Rocky Sat Down on the I-Beam

k-avatarThis week’s stichomancy prompts were pulled from the menu of a local watering hole. Our critique group used the bar as an emergency backup meeting location once when our regular haunt was unexpectedly closed. Lucky for us, the menu was full of interesting phrases, ripe for the picking.

  • tuna croissant
  • Jamaican me crazy
  • glass or pitcher
  • and a splash of cream
  • so it tastes like sugar

Rocky sat down on the I-beam to eat his tuna croissant 80 stories above the noisy street. Irv sat beside him and unpacked his usual: macaroni and a splash of cream. Rocky often wondered about Irv.

“You been down in the sixties lately?”

Irv meant the levels where the building’s interiors were coming together. Up here it was still all exposed steel, but a few hundred feet down they were painting the walls and moving in furniture. Rocky grunted and shook his head.

“One place in there, gonna be a pet store. Lotsa cages.”

In fact, it was a laboratory.

“And above that, they got mini-golf with real sand traps, only insteada sand it’s some other kinda stuff so it tastes like sugar.”

Rocky often wondered about Irv.

“When you go down there, make sure not to touch any of the glass or pitcher winders.”

Rocky grunted again. Maybe Irv would soon be done talking.

“Well, can’t sit around all day. Foreman tells me, ‘Jamaican me crazy!’ and swings his dreads around. Freaks me out.”

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All the Artists

by jenThis week’s stichomancy prompts were pulled from the menu of a local watering hole. Our critique group used the bar as an emergency backup meeting location once when our regular haunt was unexpectedly closed. Lucky for us, the menu was full of interesting phrases, ripe for the picking.

  • artists, intellectuals, and merchants
  • cabana boy
  • Magic Hat #9
  • key lime pie never had it so good
  • the only truly authentic brand of Worcestershire

All the artists, intellectuals, and merchants in attendance could agree on only one thing: the hostess was serving the only truly authentic brand of Worcestershire sauce available on the island. The soiree quickly devolved into their petty arguments about every other subject, including which cabana boy was the most effeminate, and whether the Great Rudolfo, the island’s only truly authentic magician, was wearing Magic Hat #9 or #13, both of which were made of purple velvet.

In the midst of the cacophonous conversations, Reggie approached the buffet table and asked the docile manservant what the enchanting green dessert was. When he told her, she exclaimed, “Key lime pie? Never had it!”

“So good you’ll weep,” the manservant assured her.

Reggie took a slice for herself, and one for her studly lover Lazarus.

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Time Lapse

r-avatarOne of the joys of collaborating on a writing project is how quickly you can accomplish things. With two sets of hands typing, the combined output can set a blistering pace.

After fumbling our way back into the writing process after being AWOL for a while, we’ve hit our stride. Each of us dove in on some of the scenes that had been patiently waiting, and our word-counter was a blur.

As is inevitable, we reached a part of the story that wasn’t amenable to tandem work. The plot was at a very kinetic point, with one scene cascading into the next like a chain of dominos. Even with our thorough outline and our scene stubs to guide us, the clockwork precision required to make everything seamless ruled out the ambidextrous approach. Sure, we could have winged it and smoothed out the transitions on an editing pass, but we chose a different method.

Since Jen is the resident stub-maker, she leapt in on those while Kent attended to the actual prose composition.

We’ve come out the other side of the tentpole moment with no time wasted, and a roadmap that will lead us to the very end of the story.

There are 14 scenes left to write. If we each tackle one per day, we’ll be done in a week.

Spoiler alert: We will not be done in a week.

Simon Had Just Found Out, Definitively

  • k-avataratoms infinitely smaller than our atoms
  • he would never have wings
  • Thrilled?
  • the splendor of his funeral clothes
  • a foot-soldier in the ranks of science

Simon had just found out, definitively, that he would never have wings. How was that supposed to make him feel? Thrilled? It made him feel like a visitor from a universe with atoms infinitely smaller than our atoms, like a foot-soldier in the ranks of science battling squadrons of superstitious scoffers. It made him doubt the splendor of his funeral clothes.

Had Simon known from the start that he was a millipede and not a caterpillar, he would have been spared the whole turmoil.

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Professor Turkovsky Called His Apprentice

  • by jengreat white eyebrows
  • his long slender hand around his neck
  • grasshopper war cry
  • I will be old, ugly, stupid
  • a fantastic contraption
  • Proper diet? Sports? Cosmetics?

Professor Turkovsky called his apprentice, James, into his study. James stood before the professor, lanky and youthful and handsome, his long slender hand around his neck, scratching a bug bite.

“James, tell me, what is the secret of youthful beauty?” asked Professor Turkovsky. “Proper diet? Sports? Cosmetics?”

James nodded, uncertain.

“But those all require hard work, skill, and money!”

James shrugged.

“I have invented a fantastic contraption!” the professor chirped in a voice not unlike a grasshopper war cry. “It is like the fountain of youth! It will make me young again!”

“But what if it fails, Professor?” asked James in alarm.

“If it fails, I will be old, ugly, stupid.”

