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U is for Uniform

Erin Penn 4 Comments

Feeling Cynthia claw at his arm, Jax looked down and saw his girlfriend’s eyes draw into pinpoints. “Shit.” His head swiveled as he searched the semi-crowded vendor room. They were about as far from the door as they could be, against a back corner. She was already struggling to breathe. There was no way to make it out in time.

“Door,” he barked at the vendor where they had been admiring the dragon leather and fairy gossamer wings. Napoleon’s head snapped up. “What?”

“Where the fuck is the nearest door?” Jax hissed, pulling Cynthia against him as her body started shaking.

The vendor waved towards the entrance to the large conference hall.

“No, she is having a panic attack. We don’t have time.”

“Over here.” The vendor next to Napoleon’s Wings waved them over, moving the corsets lining the wall to show a small door used by the hotel help during more traditional conferences. She opened the door, and Jax quickly moved Cynthia through, half carrying her as her fight-or-flight kicked in.

“I got you. I got you,” he repeated until he could put her down in the empty service hallway. “I’m between you and people. I got you. You’re safe. I got you.” She pummeled him several times on the chest and face ineffectually with fists and open hands, and he took a few scratches, but eventually Cynthia backed against the wall and slide down when her hyperventilating made her dizzy. Tears streamed down her face.

Jax leaned against the bare gray wall and slid down on the concrete floor beside her. “I got you. I’m sorry. Everything is okay. You’re safe. I got you. I’m between you and people. No one can see you. I got you.” He kept repeating, his voice going hoarse while he waited for her to calm down. When she reached the point he could safely touch her, he pulled the small woman into his lap and started petting her hair and back while speaking nonsense words of comfort.

At some point, one of the hotel staff came down the hall, and Jax shook his head at her. She backed away, but another person came soon thereafter. A convention security volunteer, a yellow banner attached to his badge, with one of the hired uniform guards. They stopped about ten feet away, then, after a short whispered conversation, the staffer continued forward. Cynthia was down to sobs and hiccups, but Jax still rotated her so his shoulder and body were between her and the newcomers.

The con staffer stopped two arms length away and crouched down to sit on his heels. “Is everything okay?” he asked softly.

“Noooo.” Cynthia wailed softly into Jax shoulders.

He petted her electric violet hair. “It’s okay. He can’t see you.” Jax stage-whispered looking at the staffer, Basketcase according to his badge. “Everything is okay. Just …” Jax words went away, because he knew Cynthia was aware enough to remember this and the embarrassment would be devastating if she thought people knew about her problem. She would never go out in public again. There were several restaurants where she insisted they could never go back because she had lost it in them early in their dating until he figured out most of her triggers.

“Sir, can you tell me the problem?” The staffer’s voice took a firmer, more official tone, although he made no move toward them. His face arranged in guarded concern like a puzzle, one piece at a time as the man tried to figure what he needed to do.

“She is okay. Just got a little overcome in the crowd.”

Basketcase nodded. “She is not hurt? No one did anything inappropriate?”

“No, sir.”

“Social anxiety?” The security man asked, the voice and face shifting yet again.

The question was close enough to reality Jax relaxed, still petting Cynthia as she tried to burrow deep into him in her embarrassment. “Yeah. We thought Friday wouldn’t be bad.”

“Do you need medical attention?”

He probably could use some Band-Aids, but he wasn’t going to ask for them in front of Cynthia. “No, sir.”

The con security guy half turned, bringing one knee down to look behind him at the guard. “It’s okay, Will. Thanks for the backup.”

“You sure?” The black uniform asked, his hand never far from his belt of many things, including a taser.

“Yeah. I got this.”

After the uniformed security guard disappeared down the hallway, the con worker turned back around, then sat on the floor Indian style. “Hi there, I’m Reese, but around here most people call me Basketcase because of the amount of things I volunteer for.”

“Jax.”

“Yeah, I’ve seen you around on the circuit. You’re into anime, like that cutie there.” Reese hunched lower as Cynthia peeked over Jax’s shoulder. Through his hand, Jax felt tension begin to leave Cynthia’s spine. “Did you like the schedule layout? I put that together.”

“It made more sense than most, and integrates well with the online app.” Jax responded to the surreal talk.

Really, what the hell? Casual conversation in the service hallway? Jax felt an itch on his face and lifted his hand wiping the area, finding it wet and sticky. Pulling his hand away, he found red smeared on his fingers. Cindy got him good with a swipe.

