My Ceremonial Pajamas were Polka-Dotted

  • by jenGrandma wore a black, beaded, sequined wedding gown
  • I’m going to remember tonight forever
  • describing him as a drunken maniac
  • jack-in-the-box wound to the breaking point
  • joke about having sex with bigfoot

Tune in next time part 703      Click Here for Earlier Installments

My ceremonial pajamas were polka-dotted, and of the footie variety, with a sash for my medals. I hurried to the reception, wondering about the message on the mirror. Was it true? Could the marriage still be stopped?

When I burst into the ballroom, Mother and John were in the process of handing each other small metal tins. I was too late! They’d exchanged snuffboxes! To make things worse, they were surrounded by my many, many children.

Mother looked at the army of babies and said, “I hope you will all remember that Grandma wore a black, beaded, sequined wedding gown, and that she looked damn fine.”

“I know I’m going to remember tonight forever,” said John with a lewd wink.

I tried to push my way through the crowd to reach them, still hoping to somehow stop things. Mother took up a microphone and gave a toast about her new husband, describing him as a drunken maniac who won her heart in a game of snooker. I was so upset I felt like a jack-in-the-box wound to the breaking point, and that was before my mother praised John’s hairy chest and made a joke about having sex with bigfoot.

“Mother!” I yelled at the top of my lungs. “Not in front of the children!”

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Routine Sets You Free

People become writers for all kinds of reasons, but one thing no one ever says is that they just really love sitting and staring at a blank page. Writers want the freedom to create, to express, to put their ideas into other people’s heads. We don’t daydream about pecking on our keyboards; we daydream about readers saying our stories changed their lives.

Writing takes a lot of work. No matter what kind of process you use, whether it’s formal or informal or utter chaos, it’s a lot of work. Here in the Writing Cave, we do have an opinion about this matter. Our process is pretty formal. Not top-hat and cumerbund formal, but it wears a tie. Lots of people would say that the time and energy we spend on pre-writing might as well be spent on actual writing.

Maybe. There’s no one-size-fits-all solution, so do what you find works for you. But a simple trade-off of one task for another isn’t the only perspective to consider.

The thing we like about having a good process is the predictability it brings to the sitting-at-the-keyboard part of the job. We don’t need to devote energy to figuring out if we’re working on the right thing at any given moment, so all our energy can go into figuring out innovative new ways to torment our characters. The creative freedom lies in being free from the burden of infinite pathways.

The expression “having your work cut out for you” is generally meant as facing a big task. Well, if you’re writing a novel then you definitely are. What that phrase really means, though, is that the leather to make the shoes is cut to shape already — you might have lots of shoes to make, but the materials are set up and waiting. That’s what a strong process gives you.

A writing partner is someone who’ll make sure you have your work cut out for you.

“You Stay Away From My Mother”

  • by Kentequally frustrated wife
  • snake-based consequences
  • multicolored donkey wallpaper
  • by an unidentified hand with red ink
  • exchanged snuff-boxes

Tune in next time part 702      Click Here for Earlier Installments

“You stay away from my mother,” I said to John.

“Don’t listen to him,” Mother said, “or I’ll have a frustrated husband who’ll have an equally frustrated wife.”

Fleur hauled on my arm, spinning me to face her yet again. “You need to change into your ceremonial pajamas,” she scolded, thrusting a cloth bundle into my hands.

“Didn’t we already miss the reception?” I complained.

Nodding impatiently she said, “Showing up improperly dressed at the reception would have consequences, and since this is the second reception they’d be snake-based consequences.”

I sulked off to the nearest lavatory to change. It had multicolored donkey wallpaper, which was how I knew this wedding chapel was aboard a Contrarian zeppelin. A message had been smeared on the mirror by an unidentified hand with red ink on the fingertips. It said, “The wedding doesn’t count if they haven’t exchanged snuff-boxes.”

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The Groom Turned his Masked Face Back to Me

  • by jenapplied a laser wand
  • “Dad? Daddy?”
  • each guest puts on a pair of pajamas
  • gracious meals and gourmet tastes
  • pretty bananas

Tune in next time part 701      Click Here for Earlier Installments

The groom turned his masked face back to me, threw open his green tuxedo jacket, and gestured extravagantly at the aquarium belt encircling his waist. Muddy green eels swam in circles through his belt loops, past colorful strands of fake plastic seaweed.

“Very nice,” I said. If I understood the tradition correctly, this little show-and-tell meant that I wasn’t going to be stabbed. It was the best I could hope for under the circumstances.

The rest of the ceremony took place in total silence. No music. No speaking. The officiant and the happy couple did the whole thing in pantomime. This was very unlike any of my own weddings. Contrarian rites and ceremonies have dozens of sub-variants depending on multitudinous factors. If I was remembering correctly, a silent wedding meant that neither the bride nor the groom were native-born Contrarians.