Before James could protest further, Professor Turkovsky flipped the power switch and grasped the handles. A smell of sickly sweet cotton candy filled the study as tendrils of yellow and orange electricity crawled over Turkovsky’s body.

James shook his head in dismay as he saw the great white eyebrows form on the professor’s face.

The experiment had failed.

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Inquiring Minds Want to Know

r-avatarSaturday, we attended a reading and book signing at our local bookstore-cafe of preference, Webster’s. There we had the distinct pleasure and honor to make chit-chat with three successful and highly regarded authors: Carolyn Turgeon, Jeanine Cummins, and Daryl Gregory.

As we introduced ourselves to each of them, in turn, the same questions came up. Do we write? Yes. Both of us? Yes. Together? Yes.

“How does that work?”

For us, any distinction between “writing” and “writing together” faded away years ago. So it’s always a bit of a surprise (still) when other people are surprised at the notion of co-authorship. That the response was unanimous among these three experienced authors reminded us that our process is rather atypical.

They asked us about things our dedicated readers already know, like how we divvy up the workload and whether we have two computers. Also, how it fits into our marriage. By sharing the writing, we prevent it from coming between us. It doesn’t displace couple-time, because it is couple-time.

It was fun to talk shop, and inspiring to be treated as peers by those who have proven themselves. We stand in awe of those who can carry the whole novel-writing burden on their own.

My Husband’s Name is Paris

  • k-avatara strange man opened that door
  • the worst a beautiful woman could do
  • strip poker with a man-eating tiger
  • my husband’s name is Paris
  • reporting a raccoon
  • “Cold potato soup!”

My husband’s name is Paris, which isn’t the worst a beautiful woman could do. I once dated a fellow named Albuquerque, and even that’s not as bad as strip poker with a man-eating tiger.

But this has nothing to do with Paris, or Albuquerque.

My apartment has a door I never use. Once a strange man opened that door and leaned into my apartment, reporting a raccoon was raiding the dumpster. So now I never use that door.

And yesterday, a little child trapped in my sock drawer kept yelling the same thing all day. “Cold potato soup!”

I think I should move.

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During the Later Stages of the Elbows Installation

  • by jenat the bottom of the sea
  • Every skin-diver and shrimp fisherman
  • no sound disturbed his semiconsciousness
  • later stages of the Elbows installation
  • the speed of a middle-aged jogger
  • you won’t be sorry

During the later stages of the Elbows installation, Hieronymus Warhol’s drug addictions overtook him with the speed of a middle-aged jogger training for her first marathon in poorly fitted shoes, and he would often slip into a trance-like state while on the job-site.

Every skin-diver and shrimp fisherman from the nearby wharf was called upon to shout salty profanities, and fling rocks and shells found at the bottom of the sea in an attempt to rouse the great artist and compel him to complete his pipe-cleaner masterpiece, but no sound disturbed his semiconsciousness.

When eventually he came back to consensus reality of his own volition, he looked at the curator with bleary eyes and croaked, “You won’t be sorry.”

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Two-Fisted Writers

r-avatarLots of people read more than one book at a time, and now we seem to be flirting with the idea of writing more than one simultaneously.

While we’ve been getting back into the swing of things with our nightly writing routine, which has felt like learning to ride a bike all over again, we’ve also been brainstorming plot ideas based around a really nifty bizarro premise that Jen came up with.

There are certain traits we’ve identified as essential to the Rune Skelley brand, and Jen’s concept embodies some of them right out of the gate. It’s dark, for one thing. Character driven for another. But there’s a particular type of story world that we like to build, something that’s made all the more strange by its seeming familiarity. That’s where the brainstorming is focused right now, figuring out the setting and what’s freaky about it.

We’re thinking about handling it as a sequel to something we wrote last year. The themes resonate, and that story world’s mechanicals suggest a direction for a plot. So it’s promising, but we don’t want to get too locked into one view of how we might do things.

Besides, we still have about half of the outline to get through in our current project, and there are a couple of other novel drafts awaiting our tender revisionist ministrations.

You’re The Most Evil Person, Ever

  • k-avatarunless she herself was at the fairgrounds
  • no matter what innocent life is ruined
  • A mouse. A dead mouse.
  • next is Jack the Ripper
  • dear Jimmy, Ariel, Bebe, Mary, John, Philip, Amy, Myrtle, Vincent, Oscar, Vera, Peggy
  • Oh, piffle!

“You’re the most evil person, ever. Next is Jack the Ripper. You pursue your own pleasure, no matter what innocent life is ruined.”

All I could say was, “Oh, piffle!” Which didn’t really accomplish anything. But I knew what her comment was about. A mouse. A dead mouse. Named Reginald, it had gone to be with dear Jimmy, Ariel, Bebe, Mary, John, Philip, Amy, Myrtle, Vincent, Oscar, Vera, Peggy, and Margarita.

I wanted to play skee-ball and ride the tilt-a-whirl, I wanted to win a goldfish. But no one was allowed to be having fun, unless she herself was, at the fairgrounds.

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