Quoth

Posted on January 2, 2018 by TheSpiderlilly

Happy New Year, all!

Talent is insignificant. I know a lot of talented ruins. Beyond talent lie all the usual words: discipline, love, luck, but most of all, endurance. -James Baldwin

Today seems to be Microfiction Idea Day…

Posted on March 12, 2017 by TheSpiderlilly

Go take a nap, wake up with another microfiction idea…

Here’s a taste:-
“Open the door, you son of a bitch!”
Bang. Bang. Bang. The wood on the bathroom door began to splinter.

Wanna read the whole thing? Sign up at my Patreon for the appropriate award!

http://www.Patreon.com/TonyaLiburd

Quoth

Posted on January 3, 2017 by TheSpiderlilly

“The most important thing if you want to be a writer is to find something to get you going. What usually works for me is a deadline. Sign up for a writers’ class, join a writers’ group, volunteer for a local paper — do whatever you have to do so that someone somewhere is expecting you to hand them something. Make it as good as you can make it, and then show it to someone and listen to what they have to say and then go at it again.

If that sounds like fun to you, then maybe you are a writer. If it sounds like lunacy, if it sounds like torture — you’re probably right too.”

Stuart McLean

Snippet

Posted on November 21, 2016 by TheSpiderlilly

(from my novel-in-progress.)

…and sometimes things just, you know… fall into your lap.

It was at my first Flaming Lips concert. And based on what I was experiencing, it wasn’t going to be my last concert.
I was standing near the area in front of the giant television display in Dundas Square; it was an area full of parked and locked bikes, sitting, standing, lounging people, balloons being passed back and forth and loads of camaraderie. I was enjoying the sight of the lead singer crowdsurfing inside a huge ball and was moving closer through the push of bodies to get a better view, and to record what I was seeing, when it happened. I lost my magical protection. I felt it more than saw it happen.
A mild vertigo slid through me.
It was like being in an accident, where everything was speeding up and slowing down at the same time. Things were going so slow that as I looked behind me I just managed to see a figure furtively disappearing into the throng of bodies oblivious to my plight.
Once he cleared the crowd, this person seemed to think that the deed was done, that there was no pursuit, but habits of carefulness seemed to dictate his mostly unhurried actions.
I watched him duck into doorways or alleyways whenever he saw a vehicle approaching, or another pedestrian.
Then in an alley, I saw him look around before approaching one doorway. He passed a hand over a part of the shadows, then seemed to step into them.
So that’s how he eluded people.
He was getting away with my jumbie beads.
No! That could not happen… I dashed forward, grabbed him by the collar, and yanked him back into the night.
I grabbed him by the neck. His feet were off the ground.
I slammed him face first into a wall. I think his nose was worse for wear because of that. I breathed down the back of his head.
“Hello there.” I let my voice express its full monstrosity.
His heart raced, from what I could detect. I smelled fear.
“I do believe you have something of mine.”
I could hear him begin to hyperventilate.
“No answer, hm? I suggest you give it back.”
He began to stammer.
“Speak up. Words, boy, words.” I shook him by my grip around his neck.
“I-i-it’s in my back pocket.”
“Ah.” I fished it out. “Thank you.” I let him unceremoniously drop to his feet as I put the jumbie beads back on.
A shiver spread throughout my body as the magic began to take hold. My head lolled back.
Then I eyed him.

Snippet

Posted on August 28, 2016 by TheSpiderlilly

From Novel #2 in progress, tentatively titled, “Heathens, Blood and Stone”

===

Mirror’s head tilted, and she leaned to the side.

The person was slouched down on the train seat, but the black sweatshirt was so non-forming that the resulting bagginess left the distinct impression of a curve deeply slouched onto the seat. The knees were no different; the bagginess of the jeans, this shade of navy, left no distinct impression of a knee, it was just part of the curve occurring at that region as well. In fact, there were no distinct impressions of body parts at all; not even a distinct shoulder, even though the person’s hooded head leaned on the pane bordering the train’s doorway. No hands, even, buried into the bagginess of the too-short pants- did they even come up to the guy’s waist?

“What are you doing?” Nancy asked.

“Trying to see if this guy’s made of bone.”

A snicker skipped out of Nancy. “He is kinda like a spaghetti trying to sit on a chair, isn’t he?”

“Can you see his face?” Mirror asked.

The front of a cap protruded from the sweatshirt’s hood, but that was all that could be seen.

Snippet

Posted on July 1, 2016 by TheSpiderlilly

500 word piece meant to stand alone by itself, but I plan to expand it to a full-blown short story:-

===

You have terminal, aggressive cancer, and today is the day you are going to die.

And now, you’re not sure if you’re dead dead, or some weird state of being, because your unique Gift that manifested at puberty–like everyone’s does–is that you can make yourself disappear, not be found. That’s how you managed to leave your family behind. The death itself was not what you thought would happen; no going towards the light, no meeting your maker. Instead it’s like as if your essence withdrew into itself, and, muffled from the sensory input of the world, took residence somewhere inside your skull.

And there you stayed.

Until.

That Moment When…

Posted on June 8, 2016 by TheSpiderlilly

That moment when working on finishing up your novel you realize that novels aren’t just something ‘they’ or ‘other people’ do, but YOU do, too.
The mild panic.
The realization hits you and hides, as if to protect you from freaking out;
It comes in waves.