Working Through Writing Excuses Episodes 8.5 and 8.6

I'm putting episodes 8.5 and 8.6 together, in part because I am having a devil of a time writing something for the prompt for episode 8.5. That episode talks about breaking the rules of writing, and it made me realize that I never really learned the "rules" for writing. I've never taken a class on writing fiction; all of the instruction I've ever received with regards to writing has been related to writing academic papers, non-fiction persuasion or position papers, essentially. I've had some experience in writing documents for work, things like standard operating procedures (SOPs) and minutes from various meetings, but none of that explains how best to handle point of view or whether you should move from one character's thoughts to another. I've obviously read a lot of fiction in my life, and so I have an idea of what I think works and what doesn't, but I also, embarrassingly, have to say that I don't pay super close attention to what - or rather, how - things are done. I've been known to read a book and not realize until about a third of the way through that it's written in the first person present tense, because I got caught up in the story.

That doesn't happen quite so often anymore, because I have been spending more time trying to figure out how to write fiction for myself, but even when I do focus on what other writers do, it's much more likely to be on what kind of word choices they use. I want to know how they keep me from falling out of the story by describing just enough to keep me engaged without giving me too many details to get hung up on. One of my favorite anthologies is still "Help Fund My Robot Army!" edited by John Joseph Adams, specifically because the way each story is told is so limited, and yet they manage to get across so much information and character and world-building. That's what I notice, and that's what I try to figure out for myself when I write, but I have no idea if that means that I'm following a proper three-act structure or if my third-person perspective is omniscient or limited. It's really hard to write something deliberately breaking the rules when you have no idea what the rules are supposed to be.

Writing prompt: Here is a rule for rule-breaking: The best format for experimenting with rule-breaking is the short. So! Pick your three favorite rules and break all three in a short story. I'm going to have to come back to this prompt at some point, after I've done a little more reading and maybe taking a class or two to help me figure out what rules I want to break. (If anyone has any suggestions for classes they recommend on basic "here's how you write fiction good," drop me a line! I clearly have no idea what I'm doing.)

Episode 8.6 is about retellings and adaptations, and that is much more my jam. I really liked hearing how the team discusses retellings and adaptations, and why we would want to read or watch the same story being told in different ways. Over the last year and a half, I've definitely found some comfort in the familiar, which I think is probably true of all of us, and while I do appreciate watching or reading the same things time and time again, it's nice to find something new or strange in the midst of the familiar. A retelling gives an audience the opportunity to find that strangeness and novelty, just by shifting the focus of the story that they know. There were some great examples of retellings mentioned, where stories are being told from different perspectives (like Gregory Maguire's Wicked) or in different genres or time periods (the movie Clueless). I also really liked the way they distinguish between fan fiction and retellings - fan fiction takes characters that are familiar and builds a different story structure around them; retellings take a story or plot that is familiar and gives the opportunity to build new characters on them. Just that distinction makes me want to give fan fiction a try, maybe.

Writing prompt: Do a retelling of a Bible story in a science fiction space setting.

Joseph watched through the window as the space ship left the station, almost expecting to see his traitorous brothers counting their money on the port like some kind of movie villains. He knew that they were long gone, and had been gone well before the ship had even finished loading the cargo, but it still made him wonder if he could see them and expect to watch them, watching him being sent away forever. With a sigh, he turned away from the porthole and surveyed the room that would be his prison for the next... well, until the captain decided otherwise.

Joseph didn't know exactly what it was that his brothers hated about him so much, just that they hated him. He was constantly being told that he wasn't their real brother, and he knew that they didn't share the same blood - anyone who looked at them could tell that they weren't completely related. It wasn't his fault that their father had had a dalliance with a member of a different humanoid race, and she had left Joseph at their doorstep before he was old enough to put words together in any language. She wasn't motherly material, he was told, particularly not toward one who wasn't completely of her race, and he should be grateful that she had left him with his human father, rather than leaving him exposed to the elements on some planet somewhere. He supposed he was grateful, to a certain extent, but it was a little difficult to feel anything but anger toward someone who didn't want him around at all.

The earliest memory he had was of being stared at by a group of boys, all human, all older than he was, all giving him the same look of disdain and irritation mixed with fear that he would come to expect from humans in general. These, he was told, were his brothers, and he would learn to love them, as they would learn to love him. They would take care of him, when his father couldn't be around, and they would make sure that nothing bad happened to him. He learned quickly that this wasn't entirely true, particularly when it came to Simeon. He was one of the oldest of the brothers, and the one who took the most offense at Joseph's existence in the house (and, he told Joseph repeatedly, his existence in the universe at all - Joseph was offensive to his very soul, and there was no reason in the heavens why he should be permitted to live). So when Joseph was told that Simeon was taking him to the trade ports, along with two of their other brothers, he knew something was up. He just didn't expect it to be quite so permanent.

Joseph pulled the collar of his coat closer to him, thankful once again for the colorful, warm garment that his father had made for him. Even though the coat had driven his brothers mad with jealousy, they hadn't taken it from him when they sold him to the captain of the mining ship. The coat would have done them absolutely no good, after all - the fabric was made for his race, and not humans. Simeon had still made a grab for it, and managed to snag a part of the hem in his hand before Joseph was dragged away. Joseph imagined that it would help Simeon sell the story of Joseph's death to their father - he'd heard the brothers discussing exactly how they were going to explain his disappearance before he'd been pulled onto the ship. They hated that his hearing was so very good, but he'd tried not to use it to his advantage over them too often. Still, it had hurt to hear how little any of them cared, and how none of them had fought to keep him with them.

Before long, the station was out of sight, and Joseph was off to begin his new life. He had no idea what that would bring, but he was certain he would never see his brothers again.

Working Through Writing Excuses Episode 8.4

Side characters are the subject of Episode 8.4, which is definitely something I could use help with. I usually have a decent idea of my main characters, but everybody else tends to just show up on their own, and I don't know too much about them until they start taking over the narrative. It's something that I could definitely afford to work on a bit more, so that I can get a better handle on who is in the stories I write, at least to begin with. What happens after they show up, well, that tends to be less under my control than would probably be considered healthy.

Writing prompt: The Hero of the Most Boring Story Ever—your job is to make it interesting. (I'm going to cheat a little bit with regards to the "most boring story ever" aspect - I have a meditation app, Calm.com, that has sleep stories which are deliberately written to be the kind of thing that will help a person fall asleep. I'll riff on one of those.) I'm also just going to remind you all that this is draft zero, because this one is...not my favorite.

She was always inside by the time the sun started to set, watching through the window as the city began to slow down. The city she lived in was one that rolled up the streets after dark, so it wasn't unusual to have things slow down and get quiet after the evening dinner rush and the commute back home. Still, she sat in the window, waiting for the evening to roll in completely before she finally allowed herself to relax.

She kept a diary that listed all of the tasks that needed to be dealt with for the day, all of the different times she would need to interact with the world and things she would need to do in order to keep the precarious balance between her discomfort with the world around her and the things she was obligated to do in order to maintain the lifestyle she had cultivated so far. Her journal held doodles and drawings, proof that she had been outside of her apartment or at least, had seen things that hadn't been within the walls of her living space. It was as much a record of what she'd done as it was a list of things she needed to do.

Her list for the next day contained phone calls and a lunch with people she knew she would have to interact with, but she had no interest in doing any of it. She focused instead on the tasks like cleaning the kitchen, ordering her groceries, watering the various plants that breathed life into the small space. The lunch, in particular, made her anxious, but she knew it was the best way to keep her family and co-workers from worrying about her too much. If she made an appearance once or twice a month, then they wouldn't have need to come by her apartment unannounced again. An afternoon of discomfort was more than worth another month of peace.

Mentally aware of what she would need to approach the next day, she turned the page in her journal and began jotting down her thoughts for the day that had just passed. She'd made it through two in-person meetings and a phone call with a client, as well as an impromptu discussion with a co-worker who was determined to bring her "out of her shell." He didn't seem to understand that, like the turtle, if she came out of her shell completely, she would die. He was certain she was just shy, and just needed to allow herself to step outside her comfort zone and try to make friends with other people. She made sure to note his name and what department he worked in, so she could prepare herself for the next time she would need to be in his area and hopefully find someone else to communicate with there.

With a sigh of relief, she closed the journal and began the rituals of getting ready for bed. Choosing the appropriate soundtrack, lighting a scented candle, putting on the kettle for a cup of soothing tea - all the things that would help her close out the day and put a period at the end of the waking hours. It was her favorite portion of to day, and she tried to remind herself that the point was to calm her nerves and relax into sleep. Still, finishing the day and preparing for sleep was the most exciting part of her day, and she couldn't help but thrill with the joy of it. It wasn't until she went to bed that her life truly began, after all. Everything else was just window dressing, essentials she was forced into by the needs of her body for shelter and food. Her soul, her spirit? That needed only the night.

Working Through Writing Excuses Episode 8.3

Pets! I love reading about how animals interact with characters in stories, but I'm so bad with it myself. I know the way I interact with my cats is not necessarily the way the average person interacts with their pets, and it makes me nervous to write characters who have pets or service animals or other animals that they interact with on the regular, because who knows how "wrong" I'm getting it. But meh, let's give it a go.

