Oh My Word, Here I Go...

*ahem*

When I was fifteen, I started writing a book.

It was bad.

Here is an excerpt, with commentary included. It serves as a warning to younger me, since twentysomething me is currently DeLorean-less.

-----

Years ago, on a farm just outside of a town called Coleville, in West Virginia [not a real place. I stole the name from combining a movie with the wrong way my last name is spelled all the time and I had not at the time ever been to WV.] there lived a girl named Susan Miltons [I'm really bad at surnames]. The Miltons family was a relatively small family, with one boy, Johnny, and two girls, Susan and Linda [I swear I stole the names from an American Girl book.]. their father was a very hardworking man who was absolutely delighted to provide well for his family. And the family surely was well provided for. [What is this crap, young me? Really?]

Susan was a young girl with an adventurous spirit. She felt that she must have one, because Linda and Johnny were more content to do homework and see their friends. [Susan was apparently a loser with no friends. Or a serial killer. Criminal Minds would probably be all over that.] Susan loved to explore the thick, beautiful woods on the Miltonses [???] property. The trip was sometimes [only sometimes?] inconvenient, because Susan had to go around the field [corn, if you were wondering], but once she was finished with that obstacle [apparently Susan was fat, too], Susan explored to her content. [I guess young me wasn't into pronouns.]

To Susan, there was always some new place to find. Sometimes it had been an unfamiliar clearing. [How exciting.] Other times i had been a new path that wound through the woods, leading to some mysterious end that Susan never quite found. [Maybe that's where the bodies were hidden?] One unfortunate time, Susan had found the trail to the railroad tracks, and the train was just speeding through. [Dag.] But there was one consistent thing about Susan's explorations. She always took her loyal dog, Teddy, with her. And one day, Susan found another new clearing. But this clearing was very extraordinary, and more astonishing than anything Susan had ever seen.

It was a beautiful day one October, when Susan was twelve. [I think I legitimately thought people would get confused if I used "she" once, instead of the name.] The air was cold, the sky was the deepest blue, and it was Saturday, which allowed the whole day for fun. [No duhrr.] So she [freaking finally] went exploring, and Teddy followed loyally, as he did every time, his tongue hanging out, his fur blowing in the breeze. The leaves were changing, and falling, and not a cloud was in the sky. So the young girl and her dog strolled to the woods.

This day, Susan chose a new, smaller path than the others she had seen before. [My grammar sucked too, if you haven't noticed.] The path was clear, nearly perfect, not covered by thorns like most of the trails in these woods. Up ahead was a bend in the path, and when Susan and Teddy went around it, they found, instead of another path, a clearing. But this clearing was  different than others. [Those sentences are just gross.] Everything in it was a different shade of brilliant blue. The rocks were blue, as was the piney cover on the blue tinted soil. [Sorry, I forgot about the acid trip part of the story.]

"Oh," breathed Susan. "Teddy, it's so amazing." [Poor Teddy...I'm so sorry for what you had to put up with.] Teddy looked happy; no, ecstatic, as if he had found some hidden happiness in that clearing. [SUBTLE FORESHADOWING DUNDUNDUN.] A small fruit hung from one of the trees, and Susan looked at it, but decided against eating it. But she made a decision about the clearing itself. This was her special place. I'll come back every day, she thought. Or at least I'll try. So, after playing there for a long while with Teddy, Susan headed home.

****************
 [It gets better.]

Susan did indeed try to go back every day. Even when she explored other places, she found time to go to her special clearing. [Was anyone concerned at all about this child spending hours in the woods unsupervised?] It was a place of peace, somewhere to play and to dream. No other place was like it. But even so, special as it was to her, there was something even better about it that Susan herself would never discover [SUBTLETY.] So these happy years crawled by lazily, and Susan and Teddy became closer in a strange way as they visited the clearing. [I'm sorry, but just no.]