“We picked up a couple new Freshman from the college who figured out the app. Between the three of us, we fixed things up good.”

“That’s nice.” Jax really didn’t know where this was going, but when Cynthia pushed gently against his chest he lost what little interest he had discussion.

 

A to Z Short Story List Breakdown

Rainbow Spectrum (A to F)
Marathon Party (G to M)
Trigger: Cutting (N to Q)
Bookstore Sort (R to T)

Panic at the Convention (U to Z)
4/24/2019 – U is for Uniform
4/25/2019 – V is for Volunteer
4/26/2019 – W is for Weasels
4/27/2019 – X is for Xander
4/28/2019 – Y is for Yuengling
4/29/2019 – Z is for Zillion

T is for Translating and Titles

Erin Penn 3 Comments

Shannon cleaned up the tea, restocking the water from the sink left behind in her old kitchen which had been repurposed as her store entry. While she did that, several more regulars came in and went out. The interruptions of ringing up the outgoing sales, and one purchase of incoming books, extended the cleanup effort, but she refused to give up the task even with exhaustion nibbling at her body. Some of her visitors needed a break from the outside more than books, and she wanted to make sure that the safe space was available for immediate use. It was pushing an hour before Borys rung the bell.

Making her way to the fantasy and science-fiction room, she found he had managed a complete aisle alone. His skills were increasing all the time. Though many of the words escaped him, he knew the alphabet and the sorting rules. As a used bookstore, she didn’t really care if the books were alphabetical by author name or book title or a mixture of the two. So long as there was some semblance of order and the shelves were neat, her customers could find what they wanted. The young man gave her the five books which had stumped his present skill set.

“This is great, Borys.” Shannon went through them. “Three romances in the wrong area. Good eye!” She placed these on her lap, then studied the other two. “This one is Japanese magna. We just added a shelf in the back of the Fantasy room for it. I’ll show you where to put it. And as for this last book, oh yuk, a symbol instead of words. What is this, the author formally-known-as Prince? Let’s open up to the title page and see if that helps. Ah, what is this word here?” She asked, as she walked him through her problem-solving method again. Each time he got a little more. He used to not be able to distinguish between styles of books for sorting, now she rarely found books out of genre when she went through her store after one of Borys’s visit.

“The.”

Shannon moved her finger, and he read each word.

“Lost. Fire. of. Kil … no … Civil-zay-ton.”

“The Lost Fire of Civilization.” Shannon repeated. “And no author name. If you can’t find the name on the cover of the book, sometimes the title page can fill in the blank.” She handed him back the book to put away on his own, which he quickly did, reaching the top shelf easily.

Moving further back in the room, shoving one box to the side with her good foot to get the scooter through, she showed him where the magna went. Borys frowned at the books on the shelf. Colorful pictures but the words were wrong.

“For this section, just put the books on the shelves neatly. Not all of them are in English. You remember the Spanish section?”

Borys nodded, still staring at the offending books. Meanwhile, the entrance bell chimed.

“This is like that. People speak different languages and have different alphabets. Everyone should have something to read, so I have a section for them. Just keep it straight and neat, like they are important too. People who are not like everyone else like it when people treat their stuff nice.”

“I like it too. I like to be treated nice.”

“Yes. And so do I,” Shannon said, reversing her scooter before returning to the front to see who just came in.

Borys stood in front of the manga section a long time before moving to straighten it up.

The End

 

***     ***     ***

This story (Bookstore Sort) is dedicated to my middle school ice cream (and milk) lady who let a child on the spectrum, back before the spectrum was a thing, keep the milk straight and neat every day during the lunch hour instead of being forced to sit with kids she couldn’t figure out how to talk to or go out to the playground to be bullied. You let me put things in order by date, sort the milks by flavor and percentage, and keep them all square. You let me stand beside the milk area and talk to you day after day. Your small kindness made me feel useful and valued. Thank you for the Christmas gift of a red knitted hat with matching scarf and for being my friend, even though you were an adult and I was twelve. I will always remember you, even if I never learned your name.

