Category: Blog

Writing Exercise: POV and Scene

Erin Penn

Bar Code People Stock Photo

Image Courtesy of Vlado at FreeDigitalPhotos.net

POV & Scene

WRITING EXERCISE: Write of scene of two people; by the end of the scene the following features should be defined: (1) gender, (2) age, (3) cultural status and/or educational status. 200 words or less (with two people, a few extra words might be needed).

Switch it up now. Write the scene again, but switch the people in the roles. Keep the same person’s POV.

Example of combinations: Older doctor with young intern – becomes young doctor with older intern (maybe on second career); Male boss with female secretary.

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Rating: Mature (Language)

Dixon and the Distracted Mother (Version 1)

“Joshua, please just sit still a moment.” The mother hissed at her child as she juggled her purse, a diaper bag, and the loaded the last of her cart’s items onto the conveyor belt. She smiled weakly at the people behind her as she dug out her wallet from the bottom of the pile, and finally focused on the cashier who monotonously been pushing items through the scanner to the steady sound of the beep.

Dixon, numb from three college finals that week, couldn’t manage a smile back after watching the woman yell at her kid throughout the line, when she wasn’t on the phone. Once more the senior debated his choice of becoming a teacher. If parents weren’t involved with the children before school, what was the point? “Your total is $127.32.”

“Oh, wait. I got coupons.” The woman said as she pulled a fistful out of her purse, dropping her wallet in the process. “Fuck!”

“Fuck, fuck, fuck,” echoed the child. (words 163)

****

Dixon and the Distracted Mother (Version 2)

Three cans of ground coffee, one pack of white coffee filters, a couple new memory cards, several six-packs of highly caffeinated soda, and a bag of chips hit the conveyor belt, while Dixon swayed from exhaustion. Three finals down and two to go and he would be done with college. The monotonous beeps hypnotized him until the cashier said, “Your total is $42.60.”

He blinked a few times focusing on the middle-aged woman across from him. “Oh, wait. I got coupons.” He started digging through his pockets, first the jacket, then the jeans, finally finding the papers in the shirt pocket. He smiled at the people behind him in apology before turning back to the cashier who had been glancing at a phone placed next to the register, biting her lip. “Problem?” he asked, not really expecting an answer.

“Just not sure I am going to be able to pick up my kid from daycare before closing time. They charge extra if you are late.” She said, scanning the coupons.

“Getting off soon then?”

The cashier shook her head. “Two people didn’t show today, and I am the one low on hours.”

Opening his wallet to get out his credit card, the worn, overextended stitches broke from the cracked leather, dropping half of his life onto the floor. “Fuck,” Dixon said weakly before bending down. (words 225)

Flash: Mist Clung

Erin Penn

Mist Trees and rising sun

Image Courtesy of dan at FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Mist clung to the last vestiges of night, transforming the rising sun’s visual aspect into a bright full moon. The old wolf huffed, her breath joining the mist. The twilight hunters would be out, cats and their ilk. She shook the dew condensing on her fur loose.

She did love days like today, when her joints did not creak, her belly was full, and her pack was safe. The tree beckoned as the perfect place to sleep the day away, cool shade once the last of the mist burned off, soft green grass. She could wake a dozen times, search her surroundings for trespassers, and lay her muzzle back on her paws for another nap.

Let the young ones do their day duties. The three nights of full moon consumed all her energies.

(words 135; first published 6/26/2016)

Other Cool Blogs: LIGO and A Capella Science

Erin Penn

A little departure from my standard pointing to other writing blogs where good writing/editing/publishing advice is provided, I thought I would touch base on a video-blog I love. Because to write good science fiction, one needs to know about science fact. 

A Capella Science was started by a Canadian physics student, Tim Blais, while he was earning his masters, a mash-up of his love of music and physics to blow off steam between research projects. The A Capella Science channel became an unexpected hit after the release of Bohemian Gravity. Like 3 million crazy – who knew string theory had such a catchy beat?

His following continued to develop with each new release, some of them parodies of popular music set to science themes and some original pieces of his own creation. Whether the musical Wicked parody where Newton and Einstein sing a duet about Defining Gravity through time or the original Nerds: A Manifesto, Mr. Blais hits the science and culture of science out of the park again and again.

I highly recommend subscribing to his youtube channel and if you have a dollar or two to spare become his patreon: here. It is stuff like this that makes science accessible and interesting to teenagers and adults; it encourages people to go into technology and biology. And if you are a teacher of physics, biology, chemistry, or music, see if you can work some of these videos into your lessons. 

Author Spotlight: John Hartness

Erin Penn

Book Cover for Stone Cold Crazy

Cover from Amazon

John G. Hartness is a … personality. His podcast, Literate Liquors where he pairs good books with good booze, is NSFW (not safe for work), and the language on his blog has vocabulary not allowed in G movies. But he is passionate about writing and is willing to help those willing to help themselves. Not satisfied with helping new authors through organizing a few anthologies (The Big Bad and The Big Bad II, for example), he has gone on to start Falstaff Publishing. In addition he regularly contributes at Gail Z Martin’s meetup about how the publishing industry works.

