Luna’s Prose Ramblings

The Rough Grind

I knew the day would be a disaster. Standing with a rubber chicken in my hand I know I shouldn’t have gone to The Grind. Matthew always says that Sally is welcome there, but it’s just not a good place for a dog, even one as well trained as she is. It started with making a snide comment at the musician out front. Ever since I started frequenting the place, he’s been there. He wasn’t a beggar, he was too clean for that, but I could never bring myself to an introduction or ask for his name during the few words we would sometimes exchange before I went in. I am sure it was all business for him anyway. If he was kind to patrons of The Grind there would be a better chance of guilting them into giving him some change. I didn’t like his tactics, even though I am sure they were the first principles of business and everyone in the world used them. I just didn’t like it.
‘Good morning.’
‘Hi,’ I said trying to avoid his gaze.
‘Lovely dog you have there.’
‘Thanks,’ I said, while giving Sally a quick pat on the back before I reached to open the door.
‘I’ve always liked the idea of having a dog to share my outdoor stage with me.’ I could see him with a ropey mutt beside him.
‘Well, you’d have to properly take care of one. And not just have it for entertainment value,’ I said.
‘Yeah,’ he replied and looked at me with a mixture of affrontedness and disbelief. ‘I’d have to train it.’
‘I doubt it’d be as well trained as Sally,’ I cast over my shoulder while I walked into the café.

It must be bad karma or something. I was rude to the musician who is just trying to earn a living like the rest of us and now the universe was punishing me. It was only a few seconds, but enough to upset my day, my week, more than that. It was too busy in The Grind. It was one of those days on which it seemed that the whole studio building had emptied out into the hippest nearest coffee shop in town. The Grind obviously was doing well with all the producers and second-rate actors playing their game of see and be seen. And I was only too happy for Matt until someone stepped back to dodge him and his full tray of drinks, and nudged the bowl of water Matt had brought Sally half an hour earlier, slopping half of it over the side. ‘Oh, blast,’ I said aloud before I could stop myself. And stop myself I should have too, when I picked up the bowl with the remaining water and walked to the counter to deposit it there before some other loser would step into it.
When I arrived back at my table, I checked that no one has stepped on Sally in my absence when I noticed that my bag was gone from beside her. This time I swore properly and looked around to see it if I could spot the thief. Right as my eye fell on my bag leaving the café, I threw a fiver on the table and scooped up Sally’s leash and my wallet, phone and car keys, which fortunately were not in my bag. Making my way through the crowd, I realised it had everything. My uniform, Sally’s blanket and work items, and my work planner. I didn’t even know which studio Sally and I had to be at after lunch. It was all in there. Sally would be okay without her own blanket as long as I could arrange for a towel or something, but I definitely would need some of my whistles if she were to do a good job. I needed that bag back. ‘Excuse me ! Coming through ! Please, MOVE !!’ I shouted as I pushed people aside to get to the door as fast as I could. Sally and I plunged out of the door, only to find the musician looking at me in polite amusement. ‘Crowded in there ?’
‘Yeah. Hey, did you just see someone leave with a black bag ?’
‘There were a lot of people going in and out,’ he said unhelpfully.
‘Yeah, they were about this tall with a greyish coat, maybe black or dark blue,’ I urged while glancing around for the thief who was nowhere to be seen.
‘Sorry, puppet, not that stood out to me,’ he said with a pitying look.
‘Thanks,’ I said angrily while I walked to my car. ‘Just my luck.’

