in_the_blue | I'll take the other thing.

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writing challenge

I'll take the other thing.

I miss the days when I used to host writing challenges right here in this very journal.

So. Now that the seventh Harry Potter book has been written... I think it's time for a different kind of writing challenge. I used to host the short-short ficlets, 300 words or less, open fandom.

Today, I'm going OC. And that doesn't stand for Orange County: it stands for original character.

Ready? 3, 2, 1, let's... get inspired to write original fiction, folks. The theme for the challenge is change: take 500 words to introduce an original character and demonstrate some measure of change for him, for her, for it.

Rules:

Fandom: original only

Word count: 500 or less

Main theme: change

Ratings: No restrictions.

Duration: Challenge opens now (August 30) and closes at 11:59 p.m. in whatever time zone you inhabit on Wednesday, September 5.

Post your ficlets as comments to this entry. Feel free to do as few or as many as you want, and if you see one you really like, be sure to leave a review or a comment. Remember, original fic only. I'll crack my knuckles and get going as soon as I get a few hours' sleep.

NOTE: All ficlets in comments here are the property of their respective writers. Consider them copywritten with all rights reserved. If you want to quote, copy, or redistribute, please get the author's permission first. Otherwise, I'll have to lock this down. Thanks.

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Do you use the MS word count, or the old-fashioned count where you don't count the articles? ;)

(I didn't run over or anything, no, no, not at all...:)

Hahahahahaha.

I should have been all Captain Barbossa and told you that the rules were more like guidelines. It's a loose 500 words. Now personally, I use the MS word count, but you can use whatever you want. I'm not going to measure or anything. It's just to get creative juices flowing, so whatever works for you.

*jumps, falsl over* ouch. ooh! yay! a kick i nthe butt! right-o sir, jsut what the docctor ordered.

in other words nota nentry but jstu a note to say thank yo ubecause yes. i have TWO DIFFERENT NOVEL DIEAS OEN OF WHICH MIGHT TUR NINTO A SERIES I MEAN STRIKE. THEYR'E BOTH SERIES HA!!!)
SORRY. JSUT..YAY. WHOA. PHIEW. WOW. AMPPARENTLY I AM SO. READY. TO DO THIS FINALLY.

Excellent! I'm kind of excited about this one. And going to work on my own.

This first part anyway (I botched the word count but not by much):

“Forget it, V. No. I’ll not, thanks”
“Come on Jack!”

Her long hair is smooth against her body. Colored terra cotta and shinier than summer. That is how V likes to dress when she invades: my jeans and her hair. She searches the books on the wall, rooting for a midnight snack in the cupboard of information. One hand on a belt loop the other fumbling bindings and dust covers.

“You have books that suck. Kirkegaarde is a shithead who hates women. You should read Havel, now that was a gentleman.”

Ignored, she throws a volume to the floor. The petulant childish action floor snaps me to attention. The cover bears a girl with a rose in an arbor of stone.

“Jack!”

She drops the belt loop, grabs onto the bookshelf for support and droops into a twisted crouch. V just lets my eyes drown in the image of her. Her curves meet at the edge of her hips and she smoulders a profile eyelash glance over her shoulder. Pink cheeks inviting without guile. Her rear is barely off the ground and pebbly with the excitement of letting go gripping her tightly.

“Please.”

Not a question. Not pleading or demanding. Just a simple request meant to draw a simple response. And I give one.

“No, V.”
“Jack, why not?”

She doesn’t face me fully, just holds her pose like an actress waiting for the right cue.
A smirk curves her face to match the line of her backside. The bare edge of her left breast forms the same curve against her arm. It is hopeless. I wish she wouldn’t do this.

“You are deceased. Victoria you are dead.”

Victoria slides through the couch and my mid section and pretends to sit on my coffee table. You don’t know shrinkage until you have lost an erection due to a spectre passing through your flesh.

“Have you found him yet, Jack?”
“No. He is proving difficult to locate. I am sorry V, but I might have to scrap the whole thing.”

I waited. I expected the windows to shatter or the impossible chill to tear into my flesh again, or the walls to bleed. Like last time, and the time before that. She fooled me, this time she just sat on the edge of the couch and sobbed.
This was different.

“Jack, I really don’t care you know. I was just curious. A little. A bit.”

She lit a cigarette and the odorless ethereal smoke made a play for the ceiling.

“I am not crying you know, because I don’t care. I don’t. I just wanted to see him again. Just one more time.” She broke down into a writhing mess of snaking tears soaking the floor.

