Halloween Story

To get you in the mood for Halloween, here's my entry from the short story contest last year. I hope you'll enjoy it ... and have a spooky Halloween!

Fall

The ice cream truck’s days were numbered.

All summer long, Alice had gritted her teeth and turned up her iPod so she could try to ignore the siren song of “Pop! Goes the Weasel.”

She’d drawn the shades and kept her eyes focused on the monitor to erase dancing visions of the Choco Taco, the chocolate chip cookie sandwich, the Nestlé Crunch bar, the Drumstick.

She’d nibbled on dry-roasted peanuts and dried fruit, reminding herself of the many advantages of working at home.

But now winter was peering at her over the horizon, its icy claws and cold breath only weeks away, while autumn lay faint upon the landscape, wrapping colored leaves around it to stay warm.

Maybe because she saw it as her last chance, Alice let her gaze stray from the spreadsheet and wander as if by chance to the front door. She peeked at the little tin of peanuts on the corner of the desk, imagining them covered in melted chocolate, and then at her billfold, remembering the lonely five-dollar bill inside.

She could hear the truck inching along the street, its peppy song faltering at her hesitation.

“Oh!” She dug through the billfold to claim her prize and ran out onto the lawn. The white truck was already two houses down so she cried out, waving the bill over her head.

The truck’s red brake lights glared at her.

Alice hustled along the side of the truck, panting, and stopped to consider her choices. As she did, two small figures darted from the truck and ran in irregular spirals on the lawn behind her, chittering and jabbering.

Happy customers? The vendor’s children, glad to be temporarily free?

Alice focused on the list of enticements.

A voice spoke from behind her: “That’s the wrong truck.”

The two spiraling figures halted. Alice thought she saw one turn its head for an instant, revealing what looked like a gaping skull, but it quickly averted its face. She realized it must be wearing some type of mask, although it was still early for Halloween.

Alice pivoted to see a small, blond-haired girl on the lawn behind her, standing with arms crossed and lower lip jutting out. The girl wore a blue dress with the faces of Anna and Elsa on the front and looked to be about six. When Alice checked, she could see the girl’s mother sitting on the porch steps, absorbed in her phone. A teddy bear lay forgotten on a blanket near the porch as the girl approached Alice.

Alice knelt down so she was almost at eye level. “Would you like to go ahead of me, sweetie?”

“No, it’s the wrong truck,” the girl insisted. “Run away!”

Alice blinked away the enchanting images of ice cream treats to see both childlike figures turn grinning skull-faces toward her and extend clawed hands in her direction. When she looked over her shoulder, she saw a plume of black smoke rising over the top of the truck like a wave. Dark shadows moved inside. The girl hadn’t been fooled, and now Alice wasn’t either.

Alice clutched at the bill in her hand and closed her eyes against the horrific visions. She wanted to live! She wanted a better job, friends, someone who cared what happened to her. Ice cream wasn’t the answer.

All Alice had to do was scoop up the little girl and run …

Then Alice heard the girl scream and opened her eyes.

Not two feet away, the girl’s mother was leaning forward, extending a hand with two crumpled bills in it toward the gaping maw on the side of the truck.

“No, Mommy!” the girl cried. “Stop!”

“Mommy will be with you in a minute,” the woman said in a faraway voice.

Something dark inside the truck was reaching forward.

It was as plain as the spreadsheet in Alice’s empty house: the little girl had left the safety of her blanket to warn Alice and now she was about to lose her mother because of it.

Alice took one last look at the little girl’s tear-streaked face before jumping up to knock the woman aside.

“No,” Alice said in her loudest voice as she held out her hand, “I was here first.”

She felt something cold and scaly close on her wrist. The five-dollar bill slid from her grasp, to be replaced with something even colder and squishy. Alice didn’t look at it as she took a large bite.

It was the most delicious treat she’d ever tasted. Chocolate and vanilla, with a hint of peanuts, all swirled together into near perfection. Alice smiled.

The wind sucked in its breath. The purple sky spat lightning and coughed thunder. Smoke enveloped the truck, Alice, the shrieking goblins. With an orange flash and a popping sound, all of them vanished.

Mother and daughter were left clutching at each other, kneeling on the lawn with their heads pressed together. After a few moments, they looked up.

“She was a nice lady,” the girl said.

The mother shook her head. “Who? I don’t remember.”

“That’s okay, Mommy.” The little girl smiled at the vacant spot near the curb, where the last wisps of smoke were dissipating. “I do.”

©Diane McCallum 2016

Out of the Habit

Some habits are bad (like that mid-afternoon snack of Pringles chips I just had). Some habits are good (such as using a seatbelt or brushing one's teeth). It seems to be easy to fall into a habit if you don't want it, and hard if you do want it. (For example, regular exercise is difficult for me, although I've been working on that lately with more walking.)

I've had habits come and go throughout my life. Some of them are pretty weird: when I take a carrot stick from the refrigerator, I always tap it twice against the rim of the container and then shake it once over the sink to get the excess water off. At bedtime, I start by lying on my left side and then turn over onto my right side when I'm ready to sleep. I'm sure there are others I'm not even aware of.

Could I break these habits if I wanted to? Yes, if I put my mind to it ... but there seem to be more important things to worry about than these little quirks.

However, I find I've lost one habit that I had for a long time: writing. I think I need to clarify that: writing fiction. For years, it seemed the most natural thing in the world for me to be working on two or three novels at the same time. Short stories also swirled through my brain. I was always scribbling down ideas or daydreaming to bring the ideas into better focus.

Then I got my first novel published. Suddenly I had to concentrate on the details of the novel (fonts, front pages, title, back cover text, etc.). Then I had to worry about book signings, copyright protection, marketing and social media. So I worked feverishly on all of those things.

