Some morning thoughts:-
Donald Sterling. Bill Cosby. Darren Wilson. Jian Ghomeshi.
Their controversies:-
The cognitive dissonance between being taught that “Cream rises to the top” and the simple fact that “Shit floats.”
Two street people, a guy and a girl, with backpacks, a guitar case and two dogs, one black and one white.
Red plaid scarf on the guy, whose face I have yet to see.
He’s settled in the middle of the streetcar, right where it’s built to rotate. She’s nestled into the single seat between the rotating middle and the door, and looks at me while I opass to exit.
I don’t recall precisely *why* I decided to finally get a Pinterest account; it may have had to do with the fact that I was getting annoyed with not seeing pic of a certain Celebrity crush of mine. I didn’t want to get tied up in the latest social media – I actually started a twitter account just so I can have a place to document the hilarity that ensued while I was playing World of Warcraft. It ended up being my primary way of bookmarking writers, events in the writing world and marking things that matter to me. For reasons I don’t think I’ll ever get into publicly, I’d given up on writing, and had already been through the Yahoo, Infoseek, and Geocities phase of Internet sites.
But then Pinterest started emailing me about boards. And I’d see this AMAZING image in my inbox. And then I’d realize a couple writer friends were on Pinterest, so I’d check them out, too.
I forgot how visually oriented I am when it comes to writing. Images inspire, have inspired, characters, scenes… novels.
Then, a couple days ago, I went nuts on Pinterest. Like that Just Fab series of ads, where the hubbies or the delivery man freaks out at the sheer volume of obsessive purchases the ladies are doing…. I started Pinning.
Lord forgive me, but another social media platform has gotten a hold of me, hook, line and sinker.
Do *not* whisper to me sweet nothings of Instagram, or Tumblr, or Bandcamp, or…
Do not.
You many not wake up the next morning.
(Here’s my Pinterest. Phbbbt.)
I’ve passed 500 followers on Twitter.
Yay!
The numbers seem stable, and in celebration of this–and also in light of the fact I thought I had posted a snippet about them–here’s a nasty twosome that shows up in my novel-in-progress.
I’ve written about them recently, in another scene in the novel, so this is a throwback for me.
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In the shadows of a slight overhang, I didn’t so much see as sense someone.
Two figures resolved themselves from the shadows.
They stood for a moment, watching me with wide-eyed delight.
The white woman wore tight black leather pants, an open black leather jacket with extra zippers and nothing inside except a black bra on pale skin, and a necklace full of dangling metal points. A black scarf emblazoned with a white, fanged, skull covered the lower half of her face, leaving visible eyes with smoky eyeliner and a shock of black hair moussed upwards into a pseudo mohawk.
Her black partner was no less distinct. He went shirtless too–his chocolate skin emblazoned with celtic-pattern tattoos–but he wore a black blazer and pants to her leather. His own ‘mohawk’ of hair consisted of dreadlocks wrapped into round balls, successively going from large to small, front to back. Even his beard-—swinging, reaching almost to his large belt buckle, obscuring the tattoos when he walked out–was dreadlocks.
The woman’s hands lowered the scarf about her face. She smiled nastily at me, then lifted her lips in a snarl, exposing the twin points of her upper canines. She puckered her lips and kissed in my direction in mockery.
Normally threats to me remained–even if unmistakably so–in the background, so the fact that these particular two were upping the game made my hackles rise. They—the people who sent them–were bringing it to me.
My stiletto was in my hand – I didn’t remember drawing it, but I was already moving to face the threat.
The male moved then, a dark shape flashing across the floor. I leaped back, and the shape mirrored me. I had little time to place their positions among the pillars and doorways in shadow in the area.
A perhaps futile gesture, but at least I had my soucouyant’s strength to help me: I lunged at the female. She snapped the edge of her left hand against my descending arm, knocking my stiletto aside. I stumbled forward, off-balance after my lunge and miss.
Regaining my balance, I rushed at where the dark shape stopped, aiming to ram it hard, and it spun, hitting me in the back and knocking me forward into a waiting figure.
These creatures were my match; probably magically enhanced, and there were two of them and one of me.
My supernatural abilities didn’t bend toward preternatural speed – but theirs did; two hands yanked my arms painfully upwards behind my back, another implacable hand bowed my neck prone.
A cold, sharp blade teased its way along where my shoulders and the back of my neck united, a soft male voice going “Shh…”, tut-tutting me into stillness. “No no, no you don’t… There you go.” The cold edge lifted.
I breathed carefully through gritted teeth, acutely aware of the jagged edge over my neck. I couldn’t quite control it, but my soucouyant’s heat, to a degree, had begun to rise. The male chuckled in appreciation.
I had a pretty good idea how this would go.
SkullScarf was the gleeful, willful and most likely capricious brawn, apparently held in check by BallBraids, the talker.
And they were here to talk. All this, as dangerous as knifeplay, was for show; I was meant to listen.
And this may not be the last time I would encounter them. They would guarantee it.
“Your time is running out,” the male said. “What did we tell you, oh so long ago?” he asked.
I grimaced.
“It wasn’t so long ago,” the female said.
“Poetic license. Say it.” I could hear the smile in his voice, the fangs.
“There is no choosing, only accepting.”
“And what is there to accept?” I felt the knife’s edge graze along my skin.
“That I will join you.”
“Have you accepted?”
“Fuck you.”
Posting this here. The writing friend’s anonymous.
Me:- Every so often I get this feeling, like, “Why are you doing this (writing thing)?” I feel like a fool!
Writing Friend:- Yeah, that means you’re doing it right.
Writing Friend:- everybody feels that
Writing Friend:- if you didn’t feel like that you’d think you were fantastic at writing and that would not be good for anybody.
Me:- Pleas remind me of this!
Writing Friend:- only if you promise to remind me.
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