Grace

I have been very blessed and very lucky to have been able to be in the room while my very best friend gave birth to her baby girl. It was miraculous, beautiful, joyful...all that cheesy stuff you are always told by your mom and her friends while you're sitting there going, "Yeah. Right. That's disgusting."

(Some names and places have been changed. Just go with it.)

Shavia and Jose, my best good friend and her husband, had asked me several months ago if I would like to join them in the delivery room to take pictures of the baby after she was born. I was honored and flattered that they would invite me to share this moment with them. I accepted with tears in my eyes. I was just so touched.

"Do you think you'll be able to handle it?" Shavia asked point blank after I said yes.

I don't do well with blood and bodily functions. When I see my own blood, I pass the eff out. When someone else is bleeding, I feel as though my stomach has been filled with worms and I have been dunked in cold water. When people tell me about that time they broke a bone, I close my eyes and shout "No, no, no!"

So, it was a valid question.

"Of course I can handle it. I mean, I might pass out. But I'll be totally fine. Just have someone shake me."

Cut to six months later, AKA Monday night.

I had been hanging out at Shavia's house watching Baby Mama with her until Jose got home from a late night at the office. Towards the end of the movie she got really quiet and seemed extremely uncomfortable. I asked her if she was alright, but she would just brush it off saying it was heart burn and cramping. She has the pain tolerance of a prize fighting pit bull, so she's really hard to read when it comes to that. I took her word for it and went home at about 11:30.

11:40 she sends me this text:

I doubt anything is going to happen tonight. But you should keep your phone near you just in case.

I had gotten texts like this before, and I always kept my phone near me at night, so I didn't think much of it. I went to sleep at 12:09.

My morning alarm went off. I groaned and shut my eyes tighter. It can't be 6:30 already! I rolled over to hit snooze. Mid-roll I realized that the tune wasn't my alarm but my reggae ring tone. Picking up my phone, I saw Jose's name and face staring back at me, under the time 12:59am.

"Hello?" I asked, completely befuddled.

"Hey. You need to come to the hospital."

"The hospital? Why? The hospital??"

"Yes. You need to go to the place where babies are born."

"Oh. Oh. OH!"

"Shavia and I are almost there. Kim is at our house with the kids."

"Ok. So I need to come straight to the hospital. Not your house?"

"Right. Unless you want to go to our house."

"No! No I'm coming to the hospital. I just wanted to make sure I heard you right. Ok. I will get dressed and come to the hospital. Bye."

I sat up and swung my legs off my bed. "Ok. Go time." I quickly thought of the essentials I needed: Jeans, shoes, camera, a spot of make up. I hardly remember getting all these things together, but I was out the door at 1:06am.

Driving through my desolate neighborhood, I started to wonder if the conversation I'd just had was real. I had been so asleep, and there was about a 50% chance it had been a dream. Nothing added up quite right. The plan had always been that as soon as Shavia went into labor, she would call me first. I live with Kim, and there were no lights on in the house when I got up and came down stairs and the doors to her rooms were still shut.

What if I get all the way to the hospital and none of this was real?

I decided to voice text Kim to make sure.

So you are at Jose's?

Yeah. Shavia's in a lot of pain. I've never seen her like that before.

I floored it. Shavia birth's babies quick. There wasn't a minute to spare.

The hospital looks like a castle, and it's not exactly down town, so it was very dark. I couldn't tell where I should turn in at, so I finally just chose an entrance and wnet with it. I quickly came to a fork in the massive parking lot, and found a sign that gave me a left and a right option.

< Deliveries
> Hospital

"Well...I mean she is delivering..."

I was baffled! You would think that a hospital would make things crystal clear to understand but I didn't know what they meant by "deliveries." It was a delivery room, after all. In what context were they using the word "delivery"?

I went with my sleep deprived gut and drove towards Deliveries.

When I got there the place was completely deserted. I knew this couldn't be right, because I didn't see Jose's car. At 1:22am I called him.

"Hey, it's Baylor right?"

"Yeah. It looks like a hotel."

It looks more like a castle to me. "Ok. I'm here."

"We're on the second floor."

I ran up to the front desk.

"Can I help you?" asked the cute, blond security guard.

"My friend is having a baby."

"Second floor."

Elevator. Second floor. Fancy lobby with way too much furniture blocking my way. Another security guard.

"Down this hall, take a left. Push the intercom to get a nurse to help you."

Hall way. Sealed doors. Intercom.

"Can I help you?"

"I'm looking Shavia Knight."

"Hold on. Who are you?"

I waited in the hall for about 5 minutes until Jose came and got me. He lead me to the room, where Shavia was already in a gown, on the bed, talking to a nurse who had an accent I couldn't understand.

"Hi. I'm glad you're here." She said to me, through grimaces.

Everything happened very fast next. They hooked Shavia to an IV, made her sign a million papers, asked her a million questions, went running for the anesthesiologist (CRNA), gave her ice cubes, told her to breath and called her doctor. The CRNA came waltzing in and the nurse said "We are either going to have an epidural or a baby."

I wasn't going to watch the epidural process. I don't especially love needles and I'd head horror stories of how big and epidural needle is. But as they pushed my friend over and the CRNA painted circles on her lower back, I couldn't keep my eyes from wandering over.

The CRNA held up the first syringe, and the needle glinted in the spot light. Oh that's not so bad. That's normal sized.  That shot came and went. Then he pulled out another needle. One that looked like a drill bit.

The blood drained from my face and I quickly looked away. Holy shit that's big! Don't pass out. Keep it together. I concentrated on breathing in and out and pictured a calm meadow in my mind. This picture of calm was soon shattered.

The CRNA didn't get the epidural to Shavia in time. The baby was coming and there was no stopping it. She was coming au natural. No pain meds.

I'm not going to go into detail here. I don't think it's appropriate, and you probably don't want to hear it. All I can say, is natural child birth is exactly how it's portrayed in the movies. They don't exaggerate.

At 2:39am the nurse pulled out a screaming baby girl. I saw the whole thing. I saw her come into this world. It wasn't gross, or scary or messy. It was honestly and truthfully the most amazing thing I have ever seen.

I was so proud of my best friend. So happy for their family. And so excited to see the little baby I had felt kicking around for months.

She is perfect.