The day came when Susan turned sixteen. [This is apparently known to happen occasionally.] As this birthday had approached, she had stopped going as often. Other things, like friends, [finally], school [also finally] and cinema [Cinema? Really?] replaced the clearing as important to her. And then, Susan stopped going at all, and forgot all about this beautiful clearing. [Morality tale: avoid puberty at all costs, because you may be in danger of getting a life.] Teddy never did, though, and he went back every day, because, not only was he used to the routine, the dog [because I know you totally just forgot what species Teddy was] knew that something was more special about this blue place. [did no one care that the dog wandered off too?] But the clearing, as Susan stopped going, turned from a bright blue to a dull, dead, faded gray. [Being a teenager will also kill the local flora. Apparently.]

Susan graduated from high school two years later, went to college, and got married to a man named Charlie McKail. They moved far away from Coleville, to a larger town named Wilson, hours away from Coleville. [In North Carolina.] Susan and Charlie had a daughter, whom they named Anya Leona McKail. The family lived a nice life in Wilson. [Good to know.] Anya went to a good school [also good to know, because schools in NC err on the side of suckage] and Susan and Charlie had very good jobs. And all this time, the clearing grew grayer still. [I imagine it eventually just turned clear.] And Teddy, the loyal dog, died, as no one in our world lives forever. [Crap, that's depressing.] The years passed, with the clearing lying, forgotten, in the thick woods around Coleville.

[Here's a tiny excerpt from a bit down the page. Anya's parents are discussing moving to Coleville because Susan's parents decide to give her a house or some junk like that.]

"Mama, we can't move," Anya objected. "I have friends here. Do you know how long it took me to make friends? [In Susan's footsteps, I suppose.] What in the world's wrong with Wilson?"

-----

A lot Anya. There's a lot wrong with Wilson.

Blog Promos (i.e. Lazy Day)

It's Friday where I live, and time to do a little promotions of the blogs I love to read.

The Clumsy Juggler
This one's actually written by a friend of mine from college. She's currently in grad school for Master's in English, and was very recently diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes. She writes about it on the site, and it is entertaining, thought-provoking, and educational all at the same time. It's also made me very thankful for my own health.

Children of the Nineties
For a child of the 90s such as myself, this blog just oozes nostalgia. Right now the updates are sporadic, and the last one was in May of this year, but check it out anyway. The archives are amazing.

Fourth Grade Nothing
Much like Children of the Nineties, this blog is a trip back into the childhood of a whole generation, the kids and teens of the 1980s. I'm currently obsessed with that decade, so I really love this blog.

Weirdly Awesome NC
Though I'm quite prone to scaring myself with ghost stories, I do very much enjoy weird tales and local legends, as well as alternate theories for historical events (Ancient Aliens, anyone?) This site has both, focused mainly in North Carolina, but also branches out into the "weirder" corners of the Earth. The author's ideas are pretty interesting as to why certain things occur, so be sure you don't miss the theme running through every post.

The Laconic Inkdrop
Another blog by a friend, this is focused mainly on the issues that us recentish college grads are having with employment, paying back loans, and basically facing a world that will soon belong to us. Her other blog is Ever Just Curious, which has a more literary focus.

Rediscovering His Grace
What can I say, I'm one amongst all my blogger friends. It's hard to keep one's faith these days, but sometimes things that happened in the past made it harder. I find this a refreshing glance at a faith that is too often riddled with trite sayings instead of the blunt truth.


That's it for the promos this week. I hope you find all these sites as enjoyable as I do.

It's Been One Year

"Let us endeavor so to live that when we come to die even the undertaker will be sorry." - Mark Twain

I haven't written about last summer much at all, beyond the usual frovolity. Looking back, I see that I didn't even bother to post anything for all of July 2011, and now that I'm about to write about it, my heart is racing a little and my stomach feels sort of sick. I can compartmentalize easily enough, recognize events as facts and not feel anything, as long as I don't open the door and let it all in again.

Sometime after midnight on July 9, 2011, I finally went to bed after a long and late conversation with my fiance. It had to be after 1:00 in the morning. It was such a normal Friday for then. I usually would sleep in until around 10:00 before getting up and taking Minnie to the bathroom.

I feel sick reliving this.

A few minutes after five that morning, someone pounded on my door. I woke up instantly and yelled out an answer, and my mom told me to come to my parents' room now. My brother was there too.