Somewhere along the way, I stopped writing. I've done plenty of rewriting (enough for a while!), but the ideas have dried up. I'm pretty sure it's just because I got out of the habit. Unfortunately, this isn't a habit that comes easily, at least not this time. I've been trying, but there aren't any ideas in my head yet. It's going to take some practice. I'll have to get into the habit of putting myself in front of a keyboard and forcing myself to find words to put on the page. (I think that short story I wrote last Halloween was a good beginning.)

I know it will come back sooner or later. There are hints of images or considerations in my head. I just need to tease them out and turn them into something resembling a story. I'll probably write some pretty terrible stuff before I get something good.

Don't get me wrong: I'm very glad I published my novels. It's been an exciting ride, and I'm not done yet. It's just that I'm ready to get back to creating more of them!

Update on The Other Side: the artist is working to make the cover image a little lighter. I expect to hear from her in the next few days. After that, I'll submit the new version and order a new proof copy. (I'm getting into the habit of patience, not entirely by choice. Ha!) Stay tuned, and thanks for your patience.

Contest Result

I hope you had a fun and entertaining Halloween! How it got to be the end of October is beyond me, and I feel a renewed sense of urgency about working on The Other Side. Once the Two Big Holidays get here, things will get crazy and it will be harder than ever to find time, so I'll try to get as much done as possible before then.

Since I spent two whole blog posts on the short story I was writing, I didn't think it would be fair if I didn't let you know how I did in the contest. Out of five entries, I came in second. I think that's respectable, don't you? (I was actually quite pleased.)

I want to thank Spellbound Bookstore & Cafe for holding the contest. Some of the entries were quite chilling! If you're in the Pittsburg area, you can stop by the store and check them out. Mine is called "Fall."

I have a friend who's going to partake in NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) next month. If you've never heard of that, it's a group that encourages writers to write 50,000 words of a novel during the month of November. You can find out more here: NaNoWriMo

I did NaNoWriMo in 2006 and it was incredible to me how many words I had to write each and every day. That's not easy, especially for someone like me, who often writes in short bursts. It was a struggle and the result will probably never see daylight, but it was good for me and I did it!

All of this reminds me that I need to keep pushing myself and my writing. I don't want to fall into a rut and I don't ever want to find that I've stopped writing altogether, no matter how hectic and crazy my life gets.

Thanks again for following my blog. Please help me spread the word about my Penumbra series of novels.

Keep It Short Part 2

Believe it or not, I finished my short story and submitted it to the Spellbound bookstore contest today, one day short of the deadline. Whew! My husband was a big help, with a lot of good suggestions, as I rewrote it several times. I think it's pretty good now and we'll see what happens.

Now I have a much better idea about what makes a short story different than a novel. I touched on this last week, but here it is in a little more detail:

1. Character development happens a lot more quickly. It seems you've barely identified the character before you have to demonstrate how that character evolves. I'm used to letting a character evolve over chapters, not paragraphs.

2. You have to get to the point quickly ... and you can only have one or it's going to get messy. This is very hard for me because I usually have a bunch of points I want to make and I'm not that fast at getting to any of them. I had to listen closely to my character to find out what she wanted to tell me about her wishes and decisions for this story.

3. Almost everything in a short story has to be there for a reason. In a novel, I can have some scenes that might set the tone or give you a little more insight into a character but aren't strictly necessary to the story. In the short story, I couldn't do that. I had to cut out all kinds of descriptions and sidetracks. Now almost every word has a reason: a "lonely" item reflects its owner, a spreadsheet showing the character's job at the beginning is used to show what choice she must make later, etc. This was more of an issue in this story because I was limited to less than 1,000 words, but I think it's true in most short stories.

4. My favorite aspect of a short story, though, is that you can pay close attention to every sentence because there are fewer sentences to work with. I went a little crazy with metaphors, but I really enjoyed getting to use more of them and stretch myself a little. I included more details in some scenes than I might have done if I was in the middle of a long chapter. Whether it made the story better or not might be up for debate, but usually more detail means a stronger story.

This does not mean I'm going to stop writing novels! I might try this again, but I think I'm too hooked on novels to give them up in the near future. I leave it up to you if that's good news or not!

Thanks again for reading my blog. Please spread the word about my Penumbra series!

Keep It Short

As if I didn't have enough distractions to keep me from working on The Other Side, I'm now in the process of trying to write a short story.

This all started when the local bookstore, Spellbound Bookstore and Cafe, posted on Facebook that they're having a costume contest and a short-story contest this month. I know I would fail miserably if I tried to come up with a good costume (although one year I did go as a Ghost Writer), especially one based on a fictional character, but writing is sort of up my alley.

One problem is that the story is supposed to be scary. To quote their Facebook posting: "In 1,000 words or less, writers are challenged to weave a tale of fright and intrigue that will leave our customers with the shivers." A tale of fright and intrigue is not exactly up my alley. I find that I tend to go for the upbeat, not the horrifying. (Is that a bad thing? Not necessarily!)

The main drawback is the maximum word count of 1,000. I don't write short stories, usually, because ... well, because I'm wordy. You should know that if you've read any of my novels. I do know how to go on, but not necessarily how to get to the point (or how to limit myself to only one point).

And I guess that's one reason I'm doing it. I need to rein myself in, learn to get to the point a little sooner. I need to see what's really important in the story, instead of throwing a lot of words on the page and hoping something good comes out of them.

Also, it's a chance to do some "real" writing. What I mean by that is writing, not editing or rewriting or trying to come up with a blurb. Creative, fun, "all-new" writing, which I haven't done much of for a while.

It's a lot of fun. It's frustrating as can be. I hope it's good for me.

If nothing else, it's good practice. We'll see if I can come up with anything good.

As always, thanks for reading my blog.