Writing prompt: Write a human interacting with an alien, and the alien has a conspicuous companion animal who is critically important to the alien’s life.

Steve was nervous, as usual, while entering their new ship. They were never particularly comfortable around others who were not of their species, or their planet, and a spaceship just exacerbated not only the strangeness of the situation, but also highlighted all the ways the sentient races didn't truly understand each other. It was their third spaceship since they had begun their travels from their home planet, but it had yet to become any more comfortable or easy for them.

In the bag that hung behind their head-stalk, the reassuring weight of their quanaco settled and gave them some warmth. The creature was one of the few living things that Steve had been able to bring with them from their home planet, and they hadn't known what they would do if they hadn't had Vikka with them through all the changes in their world. They could only hope that their newest bunkmate would be able to understand the importance of the quanaco better than the last one had.

Steve found their way to the newest berth that would be their sleep space and entered cautiously. So far, no one else was settled into the space, and so they had their choice of sleep surfaces. As usual, they chose the one closest to the exit portal, allowing them the easiest path to freedom if and when their bunkmate required "space." Steve had never understood the phrase that the humans used so frequently. Everyone on the ship had the entirety of space available to them outside of the ship, and between all of the planets; why did a need for "space" mean that Steve had to leave their comfortable bunk? Nevertheless, it was easier to make way than to make waves, as their first captain had said. (Steve still wasn't entirely sure why waves were such a thing to be avoided, either, as sound waves were the source of so much good in the universe, but they had learned to stop questioning. Eventually.)

Steve relaxed their top tentacles to allow their bag to slide down and land softly on the bunk. A small squeak sounded from within, and Steve quickly manipulated the straps to open the bag and allow Vikka's head to pop up. "There, there," Steve crooned subsonically, running the tip of one tentacle over the soft fuzz on Vikka's head. "We'll get your habitat set up in just a moment, once our trunk arrives." The quanaco trilled in response, eyelids closing lazily. Then her eyes opened wide, suddenly, and she let out a sharp, subsonic bark - stranger approaching. Steve froze, tentacles tensing as they awaited the stranger that had gotten within Vikka's range.

Soon, a human male entered the berth, looking around warily as they crossed the threshold. "Oh!" they said, sounding surprised. "I guess you got in first. Uh, nice to meet you, roomie." The human continued to the other sleep surface, dropping a backpack onto the surface with considerably more force than Steve had, and rummaging around within the contents. Vikka had ducked her head down at the stranger's approach, but had cautiously poked out again, watching the human with curiosity but not, Steve noticed, fear.

It was a good sign. Vikka was well-versed in the pheromones of anger and fear, and would alert Steve to any stranger who came close exhibiting those traits. Steve had had several unpleasant experiences in the past with beings who had not taken kindly to beings of his race and planet, and their family had decided that a quanaco was required before Steve was allowed to take another mission away from the home planet. While Steve had initially resisted, they had quickly bonded with Vikka, and now they couldn't imagine travelling without her.

The human cleared their throat, and Steve turned cautiously around after checking with Vikka one last time. She gave no indication of danger, so Steve straightened and faced the human. "Um, hi," the human said. "I guess we'll be bunking together for a bit, so I should probably introduce myself. Um, can you understand me OK? I know some of the universal translators aren't great with some of us who have what we call accents, so I don't want to be accidentally offending you or anything." The human had put the ends of their two tenta- arms, Steve reminded themselves, together, and was squeezing them tightly. Steve recalled that this was frequently a sign that a human was feeling distress, and they felt more kindly toward this newest roommate.

"Do not fear," Steve said, working to keep their voice in the sonic range so the universal translator could pick up and amplify their voice for the human's hearing. "I am able to understand human, even when it is non-standard. Do you have a name I may use?" Steve had learned in some of the early species relations classes that it was best to ask for a name, rather than assume that one would be given freely, and that the name Steve was able to use may not be the same as the name a being used for themselves. It had all been very confusing.

"Oh, good." The human's relief lit up their face light a blooming fireplant, and Steve hoped that this was an indication of how easy the human would be to read going forward. "Um, yes, I do! My name is Steve, he/him. What can I call you?"

Steve froze, their tentacles fluttering in surprise. "Oh, dear. This could be...you see, my name is also Steve, though I do not have the male gender pronouns." The two roommates stared at each other blankly, until the silence was broken by Vikka, of all creatures. The quanaco had climbed out of her bad and was standing on the sleep surface, unhidden by her Steve's body. She stared at the human Steve, then gracelessly hopped down from the sleep surface and trotted on her six legs over to the human. The human Steve stared as the quanaco stood in front of him, coming up to the middle of his leg, until she let out a single, audible bark. Her Steve recognized the sound, and began to laugh.

The human Steve turned between the quanaco and his roommate, his confusion writ large across his face. "Uh, what is...what was...the hell is that thing? Should I be worried?"

Still laughing, Steve undulated forward on their three other tentacles and scooped up the quanaco, which was still staring at the human Steve expectantly. "No, human-Steve, not at all. This is Vikka. She is the safety companion from my home world, and she has decided that you are more than safe. You, it appears, are now family." 

The human Steve still looked baffled, but a smile was beginning to spread across his face as well. He reached out a hand toward Vikka, then hesitated. "May I pet her?" he asked, looking between both his roommate and the quanaco for permission. It made Steve feel that much more kindly towards him. Vikka solved the problem by stretching her long neck out and knocking her head into the human Steve's hand, and he began to laugh. "I guess so!"

"I think," said Steve, watching their personal safety detector demand attention from their new roommate, "that this may be a good match this time."

Working Through Writing Excuses Episode 8.2

 Episode 2 is all about the Campbellian monomyth/Hero of a Thousand Faces, which is one of those things that always sounded vaguely interesting from a distance. Even just listening to the beginning of this episode, though, it's sounding so much like a prescription for a story (at least, that's how way too many people look at it or treat it), and that kind of prescription has never felt organic or, frankly, interesting to me. This is probably why I was never a huge fan of literary criticism - so much of it seems to be focusing on labeling the different pieces of a story to fit into some kind of formula, and it just takes so much joy out of the experience. No wonder I fled academia.

Writing prompt: Take Goldilocks and the Three Bears, apply the Campbellian Monomyth, and give us a short story.

Babe opened the door wearily, slumping into his home just ahead of his two brothers. All three had been pulling extra hours at the mines lately, because money was tight, and Christmas was coming. He moved toward the kitchen, dropping his thermos and lunchbox on the table as he started thinking about what to make for supper.

"What a day!" Mitch groaned as he hung up his coat. Paul grunted in response, maneuvering his big body around to the armchairs angled in front of the TV. "I swear, it feels like the days are just getting longer and longer."

Babe nodded, hardly hearing his middle brother as he stared down the half-empty shelves of the pantry and started the calculations of the cash-poor. They had enough rice to get through the week, and enough dried pasta and canned beans to bulk out at least another two days. He could have sworn there'd been another couple of cans of tuna in the cupboard early in the week, but he knew Mitch liked to have that at lunch, so that was probably where it had gone. If he used the can of tomatoes he had there and some of the pasta, there was some ground beef in the freezer-

"What the hell?" Paul's voice boomed from the living room. Babe and Mitch turned and hurried over to their older brother, who rarely spoke above a mumble. If he was shouting, something was Wrong. Neither of the brothers was particularly small, but Babe was able to move around more easily to see what had caught Paul's attention.

There, on the coffee table in front of Babe's chair (the smallest and ricketiest of the three, of course), was a plate and a half-eaten sandwich. It was a tuna melt, which Babe hated, and it smelled like it was still warm - he wasn't sure how he'd missed the smell earlier.

"Yuck! Who left a sandwich out?" Mitch yelped, looking all around the floor frantically. "That's how we ended up with ants a couple of years back, remember? I am NOT putting up with that again!"

Paul just glared at Babe, who shook his head firmly. "Not mine. You know I hate the stuff. It's still warm, anyway, and I came home with you two." Paul stared for another long moment before nodding, then narrowing his eyes. Both of the other brothers were hit by a similar thought at the same time - if it wasn't one of them, then who was it? And were they still in the house?

Babe's mind raced. "Who breaks into a house and makes a sandwich?" he said out loud as he pulled out his cell phone. He lit up the screen, then hesitated. "Paul, should we call the cops, do you think?"

Mitch inhaled sharply. "I don't know about that, brother. You know what happened last time." Babe felt his cheeks flush in embarrassment. Maybe not the cops, not yet. Paul shook his head slowly. "Not yet." His voice had dropped back down to its usual quiet volume, but Babe could tell he was still on edge.

Babe turned the flashlight on on his phone instead, and light up the area around the sandwich. He frowned, staring at the small bites taken out of the neatly cut bread and tuna, then shone the light around the windows, looking for broken glass. Nothing seemed to be smashed, so whoever broke in had done so without making a mess. However, there did look like a path through the stacks of books that filled much of the open space in the hall had been made. He gestured, and Mitch and Paul both nodded.