Series he’s written include: The Black Knight Chronicles (published by Bell Bridge Books), Bubba the Monster Hunter (self-published – and yes it is EXACTLY as wild as it sounds), and Quincy Harker (self-published). Plus he had tons of short stories and other material out there.

Highly educated, he man can talk theater, electrical, and wiring. He works as a publisher, marketer, content editor, and with a dozen of other skills beyond his formidable sales ability.

And when the Interweb posts self-published are silly, ineffectual people, gloves come off.

If you want to know what self-writing is about, the schedule you keep, the blood you will bleed – read this blog published April 26, 2016: Ros Barber may not be an elitist assclown, but she sure comes off as one.

Biggest takeaway for me was: 
“…if you want it, it’s out there. But you have to want it. And you have to be willing to work harder than anyone else, because that’s what small business owners do. And if you don’t look at your writing career as being a small business owner, then you’re not ready to have a writing career, no matter how you plan to publish.” (John Hartness, 2016)

Flash: Joelie and Sarah’s Last Day

Erin Penn

Water visible through Ice

Image Courtesy of Jeremy Ricketts at Unsplash.com
Cropped by Erin Penn

Joelie cinched the saddle girdle tighter, letting the town’s mayor attempt to make him change his mind. You would think after raising her from birth, she would know only one person got him to change him mind about anything. Finally he interrupted, “Jillie, hon, your mom ain’t goin’ to last through winter and I can’t stop that. Travel may end it sooner, but she will see something she wants to see.”

“Dad, she is barely conscious. She isn’t going to notice anything, and it’s a full day’s travel even with my horse.” The five foot nothing blond dynamo argued. “Shouldn’t mother die in the comfort of her own bed?”

Satisfied the horse was ready and everything was packed for the journey, the old farmer went into his one-room house. “Your mom has never been one to choose comfort.” He sat in a chair to change his boots and add a second pair of socks.

“At least let me see if the priest from Riding-in-the-Mud can help give travel ease.” The young woman trailed her father into her childhood home.

Joelie stood, pulling on a traveling cloak. “Magic helped the first year, but now the Tester has placed this challenge before us. We can do this on our own.” Touching the pile of skin and bones swathed in blankets, Joelie stroked his wife’s cheek. “Sarah, time to go.”

Her blue eyes focused on his for the first time in days, reassuring him that the love of his life was still with him and he was doing the right thing. Picking up the blankets and padding, he carried the precious bundle out. Despite her having been several inches taller than him and outweighing him most of their joint lives, the last two winters of illness had taken their toll and now she was lighter than a grain sack.

****

Two days of frozen purgatory guiding a horse through his normal, slightly illegal, hunting grounds finally ended. He had never been one to understand how the King could own the entire forest. He was pretty sure the White Stag ruled it.

Jolie had wrapped Sarah tightly during the day and provided her his heat at night. He wanted to carry her during the day as well, or ride the horse and provide her needed warmth, but he needed to break the trail for the horse and he fell too many times.

The horse went to the edge of the water without prompting and Jolie started pulling what was left of his wife down. He heard a whisper and leaned closer in. “Are we there?”

Seeing clear eyes and ruby checks, Jolie gave thanks to the Tester for giving him a final moment with her. “Aye, we have arrived.”

Twenty years ago, she had laid into him during one of their few arguments, saying he did not have a romantic bone in his body. Sarah had just finished a round of afternoon sickness, since morning sickness was not enough for his exceptional wife, and the additional weight at six months on her swelling feet looked painful even to him after spending the day in the field. It took time to get her to this location then, but never did she ever question his romance again. Partially because if she did, he would have dragged her the long hike there and back to revisit this place.

Sitting on the edge of a boulder half-in and half-out of the waterfall pool, he settled his forty-year old woman in his lap and let her look around. A magical spring feed the creek a little further up. The water stayed a constant fifty degrees, creating a pool warm in winter and cool in summer. The steam rising from the waterfall coated the branches nearby with crystal ice. A few flashsprite made the glade their home during the winter, and danced among the branches setting off rainbows of color. The Valley-Home water lily floated pure white from a dozen different locations in the perfect blue of the pool. Green grass grew at the edge of the pool, where the warm water pushed back the hoar frost.

Valley-Home lilies could never be moved from their home water pool. He tried for years to transplant some from the spring to the irrigation pond in the north fields until Sarah had requested he “stop killing the flowers, you fool. I can remember their scent just fine.”

Joelie held Sarah, rotating her head from where it rested on his shoulder throughout the day and sunset so she could see everything. He feed her bits of trail meat after chewing it soft. At night the flashsprites danced faster among the ice, snow, and blue water. The world was a blaze of color and the jasmine-like scent of the Valley-Home released at full strength just before the white flowers closed for the night. Sometime after sunset Sarah slipped away.

(Words 814; first published 6/19/2016)