"The miracle of life" is an over used expression that is synonymous with health text books. But life really is a miracle. There is a new person in the world. She's one of us now. She's going to laugh and play and read and watch movies and go to school. It's easy to get caught up in thinking of all the things she's going to do, but when you stop and look at this tiny little baby just a few days old who can't even hold her own head up...it really just blows your mind that this life is even possible.

I wish the deepest congratulations to my friends and all of their family.

Thank you for reading. =)

I Can Be Your Hero Baby

I am a hero.

Yeah, I'm saying it. No sense in being bashful about it. You don't ever see Batman going "No, actually...I'm not him. People make that mistake all the time. I just wear this latex suit because it breaths well when I jog."

I saved a life this week, y'all.

Here's the back story...

At my current dwelling there resides no less than 7 beta fish. 5 of which are located in the kitchen. As you probably know, beta fish really like to call themselves Siamese Fighting Fish and much like the Offspring song, you gotta keep 'em seperated. I bring this up because there are fish tanks everywhere, and I think it's hilarious.

Anywho...Archimedes is a small white/albino beta who tanks in a window sill above the kitchen sink.

Earlier this week, my roommate/co-worker/homie Shayla and I were stumbling around the kitchen trying to get our lives together to go to work. Since neither of us had had coffee or breakfast yet, we were basically bumping around the kitchen trying not to fall over while packing Greek yogurt and cheese sticks. If you've ever seen someone run a Dizzy Bat Race at a baseball game...that's how we look in the morning.

I had just manuevered around Shayla to dump an old glass of water in the sink when I noticed that the pink rose in the green glass vase on the window sill had dried up and died. I don't know, it's still kind of pretty that way, I thought as my eyes slid down to the bottom of the vase.

Then I saw it.

I double-blinked. Stared. Double blinked again.

There, lying on the other side of the vase, was a very still, very dried up Archimedes.

"Oh, no!" I gasped.

He looked like this little pink plastic fish I got from the dentist when I was a kid: his little beedy black eyes staring straight at me, his mouth gaping open, laying completely motionless on his side. I vainly searched the fish tank to make sure that he wasn't still in there and that the fish toy from my childhood hadn't pulled some kind of Toy Story trick to put itself back in my life. Unfortunately, the tank was empty.

"What is it?" Shayla asked. She was in the laundry room, which connected to the kitchen, moving clothes into the dryer.

"Um..." I started. Archimedes is Shayla's fish, and I really didn't want to break the news to her that her fish was dead so early in the morning. Especially since he was bought to replace her last fish that died.

"Do I even want to know?" She asked, reading the look of dismay on my face. I could tell from her tone that she already knew what was wrong.

"No. You don't."

"I can't handle it. I can't see it. I have problems...the texture.."

"I know, I know. I'll take care of it."

I sighed and ripped a paper towel from the holder and then scooped poor Archimedes up inside it. Fish deserve a water buriel, so I headed for the bathroom to flush him. As I stepped into the bathroom, I felt a small tap-tap in my palm. I figured it was probably just his little fish body settling in the paper towel, but I decided to check just to be sure. I peaked inside the wadded up paper towel. Archimedes lay still. Then suddenly his tail fin swished back and forth.

"Wait a minute! There's still hope!" I remembered from my beta research that betas actually breath by filtering water through their gills and by gulping the air.

Shayla was my best good friend. She loved her fish dearly, as one would love a dog or a small child. This fish could be saved. I knew what I had to do.

I dumped Archimedes from the paper towel into my hand. He made no other movements than a weak swish of his tail fin. Beta lungs are tiny, be careful.  I lifted his body up to my face, put his little open mouth up to mine and I breathed a small bit of air into his little lifeless body.


Not really. Don't worry, I didn't perform fish CPR. And I wouldn't put my lips on a fish unless it were fried and battered first.

Here's what actually happened...

"He's alive!" I cried.

"Are you serious?!"

I ran back to the kitchen sink and dumped Archimedes into his tank.  Please don't go belly up, I thought. I had no idea how long he'd been out of water. But as dry and still as he looked I assumed it had been a while.

Well sure enough, the little dude starts swimming all over the place.

"He's totally swimming. He's alive." I said in disbelief.

We watched in stunned silence as little Archimedes swam all around his tank, clearly relieved to be back in his natural habitat. He appeared to be fine, other than the fact that because he'd been laying in the direct sun for who knows how long, his little white body had gotten completely sunburned. No joke. The dude was bright pink.

So yeah, I was 30 minutes late for work. And yeah, betas only cost 3 dollars. But I saved his life. He could have been flushed to smithereens. I saved him. He lives to swim another day.

We don't actually know why he was out of his tank. Betas are known jumpers, so he must have jumped out, but we don't know why and I don't know how he ended up like 7 inches away from his tank. He's still doing fine, although his skin is peeling.

How many lives have YOU saved today?
(question not open to doctors, certified life savers or professional rescuers)

Thanks for reading! =)

Oh The Horror

I have a deep and profound love of horror.

I have my whole life. As a kid (and still to this day quite frankly) my favorite part of Willy Wonka was when they take the boat into the tunnel and Gene Wilder is reciting that eerie poem with a look of insanity in his eye while behind him images of chicken's getting their heads chopped off are being projected and everyone is screaming. If you had asked me when I was six what my favorite movie was, I would have told you Jaws. While other kids my age were watching Cinderella and The Little Mermaid over and over again, I was watching Terminator 2, and Tremors over and over again. And then I would go and re-enact my favorite scenes from those movies with my little brother.

I don't know where this fascination came from. Was I born with it? Was it something I learned along the way? It's the classic nature/nurture dispute. I'm sure the ghost stories my grandma used to tell me had something to do with it.

These thoughts have been on my mind as I've been working on my short horror story about zombies and cowboys. I've surprisingly never written horror before, and I'm finding it quite a challenge. Sure, my novel A Mouth Full of Teeth is about werewolves, but there's nothing scary about it. Suspenseful? Yes. Violent? Definitely. But not really scary.

I want this zombie story to be scary. And it's a challenge to get the same dread and heart-thumping anxiety out of the written word that you get out of watching it on screen. I want my reader to be uncomfortable, which means as the writer, I have to make myself uncomfortable. As I write this story I have to delve into a dark side of myself. I have to unlock the demons and monsters that frighten me and let them come out and play. I have to push myself to the edge and sit in the dark, blaring The Black Angels and Marilyn Manson.