I got to the bedroom and my dad was crying. He said that our cousin Emily had been killed in a car accident at the beach that night. He didn't know the details, but they were headed to my aunt's house then.

I went back to bed with my dog. I didn't even want to believe that had happened. I prayed that it was a mistake, or that some resurrection would come. Maybe that none of what I'd just heard was real.

I got up around 11 again, and my parents were back and the horrors of the early morning had happened. After breakfast, we spent the rest of the day at my aunt's house, all my family. 

The funeral was a few days later, on a Tuesday night. They're doing those differently now. It was at night. There was a viewing before the service. It was open casket, and I hated that. The person in the casket never looks like they were ever once human. The breath of life has departed from the body, and the dirt shell is all that's left.

I hate open casket.

The man who owns the funeral home said it was the hardest one he'd ever done. I think there was probably a thousand people there. My cousin had a lot of friends, and was loved by so many people.

The next day was the grave-side service. I remember it being so so hot, just like it is this summer.

At some point during the service, a breeze found its way through the mausoleum to cool us all off. I can only describe it as a beach breeze, and exactly that, the kind that only ever comes off the ocean. I know those breezes well.

I live two hours away from any beach.

I don't understand everything that's happened in the past year. The car accident was truly something far worse: my cousin was struck by a vehicle while crossing an empty, well-lit five lane road. The guy who hit her kept going for a while and then turned around and came back. It happened sometime after one in the morning, and the trooper on the scene never checked his blood alcohol levels, nor was there any drug tests. We think they might have been buddies. I'm a firm believer in justice, and so far there hasn't been any, not from other human beings. I have to keep knowing that God is just when we are not.

No one, not myself, not my dad, not anyone, can answer the question that so permeates every moment that I think about this happening: Why?

I refuse to example trite, precious little answers like "well, God needed her more" or "it was just God's will" or the lovely implied one my dad got from a church lady, "well, if y'all had just been in church..." Lady, I don't think we know the same God.

The day it happened, my cousin's nephew (her older brother's little boy) came over with his other grandparents to see my aunt. The little guy is remarkable perceptive. His MeMa and dad were so upset that he just went and stood under a tree, and he wouldn't come out because he was scared.

I wish I had the luxury of being three years old.

Every time I let my brain process that my cousin will never walk through the door again on this earth, I feel like I've been punched in the gut, and then the panic starts. I have to shut that door quickly.

Before it happened, I was going to have a couple of candles lit in memory of my mom's brother, who died in 2010, and my dog Buster. I was thinking about it one night, and I suddenly got this fear that there would be another candle to light, but I didn't know why. I don't know where that came from.

But it happened. It is one thing to lose someone to a disease, however sudden, or a chronic illness that wastes their body until you think death might be merciful for them, if not for you.

To have someone in your family be so unjustly snatched away, in such a season as summertime...it's almost cruel.

But the times you need it most are when the comfort comes. It's always bittersweet.

My aunt has gotten texts, sent from my cousin's number, long after she passed. They said things like "love you mom" and "hey, I'm okay, love you."

I don't know how that could have happened. I know that it's possible the messages were floating around in the air, on the system, accidentally resent.

But why?

I know that was logically no beach breeze that day at the cemetery. There's no ocean nearby, just a collection of stagnant ponds, man-made lakes, and squelching marshland.

Why would an ocean wind visit us so far away, at the funeral of someone who loved the beach, who spent her last days of life there?

If life is a collection of rooms with doors and windows, there are many I keep locked, that I have no desire on earth to open again. As for this room, I don't even like to look through the window. For anyone who may have thought I was making too big a deal about losing a dog, well, now you know why.

There are other rooms, though. Ones with improptu performances of Christmas songs and "this little stool is mine" in front of Granny's fireplace. Ones where leaves, torn from a pear tree, are stashed in the tree's fork, our money that we discover has been "stolen" later, and two indignant seven year olds talking smack about the unseen thief of our wealth. Being nine years old and dancing to MoTown at Mel's Diner at Universal Studios, and a little spit on the E.T. ride, and getting wet on purpose under that gutter at the Magic Kingdom, and then begging for ponchos after.