Babe went first, tensing as he passed each doorway that branched off the hallway. The house was small, but there were rooms enough for each brother and two bathrooms, which had never felt like so many doors before. His door and Paul's were both open, as was the main bathroom. Mitch's door, however, closed securely. "Mitch?" Babe tried to keep his voice low, to keep from surprising whoever was behind the door, if they were still there.

"Go ahead, kid," Mitch replied, only the slightest tremor giving away his nerves. Hearing his brother's voice made him more confident, but also pissed Babe off more - someone had made Mitch feel uncomfortable. Someone had messed with his family. That was not allowed. Someone was going to need to answer to him.

Babe felt the doorknob and gently turned it, grateful to discover that the handle hadn't been locked. He looked back again to his brothers, who had stayed near the living room end of the hallway, and Mitch gave him a thumb's up. Paul, he was relieved to see, had his cell phone out, camera facing the hall. Whatever happened next was being filmed, so no matter what happened to him or potentially his brothers, there would be evidence. That should have been comforting, but Babe still felt a little hollow and alone at the idea. Taking a deep breath, he turned the knob and pushed the door in dramatically, hoping to catch whoever was on the other side off guard.

It was a dramatic gesture, and completely lost on the woman lying in the center of Mitch's bed, fast asleep. Babe stayed near the door, but shining the flashlight over the bed, he could see what looked to be a young woman, fully dressed in jeans and a grey hooded sweatshirt with a yellow hood, curled in a ball on top of Mitch's blankets. She still had her shoes on, even - this wasn't someone who was sleeping because she was comfortable. She was taking a moment to rest before she had to do something else, and wanted to be ready to run at a moment's notice.

Babe backed away from the room, keeping his phone's light shining in her direction as he moved away. "Well?" Mitch demanded in a loud whisper. "Is there someone there?" Paul snorted and kept the camera pointed at Babe, just in case. Even if it didn't turn into some kind of murderous situation, you never knew what might turn out to be a good TikTok.

Once Babe reached his brothers, he turned fully around to face them and smacked Mitch's arm. "Did you give your new girlfriend a key or something, idiot?" He shot Paul - or rather, Paul's camera - a withering look, which Paul returned before lowering the phone. "She's curled up asleep on your bed. We talked about this, dude."

Paul turned to face Mitch, and Babe almost felt badly for his middle brother. "We did talk about this, Mitchell," Paul rumbled, and Babe winced in sympathy with Mitch. Only their mom and dad had ever used Mitch's full name, and only when he was in Deep Trouble. Mitch looked like he was shrinking in front of them, but to his credit, he held Paul's gaze.

"She doesn't have anywhere else to go, man. I told her to only use the key if things were really bad, and it was an emergency, so it must have gotten really bad. Let me go talk to her, see if there's anything she needs from us right now." Mitch pushed past Babe, who moved aside to make the way easier. Mitch entered the room and pulled the door closed most of the way, and Babe could see the light come on once the door was closed.

Paul grumbled under his breath, but moved back to the living room, picking up the remnants of the sandwich on his way. "No use letting the food go to waste," he muttered as he got settled into his recliner. "Set the table for one more, would you? And uh, did she look like she was hurt or anything?" Paul reached for the remote for the TV, but hadn't turned it on yet, waiting for Babe to respond.

"Nah. She was asleep, but she looked ready to run." Babe moved back to his spot in the house, and heard the TV turn on, the volume low. Babe knew they had enough ground beef to stretch some pasta and sauce for four people, so he might as well get that started. As far as he knew, Mitch's girlfriend didn't have any food allergies or anything, and she clearly wasn't a vegetarian if she ate tuna fish. He turned up the lights in the kitchen and started putting the water on for the pasta. He also turned on the stereo in the kitchen, getting it started with the audiobook he'd been listening to the other night. Even if there was a new person in the house, some rituals remained in place - it was the way the house worked.

By the time the beef was browned, the sauce was bubbling away, and the pasta timer was down to its last two minutes, Mitch and his girlfriend had emerged from his bedroom. All of the boys had their own distinctive footfall, and Babe could tell who was moving through which part of the house just by the series of creaks and groans from the floor. He paused the audiobook and turned the heat down on the sauce before entering the living room.

Mitch and his girlfriend were standing next to the TV, which Paul had also paused. The big floor lamp was on, letting Babe see the woman clearly for the first time that night. Her blonde curls were pulled tightly back in a ponytail, and there was a dark shadow on one cheek. She kept her eyes fixed on the ground, gripping Mitch's hand tightly as he spoke in low tones to Paul. He looked up when Babe came into the living room fully and got close enough to hear what they were saying.

"Hey, kid." Mitch gave him a tired smile. "I was just telling Paul here that Gilda was going to stay here for a bit. She, uh, she needs a better living situation than what she's got right now. That OK with you?" Mitch's tone was mild, but his eyes were pleading with Babe. Babe looked to Paul automatically, who was watching the interaction with interest but not showing much emotion.

They'd all lived together, on their own, for long enough that they were able to say a lot without words anymore. Mitch was furious at whatever had caused Gilda to be in pain, and he just wanted her to be out of harm's way. Paul didn't think it was a great idea long-term, but he didn't see a better way to handle it right then, and clearly, she needed help of some kind. He was also pretty pissed at the whole thing - all of the Bauer boys were sensitive about people beating up on people who couldn't defend themselves properly. Ultimately, though, they wanted Babe to weigh in, since he handled the food budget.

Babe looked back at Gilda, who was still watching the floor, shifting her weight from foot to foot. She was holding one arm across her stomach tightly, and the way she was standing gave Babe the impression that her face wasn't the only place that had been hit recently. "Hey. Gilda, right?" He smiled, trying to make his tone friendly, even though he felt wildly out of his depths. She looked up quickly and nodded.

Before he could say anything else, the timer for the pasta went off. All of them jumped, showing just how tense everyone had been. Babe laughed, and that seemed to lighten the mood a little. "It's just spaghetti. Why don't you come in the kitchen and help me plate up?" He nodded his head in the direction of the kitchen, then turned and started moving that way. If nothing else, he needed to turn off the damn timer - he always forgot how loud the thing was.

He drained the pasta, putting it in the sauce and giving it a stir, when Gilda came in. "So, um, where are the plates? How can I help?" Her voice was lower than Babe imagined it would be, and a little bit shaky. He pointed to the appropriate cabinet, then to the silverware drawer. "Come on. Everything's about ready. You want something to drink? I think we still have a couple of cans of soda in the fridge."

He knew it would take a little while, but Babe was pretty sure that the routines that ran the house could probably be adapted to add one more person. He'd just have to find another chair, that's all.

Working Through Writing Excuses Podcast (Episode 8.1)

(What? Two posts in one day? I know! Don't get used to it.)

I'm starting something new now that 31 stories is winding down. I'm going through old episodes of the podcast Writing Excuses and listening to one episode at a time, then following the writing prompt given at the end of each episode. I had listened to the podcast regularly for a long time, but like so many other podcasts, I've fallen behind to the point of ridiculousness. (I'm not the best at keeping on top of things with regards to podcasts, but I'm also very fond of being complete in my listening habits, which makes for an interesting combination - I'm sitting at about 40 months' behind on most of my podcasts, for reference.)

To start this thing, episode 8.1, "Microcasting," has this writing prompt: What does SFPA stand for? (It figures that the first one I pick is one that's the hosts being smart asses, but what can I do?)

The old-fashioned phone rang on the wooden desk next to Sandra, who stared at it for about two rings before she sighed and picked it up. "Story Figure Placement Agency, this is Sandra, how can I help you?" Her voice was pure light and good customer service attentions, while her face remained cold, her brows drawn over her forehead. Around her, at several other desks just like hers, other women were answering their phones in a similar way, but only her face had such a sharp contrast to her tone of voice.

"Yes, hi, I'm working on a story?" The voice on the other end of the line was hesitant, sounding young and like it wasn't entirely sure it knew how the interaction was supposed to go. Sandra struggled to keep her world-weary sigh from becoming audible over the phone. "My teacher gave me this number, because he said that I needed to get a character that could help diversify my cast, and you might be able to help me?" The expectant silence at the end of the last question was the verbal equivalent of lobbing a ball over a tennis net - a nice, slow ball that should be easy to return, if Sandra was willing to put in the least bit of effort.

Sandra was tempted to sit in silence and make the caller spell out their problem in detail, but she knew that would just make her boss more angry at her than she wanted. Suppressing another sigh, she pulled out her pen and notebook. "What kind of character traits are you looking for? That will give us a good start for our search."

"Oh, wow, thanks," the caller gushed. "So, like, I'm writing a story set in the inner city, and I need some people, you know, some people who know what it's like to live in the inner city." The voice remained hesitant, and the half a statement hung in the air, waiting for Sandra to pick up what the caller was laying down.

This was why she had problems with her job, she thought to herself. "Do you mean characters who live in the inner city of bigger cities? Characters who have experienced poverty and living paycheck to paycheck? Or characters who own large portions of the inner city and are thus the landlords for those other characters, and able to jack up the rents whenever they see fit?" Sandra's rent had just gone up another hundred dollars, and she wasn't happy about it. "You're going to need to give me a few more parameters before I'm able to help you fill that need."