For inspiration, I've turned to the one book I've ever read that actually made me squirm and not want to "see" what happened next. That book is Let The Right One In by John Ajvide Lindqvist. If you've seen the movie, you already know it's an awesome horror story. As usual, the book is infinitely better, but it's also much more disturbing. What happens in the movie is only half of what goes on in the book. So read it. Anyway, I'm trying to incorporate some of the same tactics as Lindqvist used to draw every last drop of sweat from my reader.

I can't wait for it to be read. I won't post the whole story here, as I am trying to win something from it and possibly get it published in a lit mag, but I will post parts of it and I'm sure I'll come up with some way to share the whole thing with you. The least I can do to thank you for following my shenanigans is to make you scream.

But not in a weird way....

Thanks for reading! =)

Brrrains!

I'm working on a short story that I plan to send in to at least one Literary Magazine/Writing Contest. I'm not sure what the rules are on submitting one story to multiple contests, because what if it won two different contests? I know that is incredibly unlikely, but a lot of these contests want to claim rights and whatnot and that could turn into a big scary mess. That'll have to be another post...

Where was I?

Yes, my short story! The contest that I have in mind for this particular story is a western themed contest. The rules are that the story must contain one or more cowboys and it must be a thriller/suspense/horror story.

So where did my mind immediately go?

Cowboys and zombies.

The best of both genre worlds, in my opinion.

Rugged, tough, manly cowboys versus bleeding, brain eating zombies in 19th century apparel. I think it's going to be awesome, and I'm having a great deal of fun writing it. I feel like there's not as much pressure riding on this story as there is my novel, so I'm allowing myself to indulge in all the gory, excess violence and one-liners my horror-loving mind can create. Is it going to be ridiculous? Probably. Is it going to be over the top? Most likely. But it is going to be greatness and I am going to share it with you as soon as I've snapped every neck and chewed every brain.

The problem is that I don't have title thus far, and if you've been reading along then you know how much trouble I have with choosing titles. I took a tip from The Guide and wrote down a list of my favorite western movie titles, and then since I only had like 3 on my list I googled "Best Western Movie Titles." I know, I'm shameless.

In so doing I found that my second favorite western title is True Grit.


My favorite title is Duck, You Sucker.


Thanks for reading! =)

Back In the Saddle Again

I'm back!

It's been a busy few weeks, my dear reader. Between going to L.A. and having guests and dog sitting and concert going and taking an hour and half to get to a Home Goods that's only 15 minutes away, I haven't had time to post. But I'm back in the saddle.

My trip to Los Angeles was perfection. I had great time seeing my old London buddies and even greater time seeing famous people. They really are everywhere in Hollywood.

Right after my plane touched down at Bob Hope airport we went to a taping of Chelsea Lately where Lisa Kudrow was the guest. She still looks just like Phoebe. On another day we ate dinner at the fancy restaurant at Chateau Marmont - the hotel where Lady Gaga stays. "If it's good enough for Gaga, it's good enough for us!" I said. After accidently valet parking ourselves we did our very best to not come off as poor kids and keep our eyes from bulging out at the menu prices. And then we saw her. Eating at a table for two halfway across the restaurant was Olivia Wilde. (Thirteen from House and the girl from Tron and Cowboys and Aliens)

Let me just say that she is really, really, really, really beautiful in person. And skinny as a rail. And she smokes and talks with her hands and her laugh sounds like music.

Since we were all dolled up, my friends and I decided to go back to the apartment and get some pictures taken together. My host's friend Patrick had met us for dinner and was coming back to the apartment with us to hang out. On our way back, my host rolled down her window and motioned for Patrick to do the same.

"Hey! Do you mind taking pictures of us when we get back?"

"What, like naked?"

"No!......Maybe later."

(*No naked pictures were taken. Don't worry, family members.)

Later that week we went to a taping of The Soup and got pictures taken with Joel McHale, and we saw Ugly Betty at a coffee shop and on the last day we saw Jane Lynch in Barnes and Noble's. She said hi to us. Because we're cool like that.

Anywho, in the world of writing I'm still revising my novel and I'm also working on a short story for a writing contest. I've let myself be intimidated by the Query Letter for too long and it's time to knock it out. My deadline is to have sent queries to at least 5 literary agents by the end of October. It's time to nut up or shut up.

Thanks for reading! =)

Parallels

Sometimes in literature we come across stories that mirror the goings on of our own lives. This of course hearkens back to the age old Art Imitating Life/Life Imitating Art debate, but that makes it no less uncanny that someone else's writing - someone else's fiction - seems to have been adapted right out of your own personal reality. This, to me, is even more uncanny when the work of fiction was first published in 1851.

I have been reading Moby-Dick by Herman Melville over the past couple of months, and last weekend I read through the chapter titled "The Town-Ho's Story." (yeah, I snickered at the name too) This chapter is about a fight that broke out on another whaling ship called The Town-Ho. Now despite the fact that this is about 19th century whalers, I found this chapter to hold some striking parallels to events happening in my own life right now.

In the story, a fight breaks out between a likable sailor named Steelkilt and jerk of an officer named Radney who is on a power trip. Radney and Steelkilt dislike each other. One day, after Steelkilt had just completed pumping water out of their sinking ship, Radney ordered him to do some very menial task that any other person aboard the ship could have done. Since Steelkilt was exhausted and felt as though he had pulled more than his share of the weight, he refused to follow Radney's order and said that someone else could do it. But Radney, the jerk that he was, didn't like being disobeyed so he kept harping on Steelkilt do this task. Steelkilt tried to be the bigger man and he kept quietly refusing and even walked away from the officer, but Radney just wouldn't let it go and kept yelling at him and waving a hammer in his face.

Finally, Steelkilt had all he could stand and punched Radney so hard that his jaw "was stove in his head; he fell on the hatch spouting blood like a whale."

As I said, I'm not on an 1800's whaling vessel and I haven't punched anyone (yet), but I was so completely shocked by the similarities between "The Town-Ho's Story" and my personal life, that I just had to share this with you. I won't go into detail about what has been happening with me as it is in my own best interest not to put that out where everyone can read it; but I can tell you that it is very similar to what I just described to you. Just take it in broad strokes.

 Absolutely uncanny.

I'm going to try and take a lesson from literature here and not leave anyone spouting blood like a whale, as this chapter ends with Steelkilt being flogged and then deserting ship, and Radney being eaten by Moby-Dick. Not a good outcome for either one really. But if I do stave in someone's lower jaw, you can bet that I will describe every gory detail right here from inside whatever maximum security level prison I am sentenced to.