I stand up and walk to the kitchen for a beer. When I shut the fridge she is a sobbing naked mess hugging her knees on my kitchen table. I pass the Corona through her knees to chill it even further. She didn’t even notice. Usually she asked for money.

“Jack. Couldn’t you try again. Could you for me? I have to see him I must. I just must see Henri! I love him!”

Before that last ‘him!’ I pound as much of the beer as I can and toss the bottle into the sink. Just in time. Every glass object in the house splinters at once. Maybe this is just like last time and the time before.

“V. How many times must I try and fail for you to realize, I can’t find him? He isn’t even on Long Island any more. I know I have searched the whole fucking thing. So have you.

“Go to his website, Jack. I know there is a clue there.”

She was fidgety. Running her hands up and down the inside of her thighs and bouncing on her heels. I just don’t get it. Henri was an abusive prick who loaned her out to his friends like a weedwhacker.

“Alright. I will. I don’t expect to find anything.” She hunches over my shoulder sending a splinter of ice through my spine as I tenderly skirt the caltropped floor. Dammit. The monitor is shattered

This snippet (c)2007 Gwynne L. Jackson, all rights reserved. Please do not reproduce, redistribute, steal, quote without permission. You know all the good stuff, that's why you're here.
Untitled, 500 words. Previously unwritten backstory to a work in progress.

"This whole idea is crazy enough. I'm not going to risk my neck for a dog." The set to his jaw was grim; he shook his head and tried not to roll his eyes. As fond as he was of Takeo, there was a lot about the guy he didn't understand. Even though they'd been partners for years -- Takeo was the single best mentor on staff -- there was a side to him Ray could never quite figure out. He ran hot; he ran cold. He was sentimental; he could be so cruel. He worked his students like a traditionalist, but he was always good with kind advice or comfort when he worked them too hard.

Out of the corner of his eye, he caught Takeo shrugging and smiling that annoyingly smug smile Ray knew only too well. It meant his partner had a secret edge and was going to win at all cost.

"I'm not stopping for a dog." Momentarily, he was tempted to offer up the standard disclaimer: you're the one who has to feed it and walk it and take care of it. You'll have to find a vet when it's sick and board it when we're busy. But he shook his head and took the controls. "No pets."

Takeo conjured a toothpick out of some pocket or other, sliding it between his straight white teeth. His hands, strong and competent, leafed through the pages of the file on his lap as the ship took off. "Dog was a thirteenth-birthday present, boss. He never goes anywhere without it." One page turned, then another, then a third and the whole time the toothpick never left its resting spot between Takeo's teeth. How the guy could talk with that thing in his mouth, Ray never knew but he was a captive audience with no choice but to listen. "He ran away six times, but never without the dog. You think you can separate them now? Think again, boss: it's not going to happen. We'll lose him."

"I'm half tempted to turn this ship around and forget about the whole goddamn deal right now. This is..." Crazy was the only word for this mission they were on and the both of them knew it. Still, the stakes were high and it wouldn't be the first and only time he'd operated outside the law. But to risk it all over a dog?

"Go ahead." Now the toothpick came out; Takeo rolled it between thumb and forefinger in a move that wasn't as idle as it seemed because nothing about him was idle or random. "Then Wei and his guys will get him. But... you're the boss."

Fuck. What was the point of being in charge if everyone below you was always right? Then again, wasn't the mark of good management listening to advisors? He set the ship on cruise control, turned to Takeo, and laughed.

"Fine. The dog comes along too."

Takeo's pleasure was betrayed only by the very smallest of smiles.

Characters created by Bernie orginally for RP at D*, but readapted for original cannon.

-------

There was faded Dr. Pepper sign on the side of the general store, and a lone hound dog panting in the heat on the store’s front porch. Across the dusty square was a white Baptist church. Next to the church, a squat wooden shack with a crooked sign said “Hector’s Junction Post Office, Town Hall, Police Station”. An ancient, dusty Ford Crown Victoria police car was parked out front. The whole place seemed asleep. It was like something out of a movie set.

Beth Newburg got out of her rental car and walked up to the general store. The hound dog just kind of raised its head and watched her as she crossed the porch and let the screen door slam shut behind her. There was a man sitting behind the counter, tobacco stains on his shirt and a Faulkner novel in his hand.

Flags in the Dust. How appropriate, she thought. “Excuse me?”

“Yessem?” the man said, sitting up. “What can I do for you?”

“I’m looking for AJ Dawson,” she said. “Can you help me?” she asked.

“I think you found him,” a familiar voice said behind her. “But I’m not expecting anyone…”

She turned around, and there he was, wearing his white oxford shirt, kahki slacks and suspenders, just as she remembered him. His mouth dropped open an inch or two when he saw her.