Sally stared up at the chicken in my hand while I looked at the assortment of whistles and clickers the shop carried. ‘Alright, have it then,’ I said while Sally caught it adeptly with her head curled back over her back to compensate for my bad pitch. As I walked to the register, I heard a mandolin tune outside that made me flash back to earlier this morning. Surely that wasn’t the same musician again ? Didn’t he have to stay on his own turf ? ‘Sit. Stay,’ I commanded Sally to make sure the shop girl didn’t think I was lifting, while I made my way outside. ‘Hey, doll face. Forgot you are supposed to be in studio 7 in half an hour ?’ It was Steve, the producer of the movie Sally was hired to work, with about the largest grin on his face I had ever seen there.
‘No, but it’s good of you to remind me of the number. Some jerk in The Grind stole my bag and it has my planner in it,’ I said, trying not to let show what else I wanted to do to the thief when I got the sole of my shoe on him.
‘I heard. Ted told me, while we were bargaining for his mandolin.’
‘Ted ?’ I said, while for the first time I noticed the musician’s mandolin in Steve’s right hand.
‘Yeah, I offered him 50 bucks to borrow his mandolin for half an hour, but he made me pay my whole wallet minus my driver’s licence. I don’t think he’d expect me to return it otherwise.’
‘What ?’ I asked, trying to make sense of the conversation.
‘You know, the mandolin,’ Steve said, holding it up. ‘I figured a serenade would be the only way for you not to be mad at me.’
‘A serenade ?’ I asked, having not made much headway.
‘Yeah, I waited for you across the street, expecting you to walk to the studio when you left The Rough. But you walked out, looked around and got in your car. By the time I realised my plan was backfiring, you had already driven off. When I went through your bag, I realised it had all the stuff you needed for filming. So I called my assistant for your expenses’ file to check where you had bought all your work gear from. ‘Cause I figured you’d go there to pick up new.’
‘Smart man. So, wait, you stole my bag ?’ I asked when it dawned on me.
‘Not stole. I didn’t steal it. It was a lure. I needed to talk to you. Outside of the studio and be honest, The Rough is practically one of the studio offices but with better coffee.’
‘Why did you need to steal my bag to talk to me away from the studio ?’ I asked, getting suspicious. ‘Are you firing me and not man enough to own it in front of the team ?’
‘No, no, the opposite in fact. I know you love your job and all, but casting told me you had originally read for one of the parts,’ Steve said, causing me to swallow hard. That was something I wanted everyone to know least of all. How the dog trainer wanted to be an actor. ‘The team got in a rough spot with one of our supporting. To make a long story short, it didn’t end well. And frankly, we don’t have enough time to re-audition. We are going to have to pool from people we have already seen. So I said to casting that I liked you and that blond dog of yours.’
‘Sally.’
‘Yeah, that one. So, okay, I didn’t want to offer you the job in front of everyone. They’d think I’m not being professional. I can’t have that.’ Steve looked contemplative.
‘You’re offering me a job ?’ I asked, incredulously.
‘Well, you already have a job,’ Steve corrected me. ‘I’m offering you a second chance, so to say. This time without that ridiculous whistle. Come on, I’ll give you a lift to the studio. I need to trade a mandolin for my wallet.’
I grinned and stomped Steve on the foot. ‘Jerk.’

The Rough Grind by LunaLouise is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 2.0 UK: England & Wales License.

Write an opening. Start with; January was…

Luna writes;

January was behaving erratically. The apartment was empty and she was pacing through it. My first impression was of distress. Her face was haunted, full of dread, eyes frantic and unfocused. She walked up and down in straight lines in a pattern that repeated few paths.

She looked up when she heard me walk in through the door. Her hand shot up behind her neck and her mouth opened. She said nothing. When she did, she walked to the side table and handed me a note. ‘She’s gone.’

Dearest,

Love

‘Is this all ?’
‘Yes,’ she sighed. ‘She says she took her mobile, but I think she is referring to the one I gave her. I wouldn’t know which other one she would mean. I tried ringing it, but it goes straight to voicemail.’
‘Great,’ I said and sank to the couch.

This work by LunaLouise is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 2.0 UK: England & Wales License.

Write an opening. Start with; January was…

Luna writes;

January was thirteen. Much like eight, eleven or even three. No, not three. Better than three. Another month has passed. And innumerable still to come. The work, a repetitive cycle. Once all is complete, the starts again tomorrow. Like a coal ship supplying a factory; when it reaches the dock with a new load, the previous has gone and there is reason to turn straight back. When the end of a task is reached, all is ready for a fresh start. There is a sense of completion in time, but not a job well done. No pride. Not ever pride.
The thoughts are not ordered either. One time there is nothing to think about except getting done what needs to, the other the task is so slow and tedious that thoughts drift in and out. The tasks have gotten easier, but I still don’t know what to expect from them. I wonder how long I am going to stay here.

This work by LunaLouise is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 2.0 UK: England & Wales License.

Luna writes microfiction part II.