Thanks for reading! =)

A Path of a Different Sort

It has been a rough week my friends. I'm blocked on my revisions of chapter one, I'm concerned about the massive wild fires keeping me from making it home this weekend to see my family and Mumford and Sons, and I'm still recovering from the sample fat-burner I took yesterday that made me feel like a cracked out ninja (it was awesome).

The writer's block is frustrating as ever, but I know it's all because I've put too much pressure on myself to write something awesome, and the moment I relax and tell myself to have fun with it, inspiration will come pouring out. I'm hoping my solo, 10 hour car ride through the desert will mellow out my brain.

For today's creative writing post, I am going to share with you a poem I wrote for the joke of a creative writing class I took my senior year in high school. The assignment was to create a poem inspired by Dante's Inferno and The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock by T.S. Elliot. I took on the challenge, and I'm quite pleased with the  result. I was a very angry child in high school, so you'll forgive the jaded darkness, I hope. *Disclaimer* I in no way consider myself a poet.

I give you, The Path

The Path

Come with me and I shall reveal
All the truths and thoughts and realities one should feel
Half asleep in a nightmare between worlds
I shall guide you through the maze
Past the corners where a soul stays
When it reaches the point of no return
The empty, forlorn houses no longer a concern
Monuments of modern men
So take my hand and we shall begin
Our walk down the road not taken
Few have seen it
Fewer believe it.

      Knowledge has taken second place
      For the sake of a smile upon a face.

Shadows flow thick like oil
Oozing down the walls like oil,
Stretching over everything in sight
Daring synthetic light to recoil.
Its black hand clenches all aspects of life
Contaminating hope
Tightens around the innocent neck like a rope.

There will be time, then
To relive past mistakes
To drench yourself in shadows of oil
And watch your great demise uncoil.
Yes, there is always time
To prepare your lies and sharpen your knives
To attach the mask of ignorance
For what's more important than fitting in
To your predetermined place?

    Knowledge has taken second place
    For the sake of a smile upon a face.

I shall fly past all the warning signs
And be mocked my own inexperience
Ashamed of the only genuine smile
To be touched by youthful excitement for a while.
(Remember the phrase: "We are so much the same.")
See the routines laid out to please another
Wasted hours to catch attention and hold it there.
(Remember the phrase: "How's my make up how's my hair?")
What do they say
Behind my back?
They don't know me
Or perhaps they know me better than myself.

For I have seen their faces blurred into one-
A multitude of treacheries molded into one treacherous move.
I had known better and stayed tight to my well known groove
But from the blur of faces one should appear
To be different, to stand out, to be inescapably clear.
      I was caught in his snare.

I had known them for what they were
Had myself been a victim of their scrutinizing gaze
Yielded angrily to their masses
Unwillfully to their opinions I had and would refer.
They gain their way by falsely kissing asses.
I knew the consequences but still fell victim to their ways
    I was caught in his snare.

And the moments took me obliviously-
Nothing else mattered so long as he was with me,
The color green associating itself with his face,
Became a permanent tennant in my head.
Did not try to stop it but encouraged it instead
Loved it, consumed it and left it for dead.

      And deep down inside I knew this

 Held myself higher than all the rest

      Understood what others did not...
       Anything worthwhile shatters like glass
      What the hell ever happened to class?

And then before me the face blurred.
The beautiful, welcoming smile
Turned into
A demonic snarl in the dark, shadowy oil
Shook my world apart
Ripped out my beating heart
Broke before me from his angelic mold
While I sat trembling, starting up
My strength had vanished and all I saw was the truth-
I gave it all up
For the ignorance of youth

And now I walk past all the people I thought I knew
Their eyes blankly staring, not seeing you
When you call out to them they vacantly look at you
There is no recognition
You recieve no attention
You're not even there
Just a ghost, merely air.

Let us travel further,
Oh yes, you will see
All the needle thin girls with fake smiles, false souls
How they bend and twist like puppets on a string
To the delight of the ruined boys
Take sips of poison to skew what you see
Become someone else
Who you never wanted to be.

Past the innocents whose lives tainted by desire
Blow forever in the winds
Past the leeches the murderers and the liar
That led you here
Be amidst the traitors
Watch the knife in your back sink further
And there you see eternity staring
Directly back at thee.

And when you return, what shall you say?
Will you remember what you've witnessed?
Will you change your ways with the best of intentions?

Or will you simply lay down

And let it happen

Your hopes and dreams severely dampened

Fall into your fears and drown.

A Mouth Full of Teeth (Ch.1)

Alrighty, since I'm feeling pretty confident still I am going to share with you the first chapter of my novel A Mouth Full of Teeth. I encourage you to leave comments; let me know what you think of it, don't be shy! What do you think works well? What do you think could use improvement? Is there anything confusing? Do you feel like the characters came to life? I really want to hear from you. All of you.

Ok, I have to go now because there's a storm a brewin and I don't want to miss it. I hope you enjoy this story. Happy reading!

Chapter 1

Jade

            I was growing increasingly irritated by the Frenchman that had been hitting on me for the last twenty minutes.  I crossed my arms and stared straight ahead, doing my best to ignore his drunken ramblings.  I hoped Jacob wouldn’t be much longer. I didn’t know how much more of this I could take.

            Just ignore him and he’ll go away, I told myself.  That’s what I was supposed to do.  That’s what a normal woman would do.

            What I wanted to do was grab him by the face and smash his head into the brick wall behind us. Maybe growl something threatening in French and watch him scamper away from me.  However, that wouldn’t be normal.  But then, I wasn’t human.

Frenchie’s come-ons were getting more and more graphic, and I was getting more and more angry.  He didn’t realize I understood every word he said.  He’d started out with the usual crap: you are so beautiful, you have amazing eyes, blah, blah, blah.  I suppose since I had responded to that with a smile and an “I don’t know what you are saying,” he thought he could get away with being flat out vulgar.  If he only knew what I was, what I could do to him…

            Finally a door across the street opened, spilling light onto the dark street. Jacob walked out.  I turned to my admirer and slapped him so hard across the face that the sound of it reverberated off the brick buildings. He stumbled back and looked at me completely astonished. I called him a few choice French expletives and then stormed off across the street.