When I look through these windows, I am able to feel the sting of death ease a little, and I know, even though I can't see it yet, that the grave has no real victory, and I hear the cry of its end.

God hasn't wiped the tears from our eyes yet. That will come later, in some time after time. For right now, there is a little door in the darkness, holding in a bad memory, placing a landmark we never expected and never wanted.

But darkness flees from light, and the delight of two fourth-graders who are decorating the front porch with badly faded Christmas lights shines so brightly that the dark must flee before it because the laughter is a rebuke to the shadows, a reminder that they must, and will, end.

RIP E.M.M. 

Fun With Felony Arrests

Fried Slice: Fun with Felony Arrests!

Since the election of a new sheriff in 2010, our local newspaper, the Wilson Times, has been listing felony arrests at least once a week. This includes names, pictures, and the offense for which an individual was arrested. It's always pretty interesting to read. Most of the offenses are for stuff like, obtaining property under false pretense, or possession of a substance. And yeah, it's never three or four pictures. There's a real crime problem in my hometown, and I'm grateful for the new sheriff taking care of it. He's doing a great job of cleaning up our little wretched hive of scum and villainy.*

But it's the pictures that always get me.

They're not particularly sad, or tragic. Usually one of two facial expressions appears.

First there's annoyance.

And understandably so. These individuals were hoping not to get caught, and they did. Innocent until proven guilty, of course, but basically, a simple concept.

Then there's the ones who have a mixture of embarrassment and shame.

 

Also understandable. Things might have moved too fast in life, and before they knew it, they're in deep water and they never meant to be. Oops, right? YOu've probably seen faces like that if your local paper does like ours.

But, as with anything, there's always the inexplicable third group. It's a fringe that I personally will never understand in any instance it occurs.

Once in a while, among the sullen faces in the felony arrests section, there's some clown with this face.

I really don't get this one. People with this face are apparently convinced that they are indeed getting their portrait done. There's no hint of sarcasm in their expressions. They're just thrilled to have been arrested. Just happy to be here, they say, 'cause life is gooooooood my friend.

Ah, the idyllic South. Nice, ain't it?






*Yep, went there. Don't judge.

The Shop and the Book

So it's the week before Thanksgiving, and I've heard about a little something called Small Business Saturday. Apparently, it's the day after Black Friday, and I do suppose Etsy shops count. So here's a shameless plug for mine.

The shop recently underwent a name change and a bit of a makeover. So, I present to you a few snapshots from Edna's Discount Space Freight.

This is one of my favorite pairs of earrings that I made. Check out the geek-tastic description underneath.

Another similar pair, but with a bit of a different color scheme.

A knit wire bracelet that I'm working on having some optional charms for, but it's beautiful alone.

This necklace has been in my shop for a while, and I'd like to find someone to enjoy it.

I loved putting these earrings together and watching the way the different pearls play off each other.

And through Sunday, this week only, enter the coupon code SPACEGIVING at checkout to receive 30% off your purchase! And I'd be flattered if you'd follow me on Twitter and like the shop's Facebook page.

Also, I'd like to announce the title of my novel. I don't have a definite release date yet, but I will very soon. It's called Trenavell, and while it is technically a YA novel, I think it will appeal to people outside the range. I hope, anyway. I've joked that it's a mix of Red Dawn and Twilight (without communism and vampires), with a dash of colonial America thrown into a nightmare version of Narnia. So if you liked The Hunger Games, this book may be for you. Keep a lookout, 'cause I plan to have it available on Kindle, in paperback, and in hardcover.

So This Whole Hurricane Thing...

All last week, I watched as the news networks and the Weather Channel all about had a collective fit because a hurricane was "headed straight towards New York." They warned the people of the Northeastern United States and feared the absolute worst for poor little old NYC.

Forget the fact that Hurricane Irene was gonna smack directly into a small, nearly unimportant area known as Eastern North Carolina.

And smack it did. I think the New Bern area took the worst of it, but Atlantic Beach, Nags Head, Wrightsville Beach, and a few other places definitely felt Irene.

