Today of All Fucking Days

Today would have been 4 beautiful years, you bastard.

And you, you awful bitch, had to write me a letter that would show up TODAY OF ALL FUCKING DAYS.

You may both politely go straight to hell. I'm having ice cream.




A real post tomorrow. Tonight, some frustration needed to be released onto the internets...

Write One Leaf: "Lace & Chiffon"

I wrote this after walking past a Victoria's Secret and wondering what chiffon felt like. This is what happened....

"Lace & Chiffon"

The fabric draped her body so delicately that it barely touched her skin and certainly didn't hide anything. She wore a silk dressing gown to keep her shoulders warm but did not bother with covering herself. She knew why I had come.

"Charlotte," I said. I knew it wasn't her real name, but it was the only one I knew. It tasted thick and heavy on my tongue.

"You must be Jane." She looked up at me from her crowded vanity table and rose to shake my hand. I ignored her in favor of wonder at the shiver of her nightclothes. They shifted and whispered against her soft, white skin so gently as she moved. It was in that moment that I came to hate her.

"So he told you my name, did he?" I tried to laugh but choked instead. "It's amazing you two ever even spoke at all. God, look at you." I gestured to the swell of her breasts, the curve of her ass and lithe limbs half-covered in the early light.

"Yes, he spoke of you often," she said, softly, as if I were a wounded animal. I suppose I was. "He told me so much I feel we could be - might be - great friends if you knew me as well." She smiled. I felt sick.

"Friends!?" I spluttered. "How could we be friends? You stole from me, you destroyed my life and everything I cherished. Everyone knows and I'm ashamed to show my face in public." I breathed in, swallowing the scent of her perfume and (surprisingly) clean sheets. The oxygen cleared my head so I could continue. "But you should be the ashamed one." I reached a hand into my purse.

"Jane," she began. "Jane, I'm so sorry. He should have told you sooner and had no right to let you find out the way he did. I never meant for you to get hurt, he said - "

"I don't want to hear what he said!" I screamed and pointed the gun at her perfect, shocked mouth. "Now, Charlotte," I said calmly. "I want you to give me one good reason why I shouldn't do the women of the world a service and kill you right now."

She walked to her nightstand and pulled a cigarette case from a drawer, then lit one with shaky hands. She looked at me for a moment, then let her robe cascade to the floor in a silken puddle leaving her dressed only in lace and chiffon.

"Because," she said, taking a drag, "if was just business between Dan and me and you know that; because he really loves you as much as you love him; and because if you kill me, you won't have anyone to hate but yourself for feeling the way that you do." Charlotte took two, fateful steps toward me, drifting in a cloud of smoke. "Because you're intoxicated by me, Jane, no matter how sick it makes you feel."

I dropped the gun and felt the shivery whisper and gentle brush of lace and chiffon drift past my skin, and I cried.

Tips on Writing

Courtesy of Tumblr.com from Write One Leaf:

To the young poet or to anybody, my advice on writing a short story is to write it. Don’t go in search of too much advice on writing it before you write it because in the end this will only keep you from writing it.

Once you have written it, try not to be too attached to it. It is a thing you have done, but it is not you. So seek out a person you can trust, a person with a kind and generous soul, a person who is not your mother or your spouse or your pet and share what you’ve written with that person. (It helps if this person knows something about stories, about how they are constructed and how they can be improved, but it is not absolutely essential.)

Make changes to this story if you can, or if you must, or if you want. Show it to more people. Try to have it published. Publish it yourself. Read it out loud to a group of strangers.

At some point, write another. And another. And do not be afraid. This is not brain surgery. If you slip? Nobody dies.

Write one leaf in which you describe something that scares you.

The last 2 paragraphs mean the most to me. "Read it out loud to a group of strangers. ... Do not be afraid. This is not brain surgery." I love it. Pure genius.