            Jacob merely raised an eyebrow.

“Took you long enough,” I mumbled as we walked up the street together.

            “It took some convincing to get any information out of him.”

            I tried not to envision what he had done to get that information. “What did you find out?”

            “Only where Donovan was last seen.  Mutt wasn’t all that useful, really.”

Jacob was an enforcer for the Alliance of Supernatural Powers. I was, among other things, his partner. The ASP was a sort of government organization created about a century ago that set up a truce between werewolves and vampires, and by whose rules we all had to live under.  The rules were simple really, the golden one being to keep ourselves a secret.  Humans could not know of our existence.  The rest stemmed from that; no killing humans, unless it was to protect the secret, and no biting and changing of humans. Anytime someone broke one of the rules, specifically anytime someone killed too many humans, Jacob would be sent out to hunt the rouge down and bring him to justice.  This for Jacob meant ripping the werewolf to shreds.

Jacob loved his job, and was good at it.  Every werewolf around the world knew of Jacob Masters, and they all feared him. No one ever called him out or encroached on his territory, because to do so would mean a certain and violent death.

Now we were trying to track down our latest criminal: Eric Donovan. Donovan had become quite a nuisance to the ASP as of late.  He was responsible for the deaths of two politicians and a high-profile attorney back in the States.  For whatever reason, he had hopped a plane to Paris. Donovan had drawn too much attention to himself, which put our entire species at risk. He needed to be dealt with.

“So, now what?” I asked Jacob.

“We’re going to Montmartre. I want to speak with Henri Beauchamp.”

I had come across Henri’s name many times while doing research on different renegade werewolves. Henri was a guy with connections. If you needed anything – passports, place to lay low, a dead body taken care of – he was the werewolf to see. Since he was the guy with connections, he was also the guy with information. Henri would know where Donovan was hiding.

Montmartre was the seedy, red-light district of Paris. It came alive at night. People were everywhere, spilling out from the sidewalks on to the streets; laughing, drinking and dancing. A thick, gray layer of cigarette smoke hung above the crowd. Techno music boomed from the open doors of the strip clubs.  Neon lights advertised lap dances and topless dancers in English and French. Prostitutes smiled and flirted with passersby. Dealers lingered near the clubs, doing their best to advertise their goods without being too obvious.

Jacob grabbed my hand as we pushed through the mob of bodies. I had to squeeze between hot, smelly, human bodies to make my way through the crowd. My patience was growing thin.

At the corner of the street Jacob stopped and pulled me close to him. His deep, earthy, smell was a relief on my senses. He pointed across the intersection to another street lined with clubs. “Henri owns that bar, there. The third one down.”

It looked no different from the other bars in the area. A blue, neon sign hung in the window and people filtered in and out of it. The fact that Henri owned it meant that it was geared towards our kind, but of course money-spending patrons of all species were welcome there.

We ran across the intersection to our desired street. Once across Jacob looked around our surroundings for anything suspicious. Seeing that everything was as it should be, he put his arms around my waist and pressed his forehead against mine. Appearance was everything.

            “Alright, here’s the plan,” he said in a low voice, too low for anyone mortal to possibly hear.

            I looked up into his bright, blue eyes. My relationship with Jacob was complicated. He was a friend, a lover, and a mentor. He was my alpha male, if you will.

I was the only female werewolf. Ever. I had been bitten and somehow survived the infection and the first change all on my own. The trauma of it all had left me with no memory of my past and not a clue about who had bitten me or why. All I had were a few disjointed memories about a cemetery and the day Jacob found me there. That’s when my life, as I have known it, began.

Jacob found me seven years ago naked and completely out of my mind in a New Orleans cemetery.  He had been sent to investigate a pair of murders that looked werewolf related. He was supposed to kill the werewolf who’d committed the murders.  He was supposed to kill me. Obviously, he did not.

 Jacob claimed that when he saw me for the first time he instantly fell in love with me. So he ignored the rules of the ASP and took me home and nursed me back to health, and eventually brought me out of my insanity.  I had been with him ever since. 

            “You go down the alley to the back,” Jacob instructed, “I’ll go in through the front. If Henri is there he’ll make a run for it out the back door. He won’t be expecting you; stop him. Hold on to him till I get there.”

            “Simple enough,” I said. I started to move away but Jacob held on to me.

            “Jade. Be there.”

I rolled my eyes and pushed him away. Of course I would be there; it was just down the alley. It wasn’t like I had a long way to go. An irritated growl escaped my throat. Be there. As if I had never done this before.

I turned the corner into the dark alley. I could still see the red bricks of the buildings and the maze of metal fire escapes just as well as if it were day. I trudged past the reeking dumpsters towards the desired back door. This would be too easy.

            “Well, fancy meeting you here,” a high-pitched voice cooed from above.

            The hair on the back of my neck stood up. I froze and looked up to the right and saw a woman standing on the fire escape about three stories up. Only it wasn’t a woman. It was Malia, a vampire.

            Anger boiled inside me.

 “What the hell are you doing here?” I demanded.

            “I like to travel. Is that a sin?”

            My blood turned hot and my muscles tensed. The monster inside me rumbled. I’d had many run-ins with Malia before. She always wanted a fight. Apparently my existence was personally offensive to her.

            Malia folded her arms on the railing and leaned over. She was dressed in black, tight leather. Only a vampire would try to pull that off. Her blond hair fell about her white face in loose curls. Her eyes were glowing red.

            “Shall I come down, or are you coming up?” Malia asked casually.

            My knees bent. Oh, I’m coming up, I thought. I prepared to jump. But then I remembered Jacob, the plan, be there.

            “I don’t have time for this,” I snapped. I focused on the metal back door of the club and continued towards it. Even as I walked away my inner monster was coming up with a scenario for how I could kill Malia and still be at the back door of the bar in time.

            “Awww. The puppy doesn’t want to play?”

            I took deep breaths, clinched my fists. Now was not the time to lose it. I closed my eyes and continued walking down the alley.

            “Fine. But I’ll be watching you,” Malia sang.

            I turned on my heel and looked back up at her. She was smiling, highly amused with herself. I opened my mouth to tell her what she could go do with herself when -

            BAM!

            The back door was kicked open so hard that it slammed against the brick wall. Henri came running out of it. He saw me, slid to a halt and started running the other direction.

            Damn it. I took off after him, running full out.