"Oh, uh, sure! Yeah, that makes sense." The caller went silent, and Sandra began doodling on the notepad she kept beside her phone for just such lulls in the calls. No matter who it was that called, they never seemed to be fully prepared for these kinds of questions. "I guess I need someone who's on the lower end of the economic scale, not one of the building owners or whatever. Uh, not, like, homeless, or whatever, but... I mean, you know what I mean." There was a world of meaning in those last few words, and Sandra did not appreciate any part of that world. "You know what I mean" was shorthand for a myriad of -isms - racism, classism, sexism, most any other that the speaker wanted to name but not really name - and Sandra hated them all. She wished she could demand that they state their prejudices out loud and clearly, but she'd been spoken to about that in the past, so she bit her tongue this time.

"Right. Well, let me see what we can do. How large a role do you need this character to fill?" She pulled her Rolodex closer and began flipping through the cards with expert precision. "I don't have any placements right now for a main character, but I have a few available for side characters, love interests, wise mentors...do any of these sound appropriate?"

"Oh! Uh, let's see... not love interest, that would be weird. Uh, what do you have by way of a plucky sidekick?" The caller sounded genuinely interested in that one, which just made Sandra sigh even more. Why did the sidekicks always have to be "plucky" when they came from the disadvantaged part of the world? She flipped through a few more cards that had appeared as she spoke to the caller, pulling three of them out of the Rolodex for further review.

"What age range are you looking for?" Please don't say a child, Sandra thought as loudly as she dared. Please, just once, not a kid...

"Uh, maybe around high school age? Fifteen, sixteen maybe?" The caller was making things up as they went along, but Sandra wasn't going to stop them. "Yeah, that sounds good. Young adult-ish. Boy or girl, doesn't matter. Attractive, but not, like, super-model or whatever, just kind of nice looking. For who they are. You know what I mean."

One of the cards Sandra had pulled out had vanished, but another two had appeared in the Rolodex as the caller spoke. She looked at both of them and grinned to herself. "Oh, I think I might have just the character. Let me get your details, and I'll send them right over to you."

"Oh, awesome, thanks! And they'll just do what I tell them, right?" The caller's enthusiasm was like that of a puppy, and Sandra almost felt badly. Almost.

"Of course! Just like any other character you write. They'll do everything you say, no problem. You have a wonderful day!" After noting the caller's details, Sandra hung up the phone and turned off her ringer, allowing herself a moment to gloat. Then she moved to her typewriter and put in a transfer request form, humming to herself as she entered the details of her client's newest character.

Genevieve, one of her coworkers, noticed Sandra's grin and stopped by her desk on her way back from the coffee station. "Uh-oh. You look way too happy about something. What did you do?"

"Me?" Sandra's tone was pure innocence as she completed the form and pulled it from the typewriter with a flourish. "I'm giving the client exactly what they want. A 'plucky' teenager from the inner city to act as a sidekick." At Genevieve's raised eyebrow, Sandra continued. "The client never said that the teenager needed to speak English. Or be willing to deal with rich white kids. Or have a mother willing to let the kids spend time outside of school doing anything that might get them in trouble." She grinned again as she added the form to her "out" tray. "The client should have been more specific. That's my story, and I'm sticking to it."

"I didn't hear a thing," Genevieve said a little too loudly as she walked back to her desk, but Sandra's grin had passed to her own face along the way. Some days, you had to make your own fun.

August Debrief and What's Next

I'm drafting this up now, on the 29th, though I plan on posting after the end of the month. I want to get some thoughts down about my experience with the 31 stories in 31 days challenge, because it has been enlightening.

First, I want to shout out to the team that created the challenge, and the community on Discord that was incredibly supportive and enthusiastic throughout the entire experience. The team put out prompts every day (sometimes multiple prompts), worked on giveaways, engaged the community members to discuss what was going well, what wasn't, and being overall incredibly encouraging for all of us. I don't know how many people actually managed to hit 31 stories - I know I didn't, but I also figured pretty early on that writing more days than I didn't each week was what I needed to get things going for my brain.

I have been having a rough time with regards to my mental health of late. 2020 was not kind to any of us, and the combination of that, some physical health struggles, and just general brain goblin shenanigans have made the last year and a half more of a struggle than they need to be. I've been on more ups and downs than the average roller coaster, and it's been a challenge to convince myself to write anything. There's been some kind of wonderful alchemy this past month, though, of not having a word count to hit, not having to work on a specific story or slog my way through a part of my story that I'm stuck on, and knowing that all I'm doing is coming up with draft zero, which may very well not turn out to be anything beyond scribbles on a digital page - all of that together has been freeing for me. 

I know that, in a true definition of the term, the things I've written aren't short stories. They don't have developed plots or characters, there isn't any kind of meaning or depth to them, they're just scenes that I thought would be fun. Several of them tie back to the world of the Infinite Library, which is a novel that I started drafting for Nanowrimo last year and realized I was getting stuck on, and so I took the opportunity to flesh out bits and pieces of the universe in which the Library exists, as well as play with some ideas from the overarching thought of "a library where all of the world's literature exists and characters can travel between their books." It's not an especially unique idea, but it was one I'd wanted to play with, and I like some of what I came up with.

Some of the things I wrote came from a couple of decks of writing prompt cards that I've had kicking around for ages - the Reckless Deck series. Even then, I didn't use the cards quite how they are "meant" to be used, because I didn't necessarily write using a character or world that used all of the traits on the cards that I drew. I looked at the combination of cards (which included things like costume, weapon, integral feature, home land, etc.) and let it inspire something. There was no planning, no plotting or outlining, just a vague notion of "it would be neat if" or "what could be cool would be" and just going.

It's taking me a while to build up to saying this, but I actually like some of the things I wrote this month. I'm well aware of their faults, because obviously - everything's a draft zero, there's been absolutely no editing, and again, there's no depth to the narrative or characters. But I feel like I managed to do some fun things with words that turned out pretty well. I've gotten some positive feedback from people, as well, which is never going to hurt my feelings. Overall, this is probably the best I've felt about my writing in a very long time, and it's writing that I did with very little planning or taking the time to overthink things.

So what happens next? Well, there are two things, separate stories that I started, that I want to go back to and flesh out a bit more, see if I can turn it into something a little more polished and engaging. I've roughed out a shape for the pattern with pencil and graph paper, and now I want to go in and clean up the edges, push out the corners and see if I can make it into something that looks a little nicer overall. I may try to send them out into the world and see if anyone wants to print them, I may decide to just put a prettied-up version on my blog, but either way, I think they're stories that I would like to tell to more people if I can.

At the end of the day, I tell stories. It's what I've done since I was a little kid, and it's what I love to do. Writing stories down, making up characters and worlds and putting them out there for other people to experience, it's all something I like doing. I don't think I'll ever be a professional writer, and I know I'll never be comfortable making a living with nothing but my writing - I'm far too anxious and crave stability in all things, so having an income that varies based on sales of books would be a quick trip to a nervous breakdown, and I've already done that before, thanks much. But coming up with stories and letting other people read them if they want to? I can probably do that.

I want to keep writing more days than I'm not, but I don't think it'll be a new short story each time, like it was for August. I may spend September fleshing out the things I want to hang onto from August, or finishing up the multi-part stories I started - if you have any strong feelings one way or the other about what you'd like to see, let me know in the comments! And thanks. Having you read my stuff, knowing that at least a couple of people in the world are looking at what words I'm putting on a page, has been a really nice boost to the psyche. I'll try to give you more to read if you want it.

Day 12 of 31 Stories - Character Field Day

 I know it's been a few days. I have still been writing, the stories just haven't gotten beyond an extended drabble yet, and it feels weird to post something that isn't finished. Today's is a little odd, as well. I'd mentioned that I had a story not so much take a left turn as a pirouette and then fall down the stairs, and I decided to write down the discussion I may as well have had with the character who led the way on that particular journey. So enjoy day 12 - Character Field Day

I flip through the notes on the page in front of me, then address the blank screen on my computer. I have a rough idea of what kind of characters I want to write, and how they may play out. The first character type has wings, some sort of musical ability, maybe a bard or troubadour type in a fantasy setting - let's put them over here and see how-

-*poof* Nope! I don't sing, I don't tell stories, and I'm not in a standard fantasy setting. In fact, I show up as the anchor for a complex-yet-undefined physical pyramid-ish shape of other avian-Human hybrids (and Humans has the capital H, very important).

*blink blink* Well then. That... that was unexpected. All right, so we've got hybrids between birds and human- excuse me, Humans. OK, I can work with that. Sounds like you're still a performer, though, so maybe a circus? You can get away with a lot in a circus.

-*ponders* A circus could work. We're going to be in a modern-ish setting, so there are audience members that assume we're all smoke and mirrors and prosthetics, so we have to stand there and deal with the scrutiny, but we should have some time to ourselves.

I can make that work. Let's give you a bouncer, big guy - probably strictly Human so he can deal with the prejudice that is apparently now popping up in this fantasy world, thanks for that - and give you all a moment to chat. Everybody speaks English, right?