After Mother and her beau exchanged earrings, they each applied a laser wand to the wedding certificate, drawing a stick figure man and woman. The officiant took the wand and drew a heart around their doodles, making it all legal.

Fleur appeared beside me. “Are you going to call him Father?” she whispered. “Dad? Daddy?”

“None of the above,” I whispered back.

The officiant glared at us to be quiet. Then he mimed changing his pants while eating something held in his fist. Fleur translated. “Now is the part where each guest puts on a pair of pajamas for the reception. It will be a grand party, in Contrarian tradition, with gracious meals and gourmet tastes, and a table piled high with bunches and bunches of really pretty bananas.”

“Bananas!” A banana buffet at a Contrarian wedding reception meant that the groom was an old friend of the son of the bride, and also bad at cyphers. “It can’t be!”

“I’m afraid it is,” said John, pulling off his mask. “And don’t even think about calling me Papa John.”

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Getting to Know You

Sometimes characters’ personalities change once you start writing them. Your villain turns out to have a sense of humor. The hero’s loyal ally proves to be secretly sort of a dick.

Outlining is based on plot kinetics, concrete events. To the extent that anyone’s interior state is represented at all, it’s very broad. Probably based on the role or archetype of the character more than details about their motivations. “Bob opposes Alice, so when she enters the bake-off he… switches her sugar and her baking powder.”

Writing the prose is when you start to see out through these people’s eyes. The antipathy between Bob and Alice becomes something you can feel, not just a specification for the project. And, that ingredient switcheroo is easier said than done. Bob looks up at you and asks, “How do I not get caught?” and you sternly order him to figure it out. He does, or when he gets caught he talks his way out of it, or he invents a completely new way to sabotage Alice, and in the process you figure out how his mind works.

There’s also the grit of everyday life, sensorial stuff like clothing choices or a favorite snack, little challenges like too much traffic or too little coffee, and so on. Small-scale things that reveal so much more about this person than we get from the macro plot structure.

Here at SkellyCo Amalgamated Fiction Enterprises, each of us tends to “adopt” a subset of the cast. This spreads out the load, so each of us only has to learn to wear half as many heads. The initial adoptions have a tendency to stick, but we rarely make formal assignments — Kent might take the lead with a given character, but Jen can step in to write later scenes in that POV, which helps round out its voice.

A writing partner is someone who gets to know you a little more on every page, as you get to know them better, too.

Was Mother Really Marrying This Man

Time is broken. Somehow the adorable little chain story we brought home from the hospital what feels like merely a few months ago is now a moody 700-part teenager! Loyal readers know how we approach these centenary increments: Jen and Kent share the keyboard and alternate the prompt phrases. Also, instead of our awesome writing prompt generator (which you should really check out), we choose all of the prompt phrases from a single source.

To celebrate this chain-a-versary, Jen bought a Tesla.* So it only seems appropriate to coordinate everything by pulling our prompts from “The Inventions, Researches and Writings of Nikola Tesla.” Jen pulled the phrases, Kent randomized them, and voila!

* Jen got the Tesla because she needed a new car. She ordered it back in December. It’s just a fun coincidence that it arrived in time for the platinum jubilee.

  • that fascinating little book
  • the lowest organism we know
  • convey the vibration through my body
  • touch the keys of an instrument with unerring precision
  • I take in my hand a simple
  • changed the destiny of nations
  • A single ray of light from a distant star falling upon the eye of a tyrant
  • confined to the neighborhood
  • an expensive vacuum pump
  • might meet the fate of St Polycarpus

Tune in next time part 699 & 700      Click Here for Earlier Installments

Was Mother really marrying this man in the beaked mask, or was this merely another of her espionage exploits? I’d found her diary when I was a child and the stories in that fascinating little book were quite alarming to read. Of course they’d been written in code, a code I was quite proud to crack at the time, but one which I suddenly realized must have been meant for me to break. She’d placed a hint about the key right inside the front cover: “to read this book, think like the lowest organism we know.” Naturally I knew who she meant by that. Bookworms had no eyes. They sensed their surroundings through vibrations. That meant that in addition to reading the words on the page, I had to run my fingernail across the indentations her pen had made in the paper, like a stylus on a stereo, to convey the vibration through my body. My keenly trained mind would combine the two sources of input into a single coherent message. Just as a concert pianist is able to touch the keys of an instrument with unerring precision, even as a child I could read such codes with ease. In order to prepare myself I thought, “I take in my hand a simple nail file and with it sharpen the nail on the pinkie of the opposite hand.” And by this humble means I unlocked secrets that had changed the destiny of nations. A single ray of light from a distant star falling upon the eye of a tyrant, where that ray of light’s name was Zsa Zsa and that tyrant was her first mark, was merely the first of many lurid tales in that cursed manuscript. Her diary made it seem that all of Zsa Zsa’s secrets were romantic, if only in a visceral, unsentimental way, and that the partners in her assignations were confined to the neighborhoods of politics and espionage. By the time I was done reading (and vibrationally interpreting), I felt like I wanted an expensive vacuum pump to suck all the images from my brain. And I wanted to believe that Mother’s disturbing little book might meet the fate of St Polycarpus, to protect future readers. But the tales were so sordid I felt sure the very ashes of the diary would retain the power to convey them. I shuddered at the memory.