            Henri glanced over his shoulder and saw me closing the distance. He took two long strides and jumped into the air. He caught the railing of another fire escape, swung out and did a back flip onto the landing.

            He wasn’t going to get away that easily.

            I launched myself in the air, grabbed the railing and brought my legs over in one fluid move. Henri scrambled up the ladder. I chased. He climbed two stories then abandoned this escape route and flung himself down to the ground.

            Without hesitating I threw myself off the fire escape. I fell four stories before landing solidly on Henri’s back. The impact knocked him to his face. Got him.

            “Bon soir, Henri,” I greeted through gasps of air. I looked back and saw Jacob sauntering toward us. He wouldn’t be happy.

            Jacob came up to us but didn’t even glance at me. Without a word he motioned for me to get off and grabbed Henri by the back of the neck. He picked Henri up with one hand and slammed him into the brick wall.

            “Shouldn’t have run, Henry,” Jacob said.

            Henri’s eyes were open wide. His disheveled hair hung in his face and he pressed himself up against the wall as if he were trying to shrink away from Jacob.

            “I have done nothing wrong,” Henri said.

            “Really? Your actions are not those of man who has done nothing wrong. In fact, they’re quite the opposite,” Jacob said very casually.

            “You hunt your own kind. I hear the stories about you. I thought you were going to kill me.”

            “I’m looking for Eric Donovan. Where is he?”

            “Never heard of him.”

            Jacob paused for a moment, studied Henri closely, and then threw him across the alley into the opposite wall. There was a loud crack when Henri crashed into the brick wall. He fell to the ground.

            Jacob was there in an instant. He took Henri’s left arm and held it out strait from his body. Jacob lifted his foot and positioned his heavy boot above Henri’s elbow.

            “Do not lie to me.” Jacob brought his foot down.

            “WAIT!” 

            Jacob’s foot stopped a hair away from Henri’s elbow.

            “The name… What was the name again?”

            “Donovan.”

            Henri closed his eyes, pretended to think. “Yes, yes I remember about him now.”

            Jacob pulled Henri to his feet.

            “He’s only just arrived. I think he is staying somewhere near Saint Germaine. He said he was here to meet someone.” Henri spilled everything he knew about Donovan, which wasn’t much. He told us about an underworld night club that Donovan was likely to be.

            When we’d gotten everything we could out of him, Jacob let Henri go. Then Jacob turned his attention on me. He crossed his arms over his chest and frowned.

            “I know,” I explained, “but Malia was here and she distracted me.” I pointed back down the alley to where she had been, as if this would help.

            “Malia?” Jacob asked flatly. He started to walk away.

            He didn’t believe me. I followed after him. I was determined to make him believe me. I would have been right where I was supposed to if it hadn’t been for her.

            “I swear. I don’t know how she found me. But there she was, and well, you know how she is. She wouldn’t leave me alone.”

            “It was a simple order, Jade.”

            I stopped and watched Jacob continue to walk away from me. He was right. It was a simple order and I had messed it up. Things were really off to a great start, here. I sighed and caught up to Jacob.

God Keep Me From Ever Finishing Anything

Sorry for the late posting, but I was too tired last night after the gym to anything but eat ramen noodles and watch The Hangover.

First, I'd like to tell you that I have posted to my other blog, Music You Should Be Listening To and you can click here to check it out if you would like.

Since I'm quickly running out of finished stories to share with you (I'm notoriously bad at finishing things) I'm getting dangerously close to begin sharing chapters from my novel with you. This is both exciting and terrifying for me. But it's why I have this blog so it's time to man up, as they say.

My story entitled A Mouth Full of Teeth is about werewolves and vampires. I know this genre has been very popular as of late, and I'm a little worried that maybe it's been too overplayed lately and people will be like, "Ugh, not another vampire story." I'm hoping that isn't the case, or at the very least that the true fans of the genre - people like myself - will be into it regardless. I've been into vampires and werewolves ever since I was a little kid. They used to scare me back then, so much so that if I had to get up to get a drink in the middle of the night I would walk down the hall with my index fingers pressed together like a crucifix, but I still loved them, and my fascination with them has not waned with time.

Also, I would like to say that I started this story way before the vampire/werewolf craze came around. I'm pretty sure I came up with my characters and general story line before the first words of Twilight were ever typed up. Just keep that in mind when you start reading my excerpts. There are a few unintended similarities that I'm a little concerned about, and will need your opinion on.

A Mouth Full of Teeth is really the first of what I hope to be 3 novels. I'll go ahead and give you the premise now that I've had enough Jimmy to give me courage. The main character is Jade - she is the only female werewolf ever. Two supporting but very important characters are Jacob - a bad ass alpha male that she's in a very complicated relationship with (also a werewolf, this is the biggest and most problematic similarity to friggin Twilight) and their best werewolf friend Etienne - who is sort of the only one with his shit together and is everyone's source of guidance. The other main character in this story is Gabe - a human vampire/werewolf hunter. I tell the story in first person from both Gabe and Jade's point of view.

The story takes place in modern day Paris, France. Jade and her gang are there hunting down a rogue werewolf that has gone and killed too many people. Gabe and his father are in Paris hunting down the vampire that killed Gabe's older brother. Gabe and Jade meet by chance and become romantically involved without knowing the truth about one another. After a series of very unfortunate events they discover the truth about each other and that the things that brought them to Paris are closely linked. Shit hits the fan, and we find out if "love" really does conquer all. I'm not going to spoil the ending, but it's probably not what you expect. I tried to make this different from all the other human-meets-monster stories that are out there. At the very least there is a lot of action and violence, so that's fun.

Well, there it is in a nutshell.

So now I'm going to turn it over to you again, dear reader, and I really need you to respond and respond honestly. Does this sound like a story you'd want to read? Do you want to know more? Are you so sick of monster stories that you want to punch someone in the face?

That's all I have for now. I look forward to reading your thoughts.

Thanks for reading! =)

No Busses (part 2)

Continued from No Busses (part 1)

The guys slowed as they came to the bus stop. The one in the middle, wearing a black hoodie and baggy jeans, lifted his arms and shhhed his companions. The other two quieted down. The guy on the right was wearing a white Cowboys jersey, number 81, and the one on the left wore a black shirt and yellow ball cap turned backwards. They stopped in front of the girl, grinning down at her.

            “Hey, baby, I’ve been looking for you all night,” Black Hoodie guy said.