“The very impulse to write, I think, springs from an inner chaos crying for order, for meaning, and that meaning must be discovered in the process of writing or the work lies dead as it is finished.” ~Arthur Miller

~Willow

The New Plan

Okay. So of my two interviews scheduled yesterday, only one actually happened. The one that actually happened was received in two completely different ways: my way, and my mother's way.

I think we all know which one was more negative.

So the Lakers lady cancelled and the school meeting went well (in my opinion) and there's so much drama at my house right now, we make Jersey Shore look boring. Between my brother raising my niece and my parents running two businesses and my sisters raising hell with each other and everyone else, my issues have taken the back burner. Not that they were ever a priority in the first place - save that one week in November - but now it's like I'm just in the way again. I don't want more attention so much as I'm not pleased with being back in my "burdensome, just get over it and on with your life" stage. Not pleasant.

But basically, what was discussed (briefly) was that I am supposed to come back to school in the fall, and I'm going to get a new academic advisor once I get a new academic plan, as well as a "spiritual" advisor, and will continue meeting with Hung until I'm comfortably settled and on my two feet once again. I'll only be taking 12 units (4 classes instead of 5) for at least the first semester to get my sea legs again, and ... it'll be good. I guess. I'm on the wait list for housing, and am working out all the other hoops I have to jump through to get back on track.

And I'm not letting ANYTHING stop me this time.

“I have a new plan: to go mad.” - Dostoevsky, "Letters of Fyodor Dostoevsky" (courtesy of Tumblr)

~Willow

Smoke & Mirrors

Smoke & Mirrors

She’s back again tonight. The girl and her cigarettes. She hasn’t been by in a few weeks, but she’s out there tonight in her oversized denim jacket, tight-fitted jeans and high heels. She always stops across the street from the house and smokes in the park under the streetlight. She can’t see me – probably doesn’t know I’m even here – but from my room, with the light off, I can see her perfectly. It’s eerily beautiful.

I wonder a lot about who she is, where she comes from and why she smokes here sometimes. Is she running away from something? I used to think she was waiting for someone to meet her, but it’s always the same. She stops, gets out, lights a cigarette, smokes 1, sometimes as many as 3 or 4, gets in her car and drives away. I imagine her with an older boyfriend who isn’t that nice to her, and she has to come here to find some peace and quiet and dark anonymity. I imagined she was a hooker once, in heels like that. But so many times she just looks so nice. When she first started coming (or I first started noticing), I thought she couldn’t have been older than 15 and she still does sometimes. Other times, she looks much older – mid 20s, I guess. Tonight she’s dressed older. She’s worn her hair in a fancy up-do with a lot of pins, but she carelessly pulls them all out and shakes her long hair out.

I imagine her as a singer, someone who has a soul full of music inside. She has art and champagne and jasmine-scented roses inside of her. She plays guitar all weekend and works as a waitress on weekdays, writing new songs constantly. The cold and the cigarettes help her think, give her new ideas, clear her head and give her time and space away from everything.

She’s finished her cigarette – only one tonight – and is carefully, carefully pinning her hair back up with a twist and a jab. She pulls a bottle of perfume from her purse and sprays herself. I imagine jasmine and roses again while wondering who she’s hiding from. She opens her car door and I see her face glistening. We both pause. Then, like she heard me breathe again, she looks directly at my window and I back away. She can’t have seen me, but she smiles to herself anyway. A weak smile, one that says, “I can’t.” This girl surrounded by smoke gets in her car and drives away. As her headlights fade, I imagine her going somewhere happy. I look in the mirror.

And I wonder what a cigarette tastes like.

Written while watching someone watching someone else. Meta-creeping, if you will.

"Those who keep silence hurt more..." ~ C.S. Lewis

~Willow

Write On…

So today I got an unexpected phone call. On second thought, I was expecting it, but not until tomorrow. So it was still a bit surprising, but not an out-of-the-blue, crazy-ass, “WHOA!” kind of surprise. Understand, there’s a lovely little woman who sits in the same seat at every Lakers home game (and has for the last 20 years or something) whom I’m marvelously fascinated with. I plucked up some nerve (right out of my garden of virtues!) and wrote her a note for my mother to deliver on Friday night explaining who I am, what my goals are and the whole writing thing, and expressed my desire to interview her.

