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The Devil Wears Red, Black, and Green

This week, Wordsmith.org celebrates sixteen years of Logophile mania by choosing words that are all related to the number 16.

Today, Revelation (16:16) brings forth the word of the day:

Armageddon. noun. a decisive, catastrophic conflict.

The final battle between good and evil.

May we begin this writing exercise with a moment of silence….

*****

Betsy tapped the brass door knocker three times. When the door opened, she stood face to face with Mrs. Anderson – long, brown (hot-rolled) hair, big blue eyes dressed in shimmering eye-shadow and thick mascara, lips of crimson red.

The lips spoke. “Bessie! Great!”

“It’s Betsy.”

“Yes? Right. Come on in. This is Michael.”

Michael peeked out from behind Mrs. Anderson’s legs. Betsy saw only the right side of his face, one blue eye the same color as his mother’s and half a head of brown hair. His timid smile suggested an easy night of babysitting.

“I’m so glad you returned my email. I took a chance on the neighborhood Nanny Service. It’s so hard to find a good sitter. Michael is one of a kind, and I hate to hire just anybody.”

Mrs. Anderson guided Betsy into the front room. She said Mr. Anderson made reservations for a last minute dinner with an important client at a fancy downtown restaurant. She had to meet him in 15 minutes. She hurried through directions for Betsy, while Michael disappeared down the hallway.

“Dinner at 6, bath at 6:45. Books at 7, bed at 7:30. Then, the rest of the night is yours! Here’s some money for pizza. The number for delivery is on the refrigerator.”

With manicured nails, Mrs. Anderson thumbed through a stack of $20’s and gave Betsy three.

“Oh, and if Michael makes a little mess, no worries. He’s four. That’s to be expected!” His mother was all smiles.

Betsy waved good-bye as Mrs. Anderson clicked down the sidewalk in her three inch heels.

The house was quiet, except for the sound of slamming doors and cabinets somewhere in the distance. Betsy followed the noise down the hall, past Michael’s bedroom, a study, and a spare room scattered with scrapbooking supplies. She found him in the master bath. His feet poked out of a cabinet opening underneath the sink. Betsy grabbed his ankles and pulled.

“Michael? What are you doing in there, little buddy?”

He turned around and stood up.

“Whoa,” Betsy whispered.

The right side of his face looked the same as before, but the left side appeared altered. A thick line of red lipstick ran from the corner of his mouth all the way down to his collarbone. Eyeliner shot out from his eyebrow into three directions that resembled a pitchfork. Mascara oozed across his eyelid and down the side of his nose. Half of his hair stood on end, held up with sticky, green goop.

“Digging around in your mother’s make-up, little guy?”

“Mine!” He blew past Betsy, and his feet pounded down the hall.

She traced his path using the destruction he left behind. Scrapbook confetti still hung in the air. Blocks from his room tumbled out into the hall. The desk chair in the study lay on its side like a casualty.

She found him in the kitchen, standing on the counter.

Continue reading “The Devil Wears Red, Black, and Green”

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I am my own boss.

Christina Katz, at The Prosperous Writer, sends out a weekly e-zine in which she writes about the 52 Qualities of Prosperous Writers. This week’s topic is Accountability.

I don’t have an agent. No publisher is knocking at my door begging me to sign a contract for a book not yet complete (does that even happen in real life?). I don’t get paid to write –yet. So, what makes me accountable?

Why keep writing?

I spent years dreaming, thinking, saying out loud, “Some day I want to be a writer.” My mother believed in me. Not concerned if I could tackle story structure and character development, or if I could decipher theme and irony, she asked me to pen a story about her. If she were still living today, and reading this blog, she’d make me accountable. It’s hard to say no to your mother.

The day I signed up for my first writing class – no, strike that – the day I sent my first nonfiction piece to a legitimate literary magazine, I named myself a writer. Since then, I’ve had visions of quick success, flashes of failures, and heavy doses of reality. I wondered if I would ever be a serious writer. But, not once did I consider returning to the days of not writing.

Accountability keeps me engaged in what I love.

This blog makes me accountable. Every Wednesday, I write on the Word of the Day. No one pays me, and I happened to choose a day of the week when my time is always scrunched. Still, I post a flash fiction, a short essay, something.

Writing salons keep me accountable, and connected. If I’m too quiet in a group, someone sends an email, because – as writers – we know that silence can be a deadly.