            The girl ignored him and turned a page in her book.

            “Whatcha reading there, girlie?” He asked.

            The three of them crowded around her. I sat up.

            The guy in the Cowboys jersey snatched the book out of her hands.

            “Hey, you jerk!” She screeched at him.

            The guys laughed.

            The girl stood up and grabbed her book back from Cowboys Jersey. She held her chin up defiantly and pushed past the guys. I was impressed by her bravery. She was a tiny, little thing. Each of those guys probably had at least a hundred pounds on her, but she didn’t seem the least bit concerned. She acted as though they were just an annoyance, not a threat.

            The girl walked over to me, leaned against the outside of the bus stop. “Can I stand here?” There was something deliberate about the way she asked it, like maybe she was asking for more than my permission to stand there. Like maybe she was really asking permission to bring me into this problem.

            “Sure.” I tried to sound reassuring. Tried to give her a look that would somehow make her feel comfortable now that she was near me. Although if she had moved over here for protection I doubted there was much I could do. I was an accountant not a super hero.

            A moment later the guys came after her again.

            “Ah, c’mon baby. You don’t gotta be rude. We just wanna talk to ya.” Black Hoodie said.

            The third one in the yellow cap, who had yet to speak, reached a hand out to the girl. She backed away.

            “Don’t touch me.” She warned.

            All three guys started to move in towards her.

            I had to do something. I couldn’t just sit idly by and let this girl get attacked. I didn’t want to be one of those people you read about in the news who hear a gunshot or a cry for help but don’t do anything about it. What would my mother think if I just sat here too much a coward to help this poor little girl? Of course if I did stand up to them, if I did help the girl out, well that would be quite a story to tell Beth tomorrow. She would be impressed. She might even invite me back to her apartment after drinks. But what could I do? I wasn’t exactly intimidating.

            “Leave me alone,” the girl shouted. “I said fuck off!”

            “Hey.”

            Yellow Hat looked down at me, one eyebrow raised. He looked amused.

            “Come on, guys. Leave her alone.” I wanted it to sound like a strong demand. But it sounded more like a polite suggestion.

            All six eyes were suddenly glaring down at me.

            “Mind your own damn business,” Black hoodie growled. He turned his attention back to the girl. “Let’s see what you got in that bag.”

            I stood up.

            They didn’t notice.

            “Hey,” I said again. This time it actually sounded more forceful. “Leave the girl alone.”

            Cowboys Jersey laughed. “We got us a real John Wayne here, boys.”

            Black Hoodie frowned and came around the corner of the bus stop. Cowboys Jersey and Yellow Cap followed him. I swallowed. Oh, shit. I curled my hands into fists, narrowed my eyes to keep from looking scared.

            Black Hoodie stood toe to toe with me, his face inches from mine. I was a little relieved that I was actually taller than him, though I didn’t think height would count for much in a fight. Black Hoodie stared at me, his eyes wide and not blinking.

            “You got anything else to say?”

            I opened my mouth, but before I could speak a fist crashed into my face. The force sent me reeling backwards. I lost my balance and fell into the space between the bench and the back of the bus stop. Blood pulsed out of my busted lips. My arms and legs flailed as I tried to get up.

            Black Hoodie grabbed me by the shirt and pulled me to my feet but before I could get them planted his fist slammed into my head again. Pain exploded in my jaw and spread across my skull. I caught a glimpse of the girl through the dirty glass, her eyes wide and her hand pressed against her mouth. Better me than her, right?

            Another punch landed on my ear. The next one hit me in the eye and it felt like my eyeball might pop out of its socket. The other guys yelled and cheered as Black Hoodie through me to the ground.

            Now face to face with the concrete I watched as red spots appeared on the sidewalk. I spit out a mouth full of blood, saw it splatter on the pavement. I started to push myself up to my knees, but the toe of someone’s sneaker cracked against my ribs. I cried out and collapsed on the ground. My eyes flashed down the street again. Where the hell was the bus?

            “This is what happens when you try to be a hero,” Black Hoodie said.

            All three started kicking me at the same time. I covered my head with my arms, pulled my legs up to protect my ribs. It was all I could do to defend myself. Then something strange happened. I sort of pulled up out of my body.

            It was like I floated up and now sat on top of the bus stop, looking down on the scene below. So this is what an out of body experience is like, I thought, if it’s possible to think outside of yourself. Black Hoodie and Yellow Cap were on my left, Cowboys Jersey was on the right. They pulled their legs back as far behind them as they could before swinging their feet into me. My body bounced back and forth between the blows.

            It was painful to watch, or it should have been but I felt nothing so I watched on. My shirt was going to be ruined after this, which was unfortunate. I had worn it out with Beth once and she had laughingly told me it brought out the color of my eyes. It had become my favorite shirt.

            The girl was still standing next to the stop. She screamed at the guys to stop, but they kept kicking. She took two steps towards them, but then moved back to her original place. She could do nothing to stop them and it would be really annoying if she ended up getting herself hurt after I had so graciously accepted a beating for her.

            Instead she turned away, dug around in her bag and pulled out a cell phone. She put it to her ear and started talking quietly into it. A few seconds later she dropped it back in her purse.

            Yellow Cap and Cowboys Jersey stopped kicking and started laughing hysterically at me. They high-fived each other and then took a step back to admire their work.

            “Punk-ass bitch,” Cowboys Jersey said to my body before erupting into laughter again.

            Black Hoodie was still kicking away at me. He seemed to be getting a lot out of it and hadn’t noticed that his friends had quit. His two buddies stopped laughing and watched him.

            “Dude,” said Yellow Cap, but Black Hoodie ignored him.

            “Lee. C’mon bro, he’s done.” Cowboys Jersey said.

            Far, far off in the distance sirens went off.

            “Let’s go, man. I’m bored now.” Yellow Cap said. He put his hands in his pockets and started to walk back in the direction he had come.

            Cowboys Jersey stepped over me. Black Hoodie took a step back, and then delivered one last kick to my body. He turned and sauntered off after Cowboys Jersey and Yellow Cap.

            From my perch I saw the girl approach me. She kneeled down, asked me if I was okay. She touched me on the shoulder, and then turned me over to my back. When I saw my bleeding, pulp of a face I floated back into my body. I groaned when I felt the pain. Every breath felt like I was being stabbed.