She called this afternoon and said she’d be delighted to talk with me. She (Her name is Shirley, by the way. Ms. Shirley Green.) seemed confused as to why I would pick her of all people, but I explained that she just seemed like someone I’d like to get to know a bit better; someone I’d like to write about. We have a late lunch date scheduled for Wednesday afternoon in Culver City. I’m nervous-excited with a dash of anxious.

Mostly, I’m thrilled that… Things are finally happening. This is my first real interview as a writer, as someone trying to get real stories and put them into words. This isn’t me eavesdropping or observing from any kind of distance. I’m being upfront about my intentions and sitting down with a complete stranger to get her story with the express purpose of improving my writing. I feel almost like a professional writer with this ahead of me.

I mean, let’s be honest. 6 months ago, 3 months ago: I wouldn’t have the guts or the strength to be doing something like this. I can’t wait to tell Aunt Leslie and Uncle Andy how it goes. I’m a little concerned about not knowing what to ask, or being too formal and making her uncomfortable, or acting too unprofessional or… No. I will not let something as unnecessarily paralyzing as an anxiety disorder ruin this. I am not my illnesses. I am a writer. So there.

In other news, the Judy Moody movie will be released nationwide on June 10^th of this year and it looks absolutely adorable. It’s like Beezus and Ramona with a summery, ridiculous twist. “R A R E!” I’m definitely excited to see it and will, of course, be doing another write-up on it – review style! See the trailer here.

Also, please note the new “Contact” tab on the pages bar. You can contact me super-easy and super-secret like so nobody’s info is compromised prior to the actual messaging. Cool, huh? Last, more reviews on YA and kid-lit are coming, fear not! Also be sure to check my “Scribbles…” page for a few new fiction pieces. Cheers!

New Page: Book Reviews

I've officially created a new page is for my reviews on books. Bear in mind, dear Reader, that the majority of the books I will be reviewing/summarizing are YA - young adult fiction. This is fiction aimed at readers between the ages of 12 and 20. That's a wide gap and covers quite a range of literature, but that range covers primarily fantasy, adventure, the occasional sci-fi, and a great deal of standard fiction. Some of it is fluff, some of it is really profound. All of it is honest. At least, the review part. Here, I can be a little blunter than I can be at work. Not that I have to be extremely censored at work, I just try to lighten my opinion a little and be a little more... open-minded. Here, I can be as blunt and as opinionated as is professional. Which sometimes comes off a little ... mean? Cynical. Critical, even. But I do so with the utmost respect to each author and each book I review (with the sole exception of Twilight) because if your work is being published in the mainstream, that alone deserves respect.

Please bear in mind that I am not what is typically considered a professional reviewer. I'm an almost-professional at this. I work in a children's bookstore so I'm almost constantly exposed to literature aimed at people under the age of 16. I'm almost 21 (kid at heart much?). But I approach books as a fellow writer, as someone who understands and respects the crafting that goes into great literature. As I state previously, I have a great deal of respect for authors, and will endeavor to have that reflect in each review I post. Please understand that my opinion is based on having read countless titles in children's and YA fiction over the years, from classics to the latest craze, and therefore I may, at times, seem a bit jaded. This is not intentional, this is me being realistic about how good something is in comparison, versus how good something is just at face value. As time passes, I will continue evolving my format for reviewing into something hopefully more accessible than my miscellaneous jumbled thoughts spewed onto pages.

But be excited! SO many books I've been aching to write about, to share my opinions on! Plus, I feel like great writers are great readers, and if you don't read, how can one possibly hope to write?


"We do not write because we want to, we write because we have to." ~ W. Somerset Maugham.

Write on,

~Willow