My life in 100 words

Picking at a measel my mom told me not to touch. Climbing a lamppost to play on the roof. Rotterdam – The Netherlands. A pub of 3 by 3 with two clocks and a jukebox. Looking out over vineyards farther than the eye can see. Mersault – France. Drifting along the waterways of the inner-city bustle. Refusing a piece of cake and being asked if I was straight-edge. Bristol, England. An albino alligator in the city park pond. Catapulting buckmoths off the shotgun front porch. New Orleans, Louisiana. A rainbow across the ocean. A waiting vehicle towards the unknown. Wales, Scotland, Japan.

My life in 100 words by LunaLouise is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 2.0 UK: England & Wales License.

An exercise in microfiction. All credit to my writing tutor Amanda Rackstraw.

This exercise has to be followed along and not pre-read or you will spoil the clue of the exercise for yourself. So don’t read ahead ! Okay, here we go. Draw three medium-sized circles on your paper. Place eight markers around each circle. In the first circle write Setting and think of and write down eight settings for a story. It can be actual locations but also less tangible things like events in general. Then write Emotions in the second circle and choose eight emotions and link them to the circle markers. Last, think of eight animals and ring the third circle with them. In the last circle write Characters.

Now from each circle pick one listing that appeals to you most. Once you have all three, realise that the animal you chose represents the traits of one of your characters. So for instance if you have picked a lamb, your character can be very innocent and naive, if you’ve picked a mouse, your character can be very shy and so on.

Now write a complete story in exactly 150 words. Note ! It’s microfiction so I’m going to repeat it – it needs to be a completed story in 150 words.

Luna writes;

The sniffing sound was distracting. She was always like this, but it still took effort to get used to it. Her profile took time to get used to, too. Her straightness was inhuman, her gaze astonishing. She had worked in the lab as long as anyone could remember, she was there before I was. She was good at her work. I mean, how could she not be ? At first I was afraid of her, always looked disapproving as if what you were about to do would be the biggest mistake in your life, and she knew it. The sniffing turned into a tongue click. She was at the UV-box and stared at her gel. It was not so much disapproval that I heard in the tongue click this time, but more… surprise. ‘Everything okay ?’
‘My gel didn’t work…’
Well… that happens to us all.’
She turned and stared at me incredulously.

I know… bad girl. I didn’t listen to my own assignment. But then again this was my first shot at microfiction. Having read some examples of microfiction, I realised why mine didn’t make the cut. It’s not a completed story. It’s a scene. A scene that might be part of a bigger story even, but just a scene nonetheless. Next time I’ll try and do better.

The wasp by LunaLouise is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 2.0 UK: England & Wales License.

This is a great warm-up exercise to writing that we did in class. Not for the ambidextrous.
All credit to Amanda Rackstraw, my writing tutor.

Take some time to clear your mind and I know that is about as easy as it sounds. If you are not the meditative kind, it may still help to close your eyes and focus on your relaxed breathing. If you have a thought, recognise it and try, literally, to push it out of your head. Acknowledge your thought and decide this is not the time. It may take some practice (and if you become accomplished at it may also work to calm your thoughts and fall asleep better).

Clear your mind and take your favourite writing utensil. Take that utensil in your non-writing hand, yes, you heard me, your non-writing hand. And draw. Don’t set out to draw or think too much about it. Just put utensil to paper and form a shape. Don’t think what that shape should be or what the shape is becoming. Just make a shape. It can be as small or big as you want it to be. It can take up a few lines of paper or a whole page. Just draw. When you’re done, look at the finished shape and recognise what it is. Still with your non-writing hand, write down next to the shape what the shape is. Then keeping the shape and its name in mind, and also still with your non-writing hand, think about where the shape is and why the shape is interesting in context of its function or location or circumstance. Keeping your utensil in your non-writing hand, write a descriptive sentence that has to do with your object.

Now you can take your utensil in your writing hand and write the scene or story that started as a shape on the page and turned into words or scene in your mind.

Luna wrote;

It was a noise like crackling.
These hands were not my own, but they had an urge to cover ears. The noise was eerie and did not seem to accompany the swaying movement that my eyes saw. It was a narrow path that we walked along. The sun was out, but could only manage a watery light with hardly any warmth. The warmth that we felt did not come from the sun. It came from the direction of the crackling.

The crackling by LunaLouise is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 2.0 UK: England & Wales License.