And still, the entire day on Saturday, they still kept talking about New York. Even as the storm weakened and lost its status as an actual hurricane.

Even though North Carolina absorbed the brunt of it.

But you know, all this took be back a couple of years. Y'all know I went to Bob Jones University if you've read a couple of other posts. Inevitably, at some point during four-and-a-half years of college, it will snow/ice/freeze. Greenville is a close neighbor to Western North Carolina. Asheville North Carolina is an hour up the road. Greenville, however, is not in the mountains. It doesn't snow a whole lot, unless the winter is particularly freakish.

Big shock to y'all up in the Far Reaches, but we don't have a lot of snowplows down here. My town has maybe one or two. They're just not needed very much.Because ice is a smooth surface that greatly reduces friction and is a dangerous (sometimes deadly) surface to drive on, roads aren't exactly navigable. When it ices or snows, school closes for like a day, the town quiets, and people relax. (This rule generally applies throughout the entire Southern region.) Citizens play in the snow, or stay inside and read. They enjoy life. In a few hours, the ice/snow melts and life goes back to normal.

So all that time at college, I heard a lot of something that might have been good-natured ribbing, but sounded a lot like sour-faced griping. "Nobody knows how to drive down here." "I can't believe no one can drive on ice here." "We keep going to school in the snow, I can't believe it here." That's right folks, people actually complained about cancelled classes. (I can only imagine what their parents taught them about Santa Claus....) So, pretty much, for all of college (there's a whole lot of people from Michigan, Illinois, Ohio, and Pennsylvania that wind up at Bob Jones University, just saying...)* statements that should be considered merely factual observations often degrade into personal insults. Insinuations that only Neanderthals and similar primitive people not yet exposed to modern technology are unable to somehow overcome the laws of physics and drive with magical friction force-fields upon their tires abound. "Well, where I live, we know how to drive on ice." Good for you, buddy. Dream big.

See, this all came back to me when I observed that the Northeast was being all but coddled because *sniff* a hurricane's coming. I believe the words "disastrous" and "catastrophic" were thrown around some. Now, as I know hurricanes, catastrophic as a description doesn't usually apply unless you aren't prepared.

So let's put this into a fair perspective. If it never ices/snows in an area, there is little chance that one could learn to drive in those conditions. Southern winters are fairly mild, and unless it's a really cold year, we average about 40 degrees Fahrenheit. Occasionally it will get down into the 20s.** I can remember one year when it was 9 degrees F the week before Christmas. Even with temperatures that drop below 32 F, you have to have perfect conditions and an already cold ground in order to keep the white stuff sticking around. We're not prepared because we really never have to be, and one snow day for schools won't kill our economy.

I'm not a geography expert, but I do have a good idea of what the East Coast looks like. The most obvious feature?


Hang on, 'cause I'ma blow y'alls minds...


It's coastal.


Yeah, all those panicky areas stick out in the ocean. Yeah, I'm talking to you, Maryland, Jersey, New York, Boston, and Bangor. Hurricanes should not be a surprise. Yeah, they're rare, but y'all have a heck of a higher chance of getting a hurricane than we do a whole winter's worth of snow.



I think yeah, y'all deserve a little bit of ridicule. Good times.





*And I cannot begin to describe to you how much I don't really care about the Ohio vs. Michigan thing. I pull for the University of North Carolina. Your mention of the rivalry is likely to earn you a blank face.

**Yep, and that was the time the theater's heater was broken. It was like 20 degrees F outside with a very lovely wind that just made it so fun and bone-chilling. I wore a coat for the whole movie (New Moon, by the way) and huddled together with my boyfriend for warmth. I was also wearing knee socks under my jeans. It was disappointing mostly because I had on a really cute outfit that my otherwise wonderful pea coat hid.

Cultural Studies: The Beverage Debate (or stuff yall were wrong about...)*

So here's some insight into me. I went to college at Bob Jones University. Despite being located in Greenville, South Carolina, it is a) far from being a Southern college, b) a fascinating cultural study, and c) a help in affirming that I seriously love Eastern North Carolina.