“Jesus Christ and Gen’rl Jackson,” he breathed. “Beth.”

--

AJ came out of the store, the screen door slamming shut behind him, and handed her a glass bottle of coke, settling into the rocking chair next to her.

“Jesus, Beth, I never expected to see you here. What the hell are you doing here?” he asked.

“Looking for you, what the hell do you think I was doing here?” she retorted back at him. Damnit, I’m not going to cry, she told her self. “Why did you think I came all the way out here, to the middle of bloody no where?” she asked him. “I wanted to see you for myself.” She hesitated. “I wasn’t quite sure what to believe anymore.”

“You could have called,” AJ pointed out. “Saved you the trip. We’ve got phones now. Telephone lines and everything,” AJ pointed at the poles out by the street, the aww shucks earnestness a joke in itself, floating across his tone of voice like the notes of a half forgotten song.

“Really now,” she said. “Come a long way then, haven’t you?”

AJ nodded, grinning. “Come a long way since the days when my great-great-great granpappy held off Grant’s damn bluebellies with a handful of local militia.”

“Are you people ever going to let that one go?” Beth asked. “The war’s been over for what…a hundred and fifty years?”

“A hundr’n n’forty, give’r’take,” AJ corrected.

“Fine. A hundred and forty years then.” She was annoyed now. He did that to her.

“Nothing ever changes, here, Beth,” AJ said, gently now, softly conciliating, as he always did.

“Nothing?” she asked, looking at him, searching those damn perfect blue eyes. “Does anything ever change?”

He looked back at her, this idiot man, who’d dropped out of her life nearly four years ago, and then dropped of the face of the world for a full year – everyone thought he’d died! – the man that she still loved, despite it all.

“Sometimes,” he said, finally, reaching out between the rockers and taking her hand. “Sometimes, we get big changes.”

I have this problem, see. I love me some instant gratification. You have hooked me. Now I WANT MORE!

I can see this type of situation happening between Ray and Takeo on a regular basis, with Takeo rarely the loser.

I am intrigued as to the boy and his dog as being strong catalysts to cause this conversation and the inevitable clusterfuck to follow.

A yummy snack, now I hungry for more!!!

Ahahahaha, AJ and Beth! I should have known! They're so sweetly mismatched for one another in so many ways, but in other ways they're just perfect.

So here's my question: are you as curmudgeonly as AJ in real life, and Sara as sharp-tongued as Beth?

On another note, this reads like a poetic little scene out of some lazy slice-of-life sothren novella, and what kind of coke d'you want with your sweet potato pie, Mistah Dawson? I'll be curious to see what people who don't know these characters think of this piece.

Takeo hasn't lost a thing in years.

And that's all I'm going to tell you about him right now.

If/when I start putting up chapters of this work, you want to be on the filter? I'm proprietary about my original stuff and selective about the number of readers.

This is... so different from the pieces I usually read and I'm fascinated. I had to read it twice to be sure I'd read it correctly the first time. There are some beautiful turns of phrase in here that are as haunting as Victoria seems to be. I particularly like rooting for a midnight snack in the cupboard of information and the odorless ethereal smoke made a play for the ceiling. I also like that I'm not sure what Victoria's request is until the end, if then, and yes, of course the monitor would be shattered. It makes me curious to know what went before and how many times this has happened and how many times it will happen and if poor deceased Victoria will ever learn or if she's stuck.

At the risk of sounding trite and sixteen, this is pretty damn cool.

The word 'Yes' doesn't even begin to describe it. I'll be bouncing on my toes until I read more. Of course now I wish I could draw with any skill. That scene is already animated in my head.

Oh if you ever want to see more of my stuff, mostly poetry or what passes (barely) for some unedited unadulterated and mostly vulgar, just skimm back a bit on my journal and hit the poetry tag.

I've been reading your poetry. I'm a lousy poetry critic, though, so I tend not to comment on it.

“Please?” she asked, every day of their stay in Maine.

And each day, he just shook his head and made plans to do something else. Something that would take them off of the small island and into the park, onto the mainland, on the ocean, at the shops in Freeport, even.

He’d do it just to distract her. He was a doctor, a successful doctor with an over-busy practice and not nearly enough time to breathe, much less take this vacation. He’d pay for it later in overbooking, days and days of fifteen-minute-or-less appointments. To relocate here?

That would be career suicide.

Still, he did have to admit that he loved it here. Every time they came on vacation, he toyed with the idea, never voicing it aloud, of staying. His wife did more than toy with the idea, openly talking about how nice it would be to raise children here, how quiet and peaceful it was. She was an artist, and he knew that she got most of her inspiration for the entire year on their month-long stays in the small island community.