-Oh, please! What kind of world with animal-Human hybrids would allow for that sort of thing? We're bird folk. Some of us have beaks, and those don't make the same kinds of sounds. Nah, I think I'm going to be the only one in my troupe who has to deal with the Humans - the others don't talk. At least, they don't talk to Humans

Got it, makes sense. So you're the leader of the, ah, flock, then?

-... I haven't decided if that's a slur, or just a bad pun. And no, I'm not the leader - I don't make the decisions, I just speak them to the poor souls without beaks. Well, the other poor souls. You know what I mean.

Aha! So you are a bard! My original idea stands!

-Whatever makes you happy. *eye roll*

By the by, you ever going to tell me your name?

-... Maybe?

What is it with you characters and your inability to tell me your names right away? Ugh. You act like I'm going to steal your names away and hide them away until I need to control you.

-That's exactly what you writer-types do with our names. And you even have the audacity to change our names on your whims! How do you think we feel when we get used to thinking of ourselves as, say, Melvin, and one day you decide that no, really, our name is Malcolm. Everything we knew as Melvin was a lie - we're really Malcolm, and in fact, we never were Melvin. It was all a lie, nothing to see here, run along now. Do you know how many characters are in therapy for this kind of thing??

I can't say I ever thought of it. Also, I don't think I've ever named a character either Melvin or Malcolm, and I doubt I ever would, really. Neither are names that say much to me. Melvin just sounds too silly, especially.

-NOT THE POINT. Ugh, writers like you are why so many of us have to go through Revision Therapy. I'm just glad I'm a one-off, so you probably won't have a chance to mess with me again and I can go back to the Library and hang out with all the other character sketches that aren't going anywhere.

OK, ow. And the more you talk, the more likely it is that you'll be showing up again, Melvin.

-... I thought you weren't going to name a character Melvin?

I changed my mind. It suits you. At least for right now. I might change my mind again later.

Day 11 of 31 Stories - A Creator Arrives

Today's story is a little different. Earlier today, we learned of the death of a member of our community, Jeffrey Cook. Eric (my husband) knew Jeff better than I did, having met him many years ago and gaming with him for several years. They hadn't been close in a while - life moved them in different directions physically, and scheduling became less feasible for everyone - but Eric always considered Jeff a friend.

I knew Jeff primarily as a writer, as that was where I had met him. Jeff was an author for Clockwork Dragon, where he wrote several books and stories for their Writerpunk anthologies. I saw him at nearly every convention I went to, as he would man the booth in the dealer's room for Clockwork Dragon, and he always made a point of chatting with me, asking how I was doing and how my writing was going.

His presence will be missed in our communities, and I hope my small tribute will be read with the love and respect with which it was written. (And for those interested in his writing, his author page on Amazon shows just how broad his work was. I highly recommend his books and the anthologies to which he contributed.)

And now, day 11 - A Creator Arrives. For you, Jeff.

The atrium of the Library was bustling with excitement as several Librarians and their assistants moved around to the different doors, leading to various branches within the Library. All of them were carrying a clipboard or notebook, and flipping through pages rapidly as they called out to one another. Occasionally, one would start walking one way, flip a page, and turn around to walk back in the exact opposite direction. From the outside it looked like a type of choreographed chaos, but none of the Librarians seemed particularly concerned. Some of the assistants looked frazzled, of course, but that's because assistants usually have to figure out how to carry out the directives their Librarians give them - a question few Librarians need concern themselves with once they have assistants.

Brenda, one of the Prime-side employees who had just returned from a trip to the grocery store and was cutting through the atrium to get to her apartment before her shift at the cafe, watched all the hustle and bustle with a bemused frown. She'd been working in the Library for a little over six months, which made her feel as though she were more of an established member of the Library's inner circle than she actually was. Still, she was certain that this behavior was out of the ordinary, and she wouldn't be able to rest easy until she knew what was going on.

"Excuse me?" she called out, trying to get the attention of one of the assistants. (She assumed it was an assistant, at any rate - the creature had four arms, all of which were occupied with either scribbling notes on one clipboard or rapidly flipping through a notebook and scanning the pages.) "What's going on?"

The four-armed assistant didn't even look up as it went by. "A Creator's made his way to the Library," it said as it continued on its way. "We're very busy." Before Brenda could ask any follow-up questions, it had already moved through a door on the other side of the atrium.

"This must be your first time, huh?" Brenda jumped in shock as she heard Daniel's voice far too close to her ear. He was a co-worker in the cafe, and had been working in the Library for several years. He'd made it a point to take all of the new Prime-side employees under his wing, particularly those employees who were both young and attractive. Brenda tried to hide her shudder of revulsion, but she didn't try that hard. She just shook her head no and waited for Daniel to start explaining. It wouldn't take long.

"You see," he began, his voice taking the tone of a professor starting to lecture his class (Brenda suppressed a roll of her eyes), "Creators are the people in Prime who, well, create the universes found in books. They're the authors, the storytellers, the people who come up with the characters and worlds and put it all together to develop a new universe. Each universe eventually finds its way into the Library, on the branch where it fits, depending on the type of content and the sorts of elements it has in common with the other universes. That's where the doors lead to."

Looking around the atrium, Brenda saw that several of the doors that were getting the most attention were labeled such things as as "YA - Science Fiction" and "Fantasy - Modern." A few others were getting less attention, but there were some Librarians and assistants moving purposefully toward "Punk - Classic Literature" and "YA - Punk - Science." The doors for those branches were much smaller, but they still led to areas that had more books than Brenda had imagined possible.

"When a Creator makes his or her way into the Library, the Librarians and their staff make sure that the branches that house that Creator's universes are set to receive them - that's what they're doing now. They're cleaning up before the Creator comes to see where their universes live." Daniel grinned at Brenda, gesturing toward the chaos in front of them. "Nice, isn't it?"

"Out of the way!" bellowed a centaur as she began moving through the crowd. There were a few gasps from the Librarians and assistants, and Brenda saw one or two of them give very brief bows in the centaur's direction. That was not something Brenda had expected, though it wasn't entirely unheard of. She elbowed Daniel in the side to get his attention and whispered, "Do we bow? Who is that?" Daniel responded with a shrug, but nodded his head in something resembling a bow when the centaur looked in their direction. Brenda quickly followed suit, just to be on the safe side.

The room had fallen silent, with everyone who wasn't in one of the branches now standing along the curved wall of the atrium. The open part of the room, leading from the transit tunnels that opened to Prime and other non-fictional universes, was clear, and everyone was facing the entrance and holding their breath. Brenda found herself waiting with a pounding heart, even though she didn't know what she was waiting for.

After no more than a minute, a figure entered the atrium from the Prime-side transit tunnels. It was a man, towering in height but not using his advantage to be intimidating. His long, dark hair hung straight down his back, under a top hat decorated with gears and goggles. His eyes shone in wonder as he took in the atrium, seeing the Librarians and their assistants, recognizing them as being creations he wouldn't have seen in the flesh in Prime. He stopped when he got close to the centaur, who bowed her head in greeting.

"We welcome you, as a Creator, to the Infinite Library," she intoned, and Brenda shivered as the words resonated. They had the tones of an incantation, and everyone in the atrium stood a little straighter after they had been said. 

The man's smile could have lit up the night sky, and Brenda knew that he had come home.

Day 10 of 31 Stories - God of Something

This one got away from me a little bit, and so while I'm at a good stopping point, I think there's going to be at least a part 2, if not more. enjoy day 10 - God of Something.

I stumbled into the atrium of a building that didn't look familiar at all, though to be honest, nothing looked familiar yet. I didn't look familiar to myself. Up until a breath ago, I hadn't existed in any form, and suddenly, there I was, standing in a room surrounded by pillars, trying not to fall over, and really wishing I had some idea of what the hell was going on. And what the hell "hell" was. And who was talking when I was hearing all of these things.

"Hello?" I called out, and jumped. My voice was...unexpected. It was high, and there was some kind of accent, but I couldn't place it. (I didn't even know how I knew it was an accent, to be honest...) My voice echoed around the room, and somehow seemed to get louder as it echoed. I didn't think that was how echoes were supposed to work, but maybe I was wrong? I was probably wrong. I found my feet beneath me and stood up straight, feeling a lot of cloth fall away as I straightened my hunch. I looked down at myself, trying to figure out what I was looking at.

There was a lot of cloth on me, that much was obvious. I couldn't see my legs without grabbing through handfuls and handfuls of thick, white, stiff fabric. All of it was attached to itself, and it all came up to my waist and met at a thin belt of silver. My hands were tan, with long, thin fingers that had several fine silver-colored rings on each one. My arms were covered by the same type of fabric as my legs, though there wasn't as much of it. I wish I could see more of the rest of me.

"Department of new deities, this is Denise, how can I help you?" I heard another voice in the room, that somehow didn't echo the same way my voice had. "Uh-huh. Uh-huh. And your sphere of influence?...Uh-huh. Well, That's something that I'm going to need to know so I can log you in our records appropriately, so please get back to me as soon as you have heard from your creator and/or your first prophet, acolyte, or believer. Uh-huh. You're welcome." There was a sound of a chime, and the voice changed in tone. It had originally been high-pitched and friendly, but after the chime, the voice came out much lower in tone and not anything that I would consider to be friendly. "Ugh. Why can't these people just tell me what they're the gods of? How do they not know this stuff?"