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As The Music Started

  • by Kentwith a professional eye
  • “One of your lovers?”
  • hiding the salami, and not with any degree of deftness
  • talking about your wife’s pussy in public
  • stroked the back of her hand over its rough surface

Tune in next time part 698      Click Here for Earlier Installments

As the music started, I gazed with a professional eye — an eye trained in espionage — at the door at the far end of the aisle. A man in a green tuxedo, his face obscured by a long-beaked medieval doctor’s mask under a top hat, entered and began a stately march in my direction.

I traced an imaginary beak in front of my own face, then gestured to the stuffed vulture above the altar. “One of your lovers?” I quipped. I knew it wouldn’t count as enough of a joke, but it did seem to loosen up the room a little. I launched into the first zany story I could think of before I lost my nerve. “On the way here I stopped for a sandwich, but the clerk at the deli was hiding the salami, and not with any degree of deftness. His pants were too tight.” I had no way of knowing what the groom made of that, but there were a few chuckles from other guests. The groom simply maintained his unhurried pace down the aisle.

“Does the bride happen to own a cat?” I asked, directing the question at the groom. “I hope so, because I’m looking forward to talking about your wife’s pussy in public.”

The creepy green-tuxed figure halted about an arm’s length away. He was utterly silent and still, which meant he could be neither laughing nor stabbing me. While I considered my impending fate, the music stopped and the veiled bride started her own steady advance toward the altar. The church was eerily quiet.

When she was near enough, I could recognize the bride’s face through the white lace that covered it.

“Mother?” I exclaimed.

The groom turned his head her way, swinging the pointy mask an inch from her nose. She reached up and stroked the back of her hand over its rough surface.

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Fleur Turned Me to Face Her

  • by jeneither stab you or laugh
  • I have become used to this propaganda
  • look at his new fish tank
  • apart from its odd shape
  • your telephone’s been ringing

Tune in next time part 697      Click Here for Earlier Installments

Fleur turned me to face her, and took a moment to straighten my uniform. When the silver dove was dangling just so from the brim of my hat, she twisted its beak to switch on the light inside. A deep red glow emanated from the bird’s eyes.

“As the groom walks down the aisle, you must tell a joke. When he reaches the altar, the groom will either stab you or laugh, depending on how good the joke is.”

“Stab me?”

“I rather hope he laughs, but it all depends on the joke.”

“Fleur, I’d like to say I have become used to this propaganda, this ‘Contraria is so extra’ stuff you always say, but–”

“If the groom laughs, you’ll be fine. He’ll invite you to look at his new fish tank belt, which, apart from its odd shape, is just like any other fish tank. The eels swim in circles around his waist. It’s quite something. You will need to compliment it.”

“Excuse me, Your Majesty,” a butler said, tapping Fleur on the shoulder. “Your telephone’s been ringing for nearly ten minutes.” He held out a silver tray with Fleur’s phone vibrating noisily on top. She reached for it.

“But who is the groom?” I asked, grabbing her hand. I needed to know how likely it was that the aquarium-belt man would try to stab me. I might be the new leader of the stand-up comedy battalion, but the emphasis was definitely on “new.”

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We Read A Thorough Read-Through

The Story of the Ghosts So Far has been read through. It was interesting to see where we would catch up to it, because the read-through was happening a little at a time (Kent used it as the material for his reading aloud while Jen cooked) and meanwhile we were still adding to it in the evenings.

In other words, we treated it the same way we treat most other books. (Except for the part about adding on to them in the evenings — we don’t do that with anybody else’s books.) Getting a chance to experience it at a full gallop, as it were, did feel quite different. We both expressed surprise at how much happens in this early section. There is one particular event we have a lot invested in that hasn’t happened yet, and we’d started to feel like we were taking too long in reaching it. And there will undoubtedly be some pacing adjustments. But our idea that it was “taking too long” was just because we had been overemphasizing that one thing.

The notes that we made were mostly quite minor. The really picky stuff we went ahead and cleaned up, which took maybe ten minutes. But for anything more complicated than typos we are saving the actual fixes until later. Need to keep moving forward.

A writing partner is someone who also likes being a reading partner.