            “It’s okay. I called 911 and they’ll be here soon. You’ll be okay.”

            I caught sight of the name tag on her purse again. It was now close enough that I could easily read it. BETH. I couldn’t help but laugh at the irony, even though it hurt my face and chest to do so. The girl knitted her brow, looking even more concerned.

            “I’m sorry this happened,” she said. “But…thank you.”

I groaned again. It was the strangest thing, even though I was in the worst pain of my life and I had just gone through one hell of a beating, I felt…good. Maybe those guys had given me brain damage.

My head fell to the side. As the swelling forced my eyes closed, I saw headlights coming towards us. It was about time.

No Busses (part 1)

Today I will share with you for the first time a short work of fiction. Fiction is my forte. It's what I'm most practiced in and what I love above anything else. I've been writing fiction since I was 12 - and that's about how long I've wanted to be a writer.

 Anywho, I'm excited to share this short story with you. Like This Is London, I wrote this story for my creative writing class. I got surprisingly good reviews on it, and received the best compliment ever. One of the guys in my class - who was actually a creative writing major and was a very strong writer - told me I "had an eye for violence." Winning!

This is inspired by all the times I've waited at a bus stop with only a few other strangers around, and the couple of times a group of obnoxious ne'er-do-wells came along. I hope you enjoy it. Please feel free to leave feedback.  (Oh, and the main character's a dude.)

Happy Reading! =)

No Busses

I heard them before I saw them.

            It was a late Thursday night and I had just drug myself out of my office and down to the bus stop. I must have looked like a zombie the way my shoulders drooped and my feet barely lifted off the ground as I walked into the covered bus stop. I plopped down on the long bench that ran the length of the structure and leaned back against the scratched plexi-glass. I was far too exhausted to support my weight at this point and didn’t mind sitting in an awkward, somewhat uncomfortable position. All I cared about was going home and going to sleep.

This normally busy street was completely empty now. All the store windows were black, their signs turned off, all traces of life snuffed out. I looked up and down the street. Nothing. No one. It was just me and the street lamps posted every 30 feet. There was a soft rustling as a discarded newspaper flapped in the breeze. Other than that, silence.

            I let my head rest against the glass wall with a thud. If it hadn’t been for Beth I’d probably still be slaving away at my desk, working on that stupid proposal. It had been so quiet in the office that when the phone rang I quite literally jumped out of my seat, sending my rolly chair crashing into the wall.

            “Yeah, what? I mean…This is Daniel.”

            “You’re still at work?”

            I instantly recognized Beth’s voice. She was known as Beth-In-Sales around my department, but I had recently started thinking of her as just Beth.

            “Uh, yeah. I’m burning the midnight oil, as they say.”

            “Do you even know what time it is?”

            I glanced at the lower right hand corner of my monitor. 11:45 pm. Later than I had thought.

            “I figured you might still be there. That’s why I called. You know, the busses don’t run all night. You weren’t planning on sleeping up there, were you Danny?”

            About three weeks ago Beth and I had started going for drinks after work. Purely as a casual, friendship building thing. After the first week she started calling me Danny. I liked that, a lot.

            “Yeah… Yeah, thanks Beth. Where would I be without you?”

            “I wonder that myself.” She had sounded like she was smiling on the other end of the line.

            A soft tap, tap, tap of someone walking caught my attention. A girl, probably in her late teens, walked up to the bus stop and sat at the far end of the bench. She was wearing a white collared shirt and an ugly, brown, knee-length skirt. Her hair was pulled back in a bun on top of her head. She had one of those oversized purse-bags on her shoulder, like the ones I used to see girls at my university carrying books in. The girl rummaged around in the bag, pulled out a book and then let the bag slide down her arm to the ground. It made a flat crunch when it landed. Something glistened on one of the straps, catching my eye. It was a little gold name tag. I was too tired to try and make the name out. I glanced up at the girl. She must have just gotten off work at a restaurant or something.

            I didn’t want her to notice me staring so I turned the other direction. Best to act as though she wasn’t even there. That’s what strangers do at bus stops – not acknowledge each other’s existence.

            I started reading the graffiti on the glass for entertainment. It was the usual illegible lettering and obscenities one finds on public property. Someone had felt the need to etch a penis into the glass. Next to it was the romantic admonition Tina Luvs Mike.

            My thoughts turned back to Beth.

            Earlier this afternoon I had known I would have to work late and wouldn’t be able to go out with Beth. I had stopped in the men’s room on my way to her office, just to make sure I looked presentable. I looked at my reflection and wondered what a girl like Beth could see in me. A round face, small dark eyes, slightly irregular nose. I ran my hand through my short, reddish hair, straitened my tie and continued on with my mission.

            I rapped on the wall outside of Beth’s office before poking my head through the open door. Beth was at her desk, studying the computer screen with one had on the mouse. She glanced over and big smile lit up her face when she saw me.

            “Hey Danny, what you brings you here?” She asked cheerfully. Her blond hair was perfectly styled as usual and she was wearing a pretty, red blouse. The first button of the blouse was unfastened showing just a hint of pale skin and a shiny necklace.

            “Hi Beth,” I said as I took a few uncertain steps inside her office. She hadn’t invited me in but I felt stupid just hanging out in the doorway. “I just wanted to let you know that, uh, I’m working on this big proposal and it’s just taking forever to do so I’m gonna have to work late tonight. So, I can’t go out tonight.”

            “Oh.”

            I watched carefully as Beth’s smile fell and she looked down at her desk. Was she disappointed?

            “Well, duty calls. I understand,” she said. “I’ll let you make it up to me tomorrow.”

            That’s when I heard them. Loud voices bouncing off of the buildings and reverberating down the empty street. My chest tightened and I hoped there wouldn’t be trouble.

            I looked to where the shouts were coming from; the girl had turned towards them too. Several yards away 3 men stumbled down the street, laughing and pushing each other. The girl turned back to her book looking unconcerned and unimpressed. I glanced up and down the street again. Still no signs of the bus.

            I watched from the corner of my eye as the guys drew closer, still shouting and laughing. Keep on moving, I thought. If they started causing a problem with the girl I would have to do something. Everything about my southern culture and the way I had been raised dictated that I must. Even if it meant putting myself in harm’s way, I would have to stand up. Be a man, as my father would say. But I was so tired I could barely hold my eyes open and I had never actually hit anyone before. Please keep moving.
Click here to go to Part 2