"Hon, you know as well as I do that the creators work in mysterious ways," another voice replied. Before I could start looking around to see where the voices were coming from, I heard footsteps on the marble floor. They were heavy, making much more noise than I imagined my own footsteps would sound like - my feet didn't have any kind of covering on them, so I didn't imagine there would be any sharp or hard edge to ring out against the marble. "Oh! Denise, this one of yours?"

The feet had stopped within my line of sight, and I could see they were shiny and brown, and there were four of them. They led up to legs that were splotched with cream and brown, and looked like they were covered in some kind of hair? It didn't look like the skin that covered my legs - I stuck my own foot out of the yards of fabric and wiggled my toes, comparing my foot to the feet in front of me. The legs were different, and my feet had toes with silver rings, while these feet didn't have toes at all. Huh.

"Denise!" I jumped, realizing just how close the voice was to me now, and I looked up to see where it was coming from. The head attached to the legs looked more like mine, as far as i could tell - it was shaped the same way my head felt, at least, and there wasn't the same kind of hair on it as were on the legs. Were my legs supposed to look like that? There was hair on their face, too, coming down in a point at the bottom of their face, just below their mouth, which opened again and let loose another shout.

"I'm coming!" The high-pitched voice was back, and I could hear it was moving, but I couldn't tell where it was coming from. I looked around me frantically, trying to figure out where I could go if I needed to run, and tried to grab enough of the fabric around my legs that I wouldn't trip over it if I needed to run. I still hadn't figured everything about these legs out, but I didn't imagine that having fabric wrapped around them would help me run. I was still battling the cloth when another set of footsteps clattered to a stop in front of me. This time, the feet had something red over them, and the bottoms were hard and came to a point in the front and swooped up onto a high tip in the back. The legs looked mostly like mine, but more pale, and the fabric around them stopped much higher up and away from the feet. It seemed a lot more functional that way, but I wasn't sure about the feet.

"Well, that's new," the high-pitched voice said, and I saw it was coming from another head that looked to be shaped like mine was. There was no hair on the face this time, but the mouth was very red, and there were three different colors smeared together above the eyes, in a way that the other head didn't have. I wondered if my eyes had the color smears on them, too, or if only some people had that. "You must be a new deity. Do you know what your domain is?"

I heard the words. They didn't make much sense, but I heard them. I turned my head to the side, staring between the two heads, and finally moved my mouth to see if I could make any noise like they did. "Domain? What... huh?"

"I think I know why your callers seem so confused now, Denise," the first head said. It came closer to me and leaned forward. "I apologize for the confusion. You appear to be lost. Do you know where you are, or where you came from?"

I shook my head and heard a jingling when I did so. It made me jump, which made something jingle even louder in my ear. I reached up to cover my ears, but when I did, I felt something handing from the hair in front of my ears - something metal, that jingled when I touched it. I tried to pull it out far enough to let me see it, but it wouldn't come out of my hair, so I just kept pulling that part of my hair forward and tried to focus on the little bit I could see.

Denise watched the new god spin herself in a circle, trying to look at the tiny spoons that hung from a flower in her hair, and sighed. "Yeah, OK," she said to her centaur co-worker, who was covering his mouth to hide his smile. "I guess the deities really don't know too much about what they're about when they're first created, if this one is any indication."

"How'd she end up here, that's what I'd like to know," Roman replied, once he'd gotten his expression under control. Regardless of how powerful a deity might be, they're still a god, and it's not worth finding out about their vengeance by laughing at them outright. "Their creator must be here in the Library, do you think?"

"Maybe, but that still doesn't tell us much." Denise sighed and looked at her watch, seeing her last five minutes of work tick down. "Come on, we'll get her settled in the break room and let her be the night shift's problem. Unless you want to work overtime?"

She watched Roman's blond tail twitch at the thought. "Hardly. I've got a date tonight. All right. Um, miss?"

The goddess stopped spinning and glared, cross-eyed, at the centaur. "Me?"

"Yes, miss. If you'll come with us, we have a room where you can lie down and freshen up, take a look in the mirror and answer some of your questions for yourself. My colleague and I are getting ready to leave for the night, but I'll make sure to introduce you to the next shift, so they'll be able to help with any concerns you may have." Roman offered the goddess one of his arms, and she stared at it, holding up her own arm to compare. When it got close enough to his, he gently took her arm and started directing her to the break room.

Denise followed, scribbling notes on her clipboard and thanking the innumerable and unnamed gods that she was leaving for the day. This was so not her style of thing. Surely Erica could handle it, right? Everything would be fine, right?

Right.

TO BE CONTINUED

Day 9 of 31 Stories - Next Big Thing

I've always loved seeing how movies interpret books, and how they change things/get them "wrong" in the interpretation. Naturally, I needed to play with that. Enjoy day 9 - Next Big Thing.

The conference room was in the process of getting set up when all hell broke loose. Again.

This was my first time getting to actually be involved with the movie tie-ins, and I was extremely excited to get to meet everyone and see how things would go. We all knew that a new movie was coming out shortly, and with each new preview, a little more about the movie was being made public. The series had been around for decades, encompassing five core books written by the original creators and at least a dozen more books that were part of an expanded world, written after the original series and focusing on different parts of the lore that hadn't been explored in the original books. The Powers that Be that owned the rights to all of the series had decided that those expanded world books were part of the official story as well, which meant there had been a lot to incorporate, and that had been...well, it had been a nightmare, to hear my predecessor tell it. He had been more than happy to hand over the role of Lorekeeper to me after my apprenticeship, particularly since that happened to be when a new movie was announced. He'd muttered something about "over my dead body," chugged half a bottle of champagne at his retirement party, and stopped answering phone calls or emails almost immediately. I don't know that we ever even got a forwarding address - his apartment had been empty by the next day. I admit, it wasn't a great sign, but I promised myself that I was up to the challenge!

It was a strange position to be in, being an author in Prime who had a job in the Library, but I had worked in small ways in the world of the Lore, the series for which I was now Lorekeeper, for decades. I had contributed my bit to the unofficial expanded world of Lore, helping to keep the fan communities thriving in the years between books or movies, and some of the producers had even said that my ideas had been fun. Not that that ever turned into anything real, like a credit or money or anything, but it still gave me the warm fuzzy feeling of being appreciated. When I found the job posting for official Lorekeeper, well, I don't think I'd waited an hour before putting my name into the ring with an impassioned cover letter and links to my fandom sites. I'd still been astonished to get a positive response right away, and even more so when I learned that I would be keeping the Lore plot lines from the inside out, as it were, but I certainly wasn't going to complain.

This was supposed to be my first big meeting, getting all of the principals together and going over what we knew from the new movie. By virtue of my new position, I had actually gotten an official copy of the script for the movie that was due to come out in a month (Prime-time), and so I'd drawn up detailed explanations of how the new movie incorporated the storylines from both the main series and the expanded world. Obviously there had been some cuts, some things shifted around, just like anything else, but it was truthfully a lot more faithful to the written canon that I had anticipated.

Unfortunately, there had been one big change that leaked before our meeting, which is where all hell broke loose. Lydia stormed into the meeting room, followed by Lysander, her crow familiar, who swooped over her head in a graceful arc. Behind them came crow-Lydia and human-Lysander from one of the expanded world novels. None of them looked pleased with anyone around them, but especially, they looked displeased with me. I put my hands up in a gesture meant to be placating, but was more likely to help me protect my face should any of the crows decided to go for my eyes. "Can I help you?"

"Help?" Human-Lydia spat, while crow-Lysander cawed overhead and swooped around to land on her shoulder. Just behind them, human-Lysander and crow-Lydia took a mirrored stance. "There's nothing you can do to 'help,' you obsequious little non-fic, unless you can tell me why they are still here." She stabbed a finger at her mirror-self, who also looked peeved. Human-Lysander at least seemed to have it in for human-Lydia more than for me, but it didn't look like it would take much to push the scales back over to me.

"There's no need for name-calling, thank you, Lydia, and you know that Lysander-" Crow-Lysander cut me off with an annoyed caw, and I sighed and adjusted my speech. "That human-Lysander and his familiar are both accepted parts of the Lore. You both were called to this meeting for good reason, which I will get into once we actually start the meeting." I put my hands down, deliberately trying not to look like I was terrified of the razor-sharp beaks in front of me, and focused on the human eyes glaring at me instead. "You'll just have to wait with everyone else."

"I. Don't. Wait." Lydia's voice came out like a rumble of thunder, and the lights in the room flickered just a touch as she bore down on me. I really hated dealing with a character who was canonically described as seven feet tall and looming - it meant there was no wiggle room with regards to just how much taller than I am she is, and she uses her looming capabilities to great effect. "You will tell me now, non-fic, or I will beat the words out of you with my bare hands."

"No call for that, Liddy," came a jovial voice from the doorway. As both Lydias and Lysanders turned away from me, I allowed myself a brief moment of internal relief before putting my brave front back on. "If you beat her up now, then she can't tell everyone about how I'm saving the day this time."