So this topic came up a lot in college, and it comes up a lot elsewhere. I recently watched an episode of How the States Got Their Shapes, and I happened to watch an episode that focused on accents and regional vocabulary. We're all different. No surprise there, as the United States was settled by a very wide range of cultures. Obviously, we're all going to have a different name for carbonated beverages. However, they missed an important detail.

I'll back up. Starting in my teenage years, I first heard of the Great Debate, i.e. soda vs. pop. My youth pastor (who was from Indiana, went to college in Wisconsin, and had an accent straight out of Fargo), insisted that Coca-cola, Pepsi, Mountain Dew, and the like were to be called "pop." For the purposes of fun debate, I (and probably others) insisted that the correct name was "soda," and I proceeded to call it this for quite some time. Naturally, when I got to college, I encountered this friendly conflict among peers. Then a third contender entered the ring. Apparently, across much of the southern United States, all carbonated beverages are referred to as "Coke." Apparently a conversation will go as follows:

"What do you want to drink?"
"I want a Coke."
"Okay, what kinda Coke do you want?"

Or something like that.

Now, an explanation, as I found from the earlier mentioned show, could be that Coca-cola was birthed in Atlanta. Fair enough, but this is just too complex, at least to me. However, it continued to be spread around as a "Southern thing" all the time, and I'm sure that it is true for many people.

I'll throw in some accuracy for you, just to set all of yall straight.

The correct term is "drink."

If you are my cousin's two-and-a-half year old son, it is "dink."

I believe that this term originated with the term "soft drink." Naturally, it was shortened. For my entire life, until high school, I referred to carbonated beverages as merely drink. I have returned home to my original dialect. Life is good.

So, naw, I'm not gonna have any drink, I already brushed my teeth tonight. But cheers everybody.



*This post is meant in humor. If you take it personally, then I am truly sorry for you.

Drapes and Other Trials of Patience

So it's officially summer here in the South. Officially. Most days it's been in the 90s anyway, so we're all practiced for summer. Or warmed up, I should say.* To keep the costs of utilities down, I had to put up drapes in my room, because my corner of the house takes the brunt of the sun every day, mostly in the morning between 9 and 11. (You can actually feel the temperature rise. It's a little scary.) We bought them one at a time, just to see if they work before committing. I had help with the first window the evening we bought it. It worked well, so we got another one, and it stayed on the floor until today, when I decided to put it up.

So apparently, the window frame is made of steel-infused oak. I really think it's just a special kind of tree that the builders grow using secret knowledge. After eventually getting the brackets mounted, I put up the drape, and my room is cooler and a little darker. I really think that marriage counseling should include the couple trying to put up a pair of drapes in an un-air-conditioned room, just to see how fun it gets (and mind you, I put this one up myself.)

Moving on to the books. I'm making huge progress through the first book, but sometimes key characters just don't know when to be quiet. Okay, really, it's just me. I think I'm feeling like I need to explain stuff or provide this huge convoluted catalyst for certain actions. Eventually I get frustrated, make it simple, and then have the information dump marked for movement to another place, occurring later in the narrative, where it fits better.

I try my own patience sometimes. But working through it is really the only remedy. Are you having the same problem? Keep writing, and a better option will present itself, I promise.

So starting tomorrow, I'll be posting some snatches from the original copy of what I'm working on. It's delightfully atrocious. Stay tuned!

*I'm terrible, I know, but I really couldn't resist.

The Viewpoint

When I took the picture of this tucked away little piece of Americana pie, I think my brain exploded with the sheer potential. Seriously, I can only think of one other thing to do with this image, and that's classified information.

But here's a little exercise for you. Make a short story or a scene about the Viewpoint restaurant. Even if it has nothing whatsoever to do with your book, write a short piece with a few people.

In reality, the Viewpoint is located up near Fontana Lake and Fontana Dam in Western North Carolina. It's old. It's a little forgotten. Sometime recently, it was still open, because the colors are still incredibly bright. But at some point, a small piece of the world changed and travelers began to turn the other cheek as they passed, hurrying on up the road to a landmark or an attraction or something else much more important, somewhere generic enough to make it on Facebook. The real, raw, forgotten beauty in the world takes its time, always waiting for you to come back to it, infinitely patient until wind and rain and time gently pulls it back into the earth, leaving only an imprint behind to make you wonder what could possibly make you feel so at home when you've never been there before.