***     ***     ***

 

A to Z Short Story List Breakdown

Rainbow Spectrum (A to F)
Marathon Party (G to M)
Trigger: Cutting (N to Q)

Bookstore Sort (R to T)
4/20/2019 – R is for Ring
4/22/2019 – S is for Seuss
4/23/2019 – T is for Translating and Titles

Next: Panic at the Convention

Writing Exercise: Naming Yourself

Erin Penn

Image courtesy of saphatthachat at FreeDigitalPhotos.net

One of the first marketing decisions you will make is naming yourself.

Your parents hopefully chose you a good name, one that fit both the baby in their arms when they picked it and the person you grew up to be. But that name might not work for writing for a number of reasons – it is not unique, it is too unique, it is difficult to spell or doesn’t follow normal spelling rules for names, or just doesn’t match the genre (for example, if Rainbow Rowell wrote Horror instead of Young Adult).

In the “not unique” category. I have a funny story. Elisa Hansen ended up releasing The Company of Death post-apolocylitic fantasy within half a year of Elisa Hansen releasing The Days of Reign post-apolocylptic fantasy; the books ended up being linked to one person on both Amazon and Goodreads although they were two different authors. My Elisa (and if you have been following my blog, you know which one is mine) had to fight a quick side battle shortly after the release of her new book to get everything straightened up. Both books and authors, no doubt, were in the pipeline a year or two before publication with the names decided long before then.

Another reason for choosing a different name includes writing in a genre not appreciated by employers in your day-job field. An author I edited years ago had this issue, writing erotica while working at a Presbyterian university. (They have since stopped working at the university and writing erotica.) So for various reasons, it might be time to come up with your writer’s name. Your pen name.

Where to go for inspiration? Many people tap into their middle names and the names of their ancestors, especially their mom’s maiden name. Others are already famous with an online moniker for their blog, vlog, or fanfic writing and want to bring those audiences across to their new writing career. Still others use nicknames or favorite roleplaying characters. Having a name you will respond to at a convention when someone shouts it across the hall is great.

I should mention most women choose to use pen names. The primary reason is safety – people can’t causally google you back to your house. Some jerks might, but the average lazy asshole won’t. Nearly equal in priority is job security – many women work jobs where they will be fired for doing something outside of the normal. Similarly many men will write under pen names if they work in a field with tenure until they pass the years-in-service mark. Another reason, I think, why women are more likely to make the change is women were brought up to expect to change their names and men were not, so females don’t have a built-in aversion to the option. The end effect was when I asked a table of 20 authors with about equal numbers of men and women, all but one woman had a pen name and all but one man used his real name. This group was a mix of traditionally published, small press, and indie (self-published) authors.

Once you have decided to go with your birth name, or a variation of names you already use, or an entirely new name, you should test it out. At the end of the day, this will be your Brand. Market testing is a must.

First investigate to make sure it is unique enough. Run it through Amazon. Go to the book or kindle section and search on the name and see what comes back. Go to Goodreads or other review sites you interact with and see what happens which using the name in author searches. Next Google it, both by its self and with the word “author” attached – like “Erin Penn Author” – and see what comes back.

All good? No major hits? Great!

Now test market it. Bounce the name off of friends and family who you trust with the writer-self. What works and what doesn’t.

Finally, search on it as a dot-com (example: erinpenn.com). Does it come back already owned?

All that worked out well? Sit on it a bit. Have your friends call you by that name for a little while. Mix and match it with various stories you have written as the by-line. Print it off and put it on the wall for at least month, the one in the bathroom which you stare at while on the toilet. Do you still like it?

If so, put a ring on it. Buy the URL for the website so no one else can take it, set up a Facebook page, get a Goodreads account, and look at the other social media you might want to participate in.

Then start marketing yourself with the newly named (or reaffirmed) you.

WRITING EXERCISE: Play at choosing possible names to publish under. Choose two authors you like and go through the above process. How many places and ways were you able to find them? Did you find an Amazon author page, Goodreads page, Facebook page, Twitter account, Instagram, Linked-In,  webpage, Patreon, etc? What is missing, and why do you think it is missing? (Remember each social media option is one more time suck the author is not writing.) Run through the same process with your given name and a pen name you’ve been toying with.

A-to-Z Blog Tour

Erin Penn 2 Comments

Part of participating in the A-to-Z blog is taking a blog tour of the fellow bloggers. My personal goal was 5 per day, which falls way short when you consider this year 683 people participated. I wanted to actually visit – read and look around; I decided quality was better than quality. Also, you know, life.