Horatio strode in, his sword somehow shining audibly on his hip as he confidently walked over to the corner where Lydia and Lysander had trapped me. "M'lady," he said smoothly, reaching around them and taking my hand. "I believe you have a quest for us?"

"Thank you, Horatio. Not a quest, exactly, but there are some thing that we need to go over..." I trailed off as I saw the rest of the characters come into the room, and I looked at the clock on the wall. Surprisingly, everyone was actually on time for a change. I sighed in resignation. "All right, everyone take your seats, and we'll get started."

It took a few more minutes for everyone to find chairs that put them an appropriate distance away from their mortal enemies and nearer to their dear friends, as usual, and some maneuvering was required to get staffs out of the way, but finally everyone sat down and looked at me expectantly. I swallowed around the lump in my throat and put on my best smile.

"Welcome, everyone! Thank you for coming. I know we're all excited to hear about the newest movie in the world of Lore, and so I'll try to be brief and to the point. The newest movie is not going to focus on the storyline of any particular book from the core series - the studios have decided that audiences no longer need to see how Horatio first becomes the greatest hero in the realm, as that story has been told on film several times now." Horatio looked a bit deflated, but not for long - his ego wouldn't allow him to stay down for very long. The rest of the characters, on the other hand, suddenly perked up. If Horatio wasn't going to be the focus of the story, then who was?

I gulped down some water and continued. "In fact, the studios have decided to take a new approach, refocusing their energies on one of the characters who hasn't had as much time in the spotlight. Gwendolyn? Where are you, sweetheart?" Everyone looked around the table, bewildered, until a small woman's hand raised shakily. She was sitting as far from the front of the table as she could, trying to hide from everyone's attention, and now it was all coming down on her head. I smiled and waved her up to the front, knowing deep down that I was probably going to destroy the young woman's life with this news. Still, as a fan of the world, I could not WAIT.

Gwendolyn stumbled up to the front, eyes downcast and hands twisted into the apron hanging loosely from her waist. A chorus of murmurs followed her, and I watched the faces of the crowd as the penny dropped. I had never been so thankful to see that big, brash smile from Horatio as I had been at that moment, but he looked as excited as a child when he realized where this was going.

"Gwendolyn, honey, we're so glad you're here," I said, doing my best to avoid the false cheer that adults use with young people all too frequently. "In the summer, people are going to learn that there's a lot more about you, and a lot of things that are very special about you, than they ever knew." I ducked my head down, trying to catch her eye and get a better sense of what this would mean to her.

I didn't need to wait for long. She stopped twisting her hands in her apron and slowly, so slowly, lifted her eyes to meet mine. I could have sworn her eyes had been a dishwater gray-brown before, but now I could see they were a rich, dark brown with flecks of silver. I could see her face filling out in detail as the script of the new movie made its way into her essence, and with a gasp, she stood straight for the first time. She was beautiful, strong and powerful, all the things that young women would love to see on screen and in themselves. "Me?" she asked, her voice trembling.

"You," I responded, my eyes filling with tears. "It's time."

She turned to the rest of the room, and even Lydia and Lysander bowed their heads before her. It was time for a new hero in the world of Lore, and the world had chosen her.

Day 8 of 31 Stories - The Many Faces of August France

This is what happens when I spend too much time thinking about biographies and historical fiction, I think - I start wondering what happens when new information about a person comes to light, and someone takes another stab at writing their biography. This was fun. Enjoy day 8 - The Many Faces of August France.

The room was starting to fill up, but there were still a few empty chairs closer to the front of the room where the dais stood. The audience was made up of people who looked roughly the same, if you glanced quickly - it would take at least a second look to notice that some people had longer hair, or darker hair; some wore clothes that were a bit more tailored or more tattered; some had skin that was a shade or two lighter, or had notable scars on slightly different parts of their faces. Overall, there was a strong resemblance between everyone, but not enough to say exactly how they were related. Cousins, perhaps, or aunts and uncles.

The audience was fairly quiet - that, at least, seemed to be a universal. Nearly every member of the audience was reading a book of some sort, though some were making notes in notebooks of many types. Most were leather of some form, though some were cardboard or paper. All were writing with a fountain pen of some form or another, and each had a pocket dedicated to the purpose of holding both notebook and pen.

At the front of the room, someone approached the dais, and the small amount of noise being made by the others quieted down. The ones who had been reading closed their books and pulled out their own notebooks, while those taking notes flipped to a blank page. All looked to the newcomer expectantly, pens poised and waiting.

The person at the dais cleared their throat and took a sip of water from the glass conveniently left on a table next to the dais for them. "Greetings, my friends and fellows," they said, their voice still a touch hoarse in spite of the water. The rest of the attendees muttered something in response, in tones that mimicked both the original speaker and each other, a susurrus of greeting. The speaker at the dais nodded in acknowledgement and places their own notebook on the slanted surface in front of them, allowing themselves a moment to find their appropriate notes and have some business for their hands as they pulled themselves together.

"I appreciate you taking the time to gather here and allow me to speak to you as the newest member of our order. As you may be aware, there has been a recent resurgence in popularity in the history of those who created the inaugural library of botanical sciences, which has led to renewed interest in ourselves and our fellow botanists. I believe I recognize a few of you from books written in the last decade or so, yes?" The speaker directed their words to three of the attendees who were sitting closer to the front of the audience, who shared a rueful smile with each other and the speaker. There were one or two audience members toward the back of the room who looked uncomfortable when considering the newer members, and a careful observer would note that the superficial differences between those in the back of the room and those in the front were the most extreme of all of the differences. Those in the back were better-dressed and had more conspicuous signs of wealth and social standing, and also had skin that was paler and less obviously scarred. Those in the front, however, dressed in a manner that indicated their clothing, while once considered quite expensive, had been repaired often and not well, and were likely to be more patch than original fabric. None of the three newer members appeared to be solely of Caucasian descent, unlike the older members. They all looked as though they had spent more time outdoors and doing hard labor, rather than sitting in libraries and studying, and their scars had not healed as cleanly as the older audience members.

The speaker at the front of the room more closely resembled the newer members of the audience than the older, though their clothing was of a higher quality. Unlike the majority of audience members, their hair grew long down their back, pulled into a braid, and was nearly as black as pitch with thin streaks of white shot through the length. Their bearing was not as straight and proud as that of the men they stood in front of, but rather somewhat hunched, as though they were trying to hide something of themselves. Still, they carried on with their prepared remarks.

"In the last year, some bright spark decided that it was time to tell the full story of the founding of the library of botanical sciences, and dedicated herself to making a movie about us. She worked with several historians, going as far back into our backgrounds as she could, and a new source of primary resources was discovered in the home of our former love." The speaker watched the audience carefully as they took notes, recognizing that some of the older audience members were starting to look alarmed.

"Our former love?" One man raised his hand in confusion. When the speaker nodded to him, he stood, raising himself above the audience from about the middle of the room. "Begging your pardon, but my book stated that we never had a true love. In point of fact, it was understood that we were asexual, and had no desire for a romantic partnership." He looked around to the other men in the audience, confused by the sudden chorus of snickers. "Is that not correct?"

"Don't know where they got that idea, old man," another audience member said. "Per my book, we were a bit of a hound, fathering children everywhere we went. 'Asexual' wasn't even a term when I was written, though," he added defensively as some of the snickers turned to sounds of outrage.

"I say," one of the older men began, but the speaker raised their hands and brought the attention of the room back to the front. The asexual version of the man they all presumed to be sat down, still looking confused.

"By our former love, I refer to Emilia Jenkins-Waldorf," the speaker explained, seeing looks of recognition appear on the faces around them. "We wrote her many letters over our life, and she kept most of them. They hadn't been found before now, but her great-great-grandson was willing to share those letters with the historians working with the movie director, and so some more of our less public aspects have become, well, public." They shrugged, sheepish. "That's where I came from."

"Well, tell us about yourself, then," one of the newer members said eagerly. His fellows nodded in agreement, pens poised to take down notes and see what else they could learn about themselves. Several of the other men in the audience prepared themselves similarly, faces with some degree of curiosity or excitement. Only the men in the back of the room looked upset at hearing about yet another iteration, and the speaker didn't believe that would change once they heard the speaker out.

"I was born August Louise France, in 1811," they began, only to be stopped almost immediately.

"Louise? Did they misspell your middle name already?" The older August snorted with derision. "Some historian, if they can't even get our middle name correct."

The speaker took another deep breath and let it out slowly before straightening up, allowing her shoulders to fall back and her full silhouette to be made clear. "No," she said. "My name is, was, and always has been, August Louise France. I was named after my father's brother, August, and after my mother's sister, Louise. I am, was, and always have been, a woman."

Twenty minutes later, the worst of the brouhaha had subsided. The elder Augusts, those written back in the late 19th century when no one could conceive of a groundbreaking scientist being anything but a Caucasian man, had left in a huff; the oldest of them had to be helped out by two of his brethren, as the shock had been too much for his system. Louise, as she asked to be called, had been willing to answer questions from the rest of the Augusts, and there had been many, many questions. She was grateful that some of the Augusts had been more accepting, telling her that their own stories had made so much more sense now that they had the additional information, and the August who had been depicted as asexual had nearly been apoplectic when he realized how his author had twisted events to avoid the same revelation. Louise set up some time to meet with that August one on one, as she felt he might have more specific questions than the others would.