When you write a novel, one of the best things to do is latch on to that feeling, however you can. Novels are our own little universes. When you feel at home with your novel, that's when you're on to something. It won't be perfect in the first go, but that's okay. It's still coming from you, and no one else. Without that, it's really completely nothing.

Monsters

The kraken is said to come forth from the sea and destroy those unfortunate ships that happen to be in its path, devouring lives as it goes, a monster. It can disappear quick as it came, only to rise again, leaving devastation before it slips beneath the seas to await another opportunity.

The past 24 hours have been horrific for the Southern United States. The number of deaths is over 200 and rising. There was little warning.

I live in Eastern North Carolina, and we have been unaffected so far by the storms that struck Alabama, Georgia, and several other states. I have been watching the news, though, and an image I saw this morning struck me more than anything.

A huge tornado moved along the ground somewhere in Alabama, classified as an EF-5, the strongest tornadoes, whose winds can reach over 200 miles per hour, some close to 300. This huge beast that raged through Alabama was moving fast along the ground, and every so often there would be thin offshoots from the main body, like tentacles.

A tornado is a kraken of the skies. A tornado is the only storm that can be considered an entity rather than a weather phenomenon. It is a beast that does not grow, or sprout, or appear, but spawns, the only word to describe an animal made of wind and pressure.

On April 16, a series of tornado cells raged through North Carolina. You may have seen the articles and pictures. Homes leveled, a Lowes Store destroyed, 22 deaths in the state alone. A storm took out a dry cleaners and messed up a Walgreen's near me, blew apart some houses down the road from the Walgreen's. I wasn't in my town that day. My family was working at a pet show and visiting friends in New Bern, North Carolina, and were heading back, late afternoon, we dueled a monster head-on.

It had been windy all day, and was looking pretty bad when we left New Bern, but not bad enough there to worry too much. As we drove further west, reports came on the radio of tornadoes striking throughout the state. Dad was on his Ham radio trying to get some information from other operators and trying to get out some information about the storm. The skies grew darker and the wind was picking up. In the distance, a dark blue cloud was moving and changing and pushing down a white funnel. The sky changed over us, not black, but the sick color of mucus, and hail began to pelt the car like bullets. There were no shelters to stop in, and my dad was about to pull over so we could climb into a ditch that was already filled with water. The wind and the hail picked up steadily. Barely, I saw cars pulled over, flashers on, waiting out the storm. My dad chose to keep driving. The van was having problems staying on the road as the wind picked it up and the acceleration of the tires barely kept it on the road.

And then everything turned white, and the roaring began.

And we prayed.

And there was the city of Goldsboro. The sky had cleared. Praise be to God, we made it through. Dad pulled off into the parking lot of an Outback Steakhouse, we emerged from our cocoon, shaking, but exhilarated. Marble-sized hail littered the ground and cooled the air.

That night's dinner was the best meal ever.

Having survived an encounter with a beast of the skies and, I know how blessed I am to even be alive, much less unscathed. You do not forget what it is like to survive a tornado. My heart hurts for the over 200 people who went to bed never expecting that they wouldn't see the sun the next morning.

God be with us as we remember this day.

A Heads Up For This Summer

Southern Fried Fantasy is going on the road!

Sort of.

No, I mean, eventually we are, to Central Florida later in the season. But in the meantime, I thought y'all would like to see some pictures of the places that leave me with a profound sense of inspiration. Seriously, I can't even look at an old house without going "this is an opportunity for...dundundun...a story."

I think I'll start with a bridge.

No really.




Isn't it amazing?

This bad boy is located in Brunswick County, VA, near where my Gramma's home in Lawrenceville, VA (which Forks Washington cannot hold a candle to in terms of smallness and middle-of-nowhere-ness.) I am seriously in love with this bridge, and I plan to use the image for a future project not related to writing at all. This bridge is amazing in any light, but you can see that the day this picture was taken, the weather was cloudy.

What's the point?