In the end, I have visited 286 of the 683 blogs. Over 40%. Most won’t know I visited because WordPress requires a special login, and mine is linked to a day-job, not my writing. The A-to-Z organizers did post a “How to make your blog comment friendly,” but the same adjustment also makes your blog-comments spam-friendly, so I understand why not everyone made the switch.

Anyway, I ended up averaging 9.5 per day, over 40% of everyone there. I will continue to respond to people visiting me. Also I will continue poke around the list (complete list is here for those interested) throughout the year because so many efforts were totally awesome and worthy of showing up under “Other Cool Blogs.” 

Now I am going to call an end to my personal, intensive (at least 45 minutes per day) tour so I can concentrate on finishing the actual challenge, and maybe putting the related short stories into a publishable form.

Keep writing y’all. 

S is for Seuss

Erin Penn 6 Comments

Returning to the front, she found Judith sipping tea in the comfy chair Shannon kept for guests, Shannon’s favorite mug sat steaming on the little table in the conversation area. She stopped beside it, stirred the liquid, and removed the teabag. “Be right back,” she said before continuing to the counter area where she threw out the bag and then pulled out a box and retrieved a large, thin book.

Placing it on her lap, Shannon grabbed the handlebars of the scooter and made her way back to Judith. “I got a gift for Borys.” She held out the book to Judith.

“You don’t need to…” The woman sputtered while taking the book. “You help me out so much.”

“And you help me, running errands for me when I can’t get out. I really appreciate that.” Shannon shook her head, then tapped the book now held by Mrs. Solomon. “But this one is for Borys. Something he can read, I think. You said first-grade level now, right?”

“Yes, but they frustrate him because all the books available are aimed at kids doing kid things.” Judith looked down at the book. “Bartholomew and the 500 hats? A Doctor Seuss?”

“A fantasy and one of the few books he wrote in prose format.” Shannon took a sip of her tea. “I think that is one of the first fantasies I ever read. A strong male character, an evil nephew, kings, and magic. Plus lots of counting. What’s not to love? Borys adores everything in the fantasy section so I thought he might like this. Something in repayment for him keeping my shelves straight. If he likes that, I will see if I can dig up the sequel, Bartholomew and the Oobleck, which is about as close to Urban Fantasy with Horror overtones as I ever have found in the ‘children’s’ section.”

“I’ll give it to him tomorrow after the doctor visits. So he doesn’t insist on reading it instead of going out to the evaluations.”

Which is why Shannon had given it to her instead of directly to Borys, Judith would know how to work the timing to get the maximum benefit for everyone. “Evaluations?”

“Yes, there is a new center, a new group home, opening up in Mount Holly.” Judith set aside her empty tea cup and closed her eyes a moment, gathering strength, rubbing her arm which showed a light green and yellow bruise. “He is getting too much for me to handle by myself.” Her husband had bailed years back, not able to deal with their son’s problems. “His last evaluation, back when he was 17, the last time a place opened up, records him as too aggressive for this facility, but he has changed in the last few years, calming down now that he is in his twenties. So I’m hoping a new evaluation can get us in the door.”

“That would be great, although I will miss him.” Shannon moved her scooter back as Judith stood. “He really does help me a lot. I can’t get down to fix those bottom selves or reach up to load the top shelves.”

“The home actually comes with a work program and can drive him out.” Mrs. Solomon checked her purse, pulling out her keys, and tucked the Dr. Seuss book under her arm. “They allow families to regularly visit and even take the residents home on weekends. And,” she sighed with relief and cautious hope, “it is covered by his insurance, if the evaluations comes back favorably.”

Shannon followed her to the storefront. “Here’s to tomorrow going well.”

“Being able to run the errands by myself, and him having a day of sorting books, will go a long way to that.” Judith teared up, looking away from the bookstore owner, her hand on the door. “Thank you … I … I will be back about three, I think.”

“You know the number. Just give me half an hour to prep Borys to leave.”

“Thank you.” Mrs. Solomon whispered before sneaking out the door, keeping the small bells over the door from ringing as much as she could.

 

A to Z Short Story List Breakdown

Rainbow Spectrum (A to F)
Marathon Party (G to M)
Trigger: Cutting (N to Q)

Bookstore Sort (R to T)
4/20/2019 – R is for Ring
4/22/2019 – S is for Seuss
4/23/2019 – T is for Translating and Titles