Eventually, Louise was left with the three newest Augusts, those whose biggest revelation had been that August had not been purely Caucasian. Gus, the newest of the three, was the most supportive of all of the Augusts; he, of course, had been the most recent dropper of bombshells, and so he knew better than most what she was experiencing. "Don't worry about them," he said, as the last of the angry Augusts left the room. "They'll get over it, or they won't. Either way, you have your story to tell, and it sounds like the letters will back it up more than most of these guys."

"Yeah, they're just cranky because you being here with all your primary sources are going to keep them from getting read," Auggy, the middle of the three new guys (as they called themselves), added. "I just hope it'll lead some people to take another look at us, too. There were a lot of people who discarded us as - what did they call us, A?"

"'Identity politics run amok,' I think was my favorite," A responded. He'd been the first to come out with the news that August France had been the son of a white settler and Mexican mother, and had faced his fair share of scrutiny because of it. "Because saying that some historical figure isn't white is saying they're somehow not as good, or something? I never really understood it, I just wish my author had been willing to stick up for me."

"His author disavowed him, claiming he'd had back sources," Gus whispered to Louise. "It was pretty harsh, especially when Auggy and I came along with the same narrative. And now you!"

Louise ducked her head in embarrassment. "I don't want to be anything special," she said. "I didn't want to be anyone special then, either. I just wanted to study, and a mixed woman wasn't going to be able to do anything in a school. A mixed man, well, he stood a chance. My father was the one willing to keep my secret, and so was Emilia." All four sighed with regret at the memory. "Keeping my secret was what drove her away, though," Louise said softly. "It's because of me that we never married. We never could have been ourselves openly, not if we were to maintain any standing in society."

All of them looked at the floor, lost in thought, before Louise finally stirred. "Well, with luck, we won't be needing to meet anyone new anytime soon. I look forward to seeing you around the Library, though." She stood straight, and each man shook her hand firmly before gathering their books and heading to the door. Once the last of them left, Louise let her shoulders slump again as she took her own notebook and book from the dais.

Back to work, she supposed. At least until the next face of August France appeared to replace her, may it be many years from now.

Day 7 of 31 Stories - Zombie Jamboree

(I'm still going with day numbers, even though that obviously no longer matches the dates of the month. Consistency! Or something.)

Ever since I thought of this story title, I've had the song stuck in my head. Specifically, I've had a version done by Rockapella stuck in my head, and it's a version I have yet to be able to find. It used to live on my now long-dead iPod lo, these many moons ago, but I haven't been able to find it since. Alas! At any rate, please enjoy day 7 - Zombie Jamboree.

The ballroom of the Library was one of the few large places that could host hundreds of people (or creatures, as it were) without causing a big log jam. Sheila still wasn't sure why there was a ballroom in a library, or why it needed to be used at least once a month or so (at least, she figured it was about once a month - time ran strangely in the Library), but so long as there were events in the ballroom and she worked for the food service sector of the Library staff, she would have a job. A very weird job on occasion, yes, but a job nonetheless.

Sheila worked with two other servers to set up the buffet table around the outside of the room, following the hand-drawn schematics their manager had given them. Previously, the only events Sheila had worked had been for, well, people, of various types of human - a group of doctors, one of detectives, another batch that seemed to be law enforcement through the ages, all of whom looked like a typical human-type person and ate standard human-type meals. There had always been some form of salad bar, for example, and a prime rib station, so everything had resembled what Sheila was used to serving in her old job on the outside. This was the first event she'd worked that had been for a more discerning clientele, and she wasn't sure how she felt about it. The food that they were putting out was not what she would consider to be the most appetizing in the world, but it hadn't seemed too strange at first.

"Man, but I hate when the flesh-eaters have their parties," Adam grumbled as he set out another water bath and sterno heater, prepared to hold another tray of food meant to be kept warm. "Give me the vampires any day of the week, man. At least their stuff is fresh."

"Yeah, but there's no garlic," Elena replied as she put out a stack of plastic plates. Sheila was surprised to see the lightweight, cheaper dishes being used; normally, events in the ballroom required the heavy china. "What's the point in fresh food if there's no garlic? Right, new girl?"

Sheila pulled another handful of heavy paper napkins out of their packaging and set them in a stack next to the plates. "I can't say that I would want to go through a meal without any garlic if I could help it," she admitted. "Still, what do you mean by 'flesh-eaters,' Adam? I mean, we don't really have a lot of call for vegetarian groups, do we?"

Adam and Elena paused as they turned to get more supplies off their carts, exchanging looks. Sheila looked between the two of them, wondering exactly what she was missing, and which one of them was going to tell her what she needed to know.

Before either of them opened their mouths, however, their manager came bustling out of the back hallway that served as the service entrance and exit to the kitchen. Donna clapped her hands on the edges of her clipboard to get their attention, and waited with ill-disguised impatience as the three servers turned toward her. "Yes, thank you! We have a fairly small spread for tonight, thankfully, as the master of ceremonies is providing some of his own food for the group, but we do need to get the basics out before our first guests start to arrive. Elena, Adam, you know the drill for these folks, so get to it. Sheila, with me." She beckoned and, without waiting to see if her new hire was following, turned back to the door to the back hall and made her way around the corner almost before Sheila could see where she'd gone.

Elena mouthed "good luck!" as Sheila hurried to catch up, closing the door behind them a little harder than was strictly necessary. Elena then turned to Adam, raising one eyebrow. "What do you think? New girl is on the menu?"

Adam paused in the act of setting up another hot tray and gave the question some thought before shaking his head. "Unlikely. Sheila's been doing pretty well. You know Donna only feeds the poor producers to the clients, and Sheila's been a pretty quick study. I'm thinking she's getting the run-down on what to expect from the more special groups, and seeing if she'll go screaming into the night. We do lose a couple that way every year."

Elena sighed as she continued unloading her catering cart. "Yeah. My friend Dani couldn't deal when we had to serve werewolves the first time - something about the way they ate farm to table really bothered her. I thought it was nice to see how we were respecting the food, going back to the roots of cooking, as it were, but that wasn't a common mindset."

Adam snorted. "No, I don't imagine it was." Wrinkling his nose at the smell, he put the first of the big trays of food onto the water bath and lit the sterno to keep things warm. "Man, I am not looking forward to unwrapping this."

Elena coughed, covering her mouth with her elbow. "Ugh. Yeah, it's pretty strong, but you know that's how they like it. Leave it until we're just about to leave - no need to let it air out for too long, you know?" Adam nodded his agreement, and together they moved swiftly through the rest of their preparations.

Just as they were finishing up, Sheila and Donna returned to the ballroom. Sheila looked a bit shell-shocked, but also wore an expression of skepticism that Elena remembered all too well. Donna was resigned. "Adam, Elena, let's get the carts out of here. Sheila is going to be serving tonight. Sheila, we'll be in the kitchen if things get too busy for you, so don't let yourself get overrun - if it feels like there are too many to deal with by yourself, ask for help." Donna looked Sheila directly in the eye as she said the last part, and Elena felt a pang of sympathy for the new server.

Adam didn't feel such qualms. "Ready to go," he announced as he prepared to roll his cart back into the hallway. He gave Sheila a brief nod and led the way out of the ballroom, and Elena and Donna followed closely behind. Just as the door swung closed behind them, Elena thought she heard the first moans coming through the ballroom. She shuddered involuntarily, and moved faster through the hall back towards the kitchen.

Donna stayed behind the other two, listening at the door. Music had begun to play through the sound system, but she couldn't hear any lyrics to the songs. The only noises she could hear that sounded like they came from a person were the occasional moan and groan as the party slowly started to make their way into the ballroom. She cracked the door open just a bit, and her nose was assaulted by the smell of warm roadkill from the steam table. Sheila, clever woman, had opened up the food as soon as the first guests started to arrive, and now she was starting to serve.

The zombies were forming a more-or-less orderly line, making Sheila's life a bit easier. Some had obviously been turned only recently, why others were barely holding it together. Donna noticed a few hopping zombies, in addition to the standard walkers. They'd been given enough room to move in the wide arcs that made up their general locomotion, thankfully, so there weren't any of the tangles of zombie knots that Donna had seen in the past.

Opening the door a little wider, she watched as Sheila carefully carved part of a raccoon onto a plate for a fresh zombie. The moans coming out of that zombie's mouth became appreciative, and Sheila smiled in return. "You're welcome!" she chirped as she turned to the next customer. Something about her customer-service smile and cheerful disposition both pleased Donna and made her a tiny bit uneasy. She stuck her head out of the door a bit and caught Sheila's eye, mouthing the question "All good?"

Sheila gave her a brilliant smile and a thumbs-up before turning that smile to the next zombie, a gray-colored man whose afterlife had already outlasted his breathing life by at least two to one. He was remarkably well-preserved, and Sheila was able to chat for a moment as she served him.

Nodding in satisfaction, Donna let the door close behind her and continued down the hall. It looked like the new girl was going to make it after all, and not as a canapé. Now to wash the dishes and prepare for next month's ghoul convention...