John Curran’s novel Agatha Christie’s Secret Notebooks: Fifty Years of Mysteries in the Making, a look at how the authoress planned and developed her tales, will include two Poirot stories that were found by Curran in notebooks left in Christie’s holiday home in Devon. The stories, The Mystery of the Dog’s Ball and The Capture of Cerberus were reworked into the novel Dumb Witness and a short story collection respectively.

Curran’s Agatha Christie’s Secret Notebooks: Fifty Years of Mysteries in the Making will be published by HarperCollins this fall.

Today, Kaleb Nation revealed the entire cover art work for his upcoming novel Bran Hambric The Farfield Curse. It is great see to the whole drawing, since it lets us see all the previously shown art detail in context.

What I had forgotten and should have known is that on the cover, the title of Bran Hambric is written with a crescent moon as the dash in the letter a of Bran. This is a nice complement to the crescent moon necklace that Bran is holding in his hand. I have commented the day before yesterday that the necklace is important, but now that I see the whole image I wonder whether the necklace is Bran’s or someone else’s. Mind you… I haven’t read the first four chapters of the book yet that Kaleb has made available on his site and the answer might just be in there. But the way Bran is holding the necklace suggests that either it isn’t his and he just took it from someone or somewhere, or the necklace is his, but he is afraid to lose it when he wears it around his neck or have it in his pocket. Either way, the necklace is important !

Then the surroundings. By the discolouration of green and orange, I still think Bran is at a warehouse, with big metal doors behind him. Although it might also be an artists’ impression of a big glass shop front. It is a fairly narrow alley, though, rather than a street and that is not the most typical place for a shop front.

Other than that, the pose in which Bran is standing we can now clearly see that he is trying to get away from the person in the background. The way Bran is angled towards the shape suggests that Bran is trying to correct for overbalancing while in movement. So either Bran ran into that alleyway and tries to turn the other direction when he sees the shape further down or he ended in that position of adjustment by jumping down off of or out of the building facing us and starts to move away when he lands on the pavement. Either way, very dynamic pose of Bran’s !

I really like the cover art for Bran Hambric’s first forage into the world and am very impressed with Brandon Dorman’s style. And although I hope Kaleb will be a TwiCrit forever, I can’t wait to see whether my analysis of Bran’s art corresponds to what awaits us inside the cover.

Today Kaleb Nation revealed a bit more of the cover art for his novel Bran Hambric: The Farfield Curse.

In comparison to yesterday’s snippet, this newly shown shard of cover artwork don’t spoil much more. Although I’m not expecting any major surprises, the rest of the artwork will be revealed tomorrow.

I am eagerly awaiting the release of author/TwiCrit Kaleb Nation’s debut novel Bran Hambric: The Farfield Curse.

A while ago Kaleb told us that Brandon Dorman was going to be illustrating The Farfield Curse. Dorman is mostly known for his work on the Goosebumps series.

After showing us the first magnificent drawing by Dorman,

Kaleb today revealed the partially obscured cover art for The Farfield Curse;

I have the preview chapters that were graciously made available by Kaleb, but I haven’t read them yet, because I really would rather just sink in my comfy chair with the book when it comes out. Anticipation… it can kill. But the glimpse of cover art is a nice piece of the puzzle that is the novel waiting to be published.

When looking closely at the partially obscured cover art, my guess is – and it’s an obvious one – that the main eye catcher is Bran in front of a warehouse, probably the same warehouse he is waiting on top of at the start of the book. In this drawing, Bran is holding a crescent necklace. The same crescent that has been a teaser for the book ever since the start of Bran’s steps into the open. The crescent necklace is important.

In the back, there is also a hooded man in a trench coat or cape of some sort. If this art represents part of the opening sequence of the book, it could be the banker or the burglar. I would say burglar by the way he is dressed. So the question that this drawing raises is, is Bran chasing the man or running from him ? For the moment, I would say running… and that would make sense if it’s the burglar who is after Bran.

The burglar is walking towards two lights. Car headlights ? Is it the man’s car ? Or someone elses ? Is the man alone in the background or has someone in the car already spotted Bran ?

Looks like another gorgeous piece of artwork and a nice tantalising way to reveal it. Stay tuned for more artwork of Bran Hambric tomorrow.