d ever heard.

            “Why do you want to get together with me?” I said. “You never did before.”

            “I just found out about . . . you know . . . your grades.”

            “What do you know about my grades?”

            “Everybody knows. You’re an A minus. Close to the best. What’s your grade point?”

            “You mean from PSU? I don’t know. 3.73 or something. And they didn’t give me an honors rope even though they gave one to the girl sitting next to me at the graduation, who had a lower GPA than me. And when I tried to find out what was going on, all my requests were ignored.”

            “That’s a crime!” the young woman cried out. “I’m gathering some other friends right now and we’ll march on the school and protest!”

            “That won’t be neces—”

            A knock on the door interrupted my protest of the protest. I excused myself and went to answer it. A man stood beaming at me with his hand behind his back. “Mon cheri,” he said in what to me sounded like really clumsy French. “Please. Let me kiss your hand.”

            “What?” I said. “You gotta meet the guy I put on hold!”

            He tried to grab my hand, but I pulled it beyond his reach. “Is this about my grades?” I said.

            “Oui, oui.”

            “Cut the fake French. What are you holding behind your back?”

            He handed me the dozen red roses. “I know you love red roses,” the stranger said. “I asked around.”

            “Listen,” I said. “Would you do me a favor? Help me market some of my writing?”

            The stranger nodded.

            “Yes!” I cried out. I had it made!

The Genesis of a Writer

by Robin Layne

            I’m not sure there was one moment in my life when I realized I would be a writer. I think it was close to a destiny I always knew. Stories were important to me from the beginning. I loved the picture books my mother read to me. I acted out fairytales for family members and friends, like “The Three Bears” and “Cinderella.” In kindergarten, our class made a book of pictures by each pupil; accompanying the drawings were short pieces of writing we had dictated to the teacher.

            In first and second grade, we wrote stories and illustrated them on big-ruled sheets of paper. Our teachers gave us really creative prompts, and I think I got into more detail than the other kids, careful to include a logical beginning. In second grade I stayed in recesses to make my first picture book.

            I was teased a lot by my schoolmates, and it cut me deeply. My family was unsympathetic to my complaints about it. I told myself that when I grew up I would be a famous artist and writer. Then those who had hated me would read about me in the newspapers and be story. I would show them I was better than a misfit crybaby, and better than all of them.

            In third grade, I used to go visit my second grade teacher. I told her I was going to be an author. She pinched my cheeks and said, “Write children’s books.”

            Sorry, Mrs. Palermo. My interests are broader, and I don’t pander to your expectations. I write what inspiration leads me to, not what one set age group dictates.

            When I was still a child, it would take me hours to get to sleep, so I would make up novels in my head. Now I find that I can’t carry whole scenes in my memory for long without writing them down.

            Although I still do a little art for my own pleasure, most of my art is to help me picture the characters in my stories or to design possible covers for the books. The “famous artist” part of my ambition has pretty much fallen by the wayside, leaving me more time to write. I’m driven to imagine things, get them into words, and share them with others. Fame is slow to come by and not a need anymore. I’m famous to God. But I would like to produce published books. And I want to make a living on my writing!

            I get the impression that most people think writing like mine is play and that I should spend my time doing more “important” things. Writing is enjoyable for me, but it also requires a lot of time and effort. Most of the markets out there pay nothing, and another large percentage pay a only a handful of dollars, I suppose for the purpose of saying you’re “paid.” Some writers (I don’t think I know any of them) make their living writing articles, but the really creative stuff doesn’t provide a living except to the rare superstar author. What are our values?

            I write because I love stories. I write because the Lord I love is the Word. God made me in His image. And He is the Creator. So I am a creator, too.