She often ended these speeches with a single word. “Please?”

And he couldn’t tell her no, but he could dismiss the idea as impractical, too impractical to merit more than an incredulous shake of his head. She’d sigh, and that would be the end of it for another day.

Even if he did feel guilty for it, even if he did ask himself each day why he wanted to go back to the practice so badly. He didn’t even know most of his patients’ names, couldn’t name more than one or two when he was away from the office.

As the end of the month approached, along with their departure date, he felt more and more depressed. Why didn’t he stay? he asked himself. Why couldn’t he?

He couldn’t answer those two questions. Money wasn’t really an issue. It wasn’t like there was much time to make a life back where he had his practice. They’d put off having children time and time again, and they’d been married ten years. He always had to work.

Why couldn’t he try it here?

His wife came out and sat on the chair beside him on the shoreline, and together they gazed out over the stormy blue sea. “It would be so nice to live here,” she sighed.

“Mmmhmm,” he said, noncommittally.

She sighed again, and didn’t speak. He wondered if she’d finally given up, if the heart had gone out of her speeches after a month of trying. He looked over at her.

“You know,” he began, “they don’t have a doctor at all over here in the winter months.”

“That’s so.”

“It’s got to be hard trying to get over to the main island when someone’s sick. And it’s got to be scary for parents with children.”

Silence. He heard nothing but his wife’s steady breathing and the lap of waves against the shore.

Then: “Please?” Her voice was trembling a little.

“Yes.”

See? Shelle (no "seashell" pun intended), you are so good at this kind of thing. It's only 506 words and you already gave us a past and an uncertain present -- what is this relationship like? what's the marriage like? do they have anything at all in common? -- and a future. I don't care that there aren't names and I don't care that we don't know more than we do about the circumstances of their lives. Write it. Write more of it.

*beams* I'll have to. Now they're in my head.

Thanks *so* much, from the bottom of my heart. ;)

Hee! This had been percolating, half finished, for months! Glad to have an excuse to make some sense of it!

Well, sometimes, I can be curmudgenonly as AJ, and Sara's always as quick witted as Beth. And sometimes we can both be curmudgenonly. ;) Seriously, though, I don't really know. I love writing AJ, simply because he's so...AJ. He's the "awww, shucks" kind of country boy that I partly am, and wish I was more of. He's so much fun to play with!

I'm looking forward to it to! I love the mental picture in this piece!

(And I've never actually read Faulkner...*hides in shame*)

I am so glad you think it is cool! This is different for me too, I only recently got into writing prose of any kind.

This scenario has played out between jack and Victoria since her untimely death, and usually the glass ends up broken.

No one has. They just pretend to have done so.

Actually, I like his short fiction. You might be able to guess that I'm kind of a short story fan. I think it's an exquisite craft. So if you ever want to read some of Faulkner's stuff, I'd recommend the short works as a good place to start.

Now I miss AJ and Beth.

Then you are the exact type of critic I need for my lousy poetry!

My process for writing anything revolves around a single image that I focus all my emotions around until they explode. I then write all of the words down, and arrange them by sound. I figure it should only be read by those with truly naught better to do, on a day when the trite-o-meter has been refreshed.

Then when I have naught better to do, I might leave lousy reviews of your not-lousy poetry!

Wunderbar! I do not know these characters at all and I must know what happened before and after now! (My reading list is growing by the second here) The opening hit me like Kerouac's Dr Sax. I was transported there, smelling that dog, and watching the condensation off the Coke bottle to the rocking chair. I could see the corner of her mouth twitch when fighting those tears. Oh... it is going to be a busy fall.

My hands are still shaking from the tension. I found myself rubbing my forehead as if I had to make this descision!

I CAN HAS MORE???!!

Dammit. I was saying yes when she said please the last time.

You got me. Now I have 3 hooks in my mouth...more to come I imagine

*beams* I'm so very glad you enjoyed it! And as I told G, now they're in my head, they'll make all sorts of racket till I write them!

*has totally not been researching, nope...yes, I have*

That would be delightful. I don't get a lot of criticism, and I sorely need it. If it is a lousy review I'll use a horse pick! ;)

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I'll take the other thing.

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Well , here goes nothing, I just finished this last night!

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I ran over...sue me.

Delicous, but wee...like a French dessert.

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506 words: Original.

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Re: 506 words: Original.

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They like me! They really, really, like me!

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FABULOUS!

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Re: Delicous, but wee...like a French dessert.