I'm not sure, but it is a gorgeous picture, thanks to Kodak and my ability to take pics under pressure while dodging other cars on a two-lane road. I owe more to the location, however, and my upbringing.

I think my life would be a tad boring if I lived in New York City or any major area. I live in a suburban/rural (yes, it can be both) area, and there is a high degree of sheer quirk every day. A lot of my job takes me into the areas outside my town and into the county. Abandoned stores and derelict (don't you love that word?) tobacco barns dot the land. My great grandmother is buried in a tiny, and I mean TINY, family cemetery out in the literal middle of nowhere, near the birthplace of William Pender (who I may or may not be related to). These types of cemeteries are everywhere, including in front of an office building in town and in the parking lot of our outdated and mostly empty shopping mall. Cemeteries, barns, bridges, and abandoned houses date back to a time when the land was not quite tame and shoes were still optional.

You want it newer?

A duct-tape basketball goal near the rough part of town, a building labeled with ancient Egyptian names and acting as a home for abandoned cars, an old vehicle leaving a doughnut in the gravel parking lot of a trailer home...oh yeah. The Kenly skating rink, a popular birthday venue when I was younger, which had cigarette burns clear through the heavy wool inner walls.

Cities are boring. The West is desolate and kinda scares me a little. I'll take the hidden, quiet settledness of the Southeastern United States.

So ask yourself, for fun, what mysteries surround this bridge that I've provided a picture of?

If you want to write for this blog, please feel free to contact me. I'd love to have you as a guest.

Tune in tomorrow for a picture of...The Tramp.

Why Should I?

After all, we've got enough stuff to entertain ourselves.  Homer, Poe, Austen, Twain/Clemens, Tolkien, Lewis, King, Meyer, Rowling, Stoker, Shelley, Stevenson, Paolini, Verne...seriously, let me take a moment and just ask y'all to give a hand to all these entertainers of the page.  Seriously, guys.  You're all great.

All right, back to what I was saying.  Why should I want to even try writing a book when there's a lot out there to read?  I mean, there's tons I could entertain myself with, lots of stories and epics and tales that I have spent hours with.  Really, why bother?  I mean, come on, we've got Harry Potter to entertain us, or Percy Jackson and his buddies (I've actually never read it...).  I ask again, why bother with my stories?  Been there, done that?  Really?

No, not really.

I realized when I was younger, when my stories were first taking shape, that it didn't seem as if my part of the world had its own little epic.  Central Europe, or Scandinavia, or Britain tend to get their fair share of the settings available for the type of fiction.  And yeah, they're beautiful, Britain especially.  But, after 24 years of being here, I'm in love with the East Coast of the United States, the Southern portion especially.  (When I was quite young, my concept of the country consisted of North Carolina, Virginia, Georgia, Florida, and Michigan and Iowa somewhere up in the great beyond of the North.)  Where I live, we don't have bayous; we have marshes that turn into sounds and then become the Atlantic.  There's just something rough and lovely and old about where I live.  Go west, and you'll venture into the Blue Ridge and Great Smokey Mountains, a place that always feels slightly haunted by the spirits of the Cherokee that once wandered there so long ago, some of whom remain to this day, living in one of the most beautiful places on earth.

North Carolina is a different sort of place to live, and I've always known this.  That same beautiful rawness that I've seen my whole life is the thing that inspires me, literally.  At one time, I was going to set my books in West Virginia, but I've only been there once, for my senior trip.  (Snowshoe Mountain is a gorgeous place to ski, by the way.)  What a mistake that would have been.  West Virginia is a beautiful place, and I know some cool people from there, but there's nothing in the world quite like hearing someone speak and knowing within the first three words they say that they probably have the same area code as you do.

Okay, so back to why bother.  I bother because I think it's only fair that we get our own chance, we here on the East coast.  I think it's because we have marshes.  You know those old marsh lights?  I think some have called them will 'o the wisp...those little lights that lead people deep into the marsh...those are stories my friend, just waiting to happen.  I'll follow one, all right.  Oh, but I promise...good stories always lead you back out to where you wanted to go in the first place.

But they rarely leave you the same.