And, oddly enough, Twitter makes me accountable. When I tweet that I #amwriting, I commit myself. I doubt all 109 of my followers are waiting, with bated breath, to read the end result of whatever it is I am #writing. But I’m a people-pleaser, and I can’t bear to think I might leave even one follower hanging.

Accountability.

Christina Katz is right when she says:

You understand that your success is contingent upon this ability to be dedicated to your work and you don’t shirk your deadlines or commitments or take them for granted.

What makes you accountable?
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Potlatch. That’s right, potlatch.

It’s Wednesday. This morning, on Wordsmith.org, I read potlatch.

That’s right:

potlatch. noun. 1. A party or get-together. 2. A ceremonial festival among American Indians of the Pacific Northwest involving feasts, lavish gift giving, dances, etc.

The word itself looked intimidating. I took a deep breath and popped my knuckles. Think positive, I told myself.

I researched the word elsewhere (aka. avoided the issue of writing about it). I scratched out one draft of a story that oozed dramatics. I went back to the original word, scrambled the letters, and created a list of potlatch proxies.

patch, latch, lap, hop, halt, hot

Then, I thought of Millie, a character in my WIP, and wrote a scenario that might suit her story.

*******

The last time I posted about Millie, she was choking down a Mega-Mix vitamin. Today, she fell victim to a birthday party gone awry….

Millie suspected trouble when she couldn’t park near her mother’s house. The giant “Look Who’s Forty!” birthday banner, stretched over the front door, proved that her mother went overboard.

A voice rang out behind her. “Lordy, look who’s forty! It’s the birthday girl!”

Aunt Harriet held a large crock pot. Quinn and Brenda walked up behind her. Aunt Harriet kissed Millie on the cheek. Quinn, Aunt Harriet’s son, nodded. Brenda, his wife, carried a gift that was overshadowed by the scowl on her face.

“Happy Birthday, Millie,” Brenda growled.

Millie followed them inside and to the kitchen. She said hello to her mother then turned to see a host of nondescript faces standing in clumps in the back yard.

“Mother.”

“What is it Millie?” Her mother mixed potato salad with a wooden spoon and a wild hand.

“Those people.”

“What people?”

“In the back yard, mother.”

Still mixing, her mother looked over at Millie and rolled her eyes. “Oh for heaven’s sake, Millie. Those people are your relatives.”

Brenda leaned over to Millie. “She’s turned this thing into a family reunion.”

“And, a few friends,” her mother continued.

“What friends? What relatives?” Millie felt light-headed.

“Brenda, go peel some carrots,” Millie’s mother snapped. “And, Millie, did you bring the cake?”

She held up a round two-layer cake under a hard plastic cover.

“That’s it? Oh my word.”

“You just said bring a Red Velvet cake. You didn’t say how big.” Millie sat down.

Aunt Harriet stared at her sister in disbelief. “You asked her to bring her own cake? Really, Katherine.”

“Well, I was in charge of the invitations, the lunch, and the party games. I didn’t think it was a big deal.”

At “party games,” Millie excused herself and went to the bathroom. She sat on the toilet and tried not to throw up.

After ten minutes, her mother pounded on the door and insisted Millie get out back and mingle. She went outside, but stuck to the porch and hid behind a pillar as best she could. At first, she only recognized a few of the younger cousins. Then, standing along the fence, she saw her two neighbors, Mr. Lewis from across the street and Mr. Millstead from next door.

Mr. Lewis saluted. Mr. Millstead grinned. Millie lifted her hand in a half-hearted wave.

After lunch, Millie’s mother blew a coach’s whistle. She thanked everyone for coming, hoped they were enjoying the food and refreshments, and invited all the men to participate in a strong-man’s competition called the 50 yard Millie dash.

“And the winner of the 50 Yard Millie Dash will win this brand new Weber grill!”

Some ooo-ed, some ahhh-ed, others stood and stared. Still, a handful of men gathered around her mother to hear the rules of the game.

“Carry Millie for 50 yards as fast as you can. Whoever crosses the finish line in the least amount of time wins the grill!” Her mother clapped to get the crowd going.

There were too many people to measure 50 yards from the porch to the fence. So, someone pulled out 50 yards of rope and figured three wide laps around the picnic table would suffice. Her mother pulled Millie to the front and center.

“You’ve got to be kidding,” Millie whispered.

Continue reading “Potlatch. That’s right, potlatch.”