Writer Girl Goes For It.

Tomorrow at this time I will (should) be sitting in a hotel in St. George, Utah. Dave Farland's Writer's Death Camp starts Monday morning. I'm going. What was I thinking? I'm not ready for this kind of commitment! I'm not even sure I want to be a writer when I grow up. Of course growing up isn't exactly on my “to do” list.

Frankly I'm ready to start really freaking out. It probably won't happen until I get to Cedar City tomorrow afternoon, at which point I will consider turning around and coming home. Or staying in Cedar City. Or hiding in the Cheese Factory Outlet in Beaver.

I haven't even really packed. It is so unlike me to feel and be so unprepared. What will Mr. Farland think of me? Buxom blond (not my description) from Bountiful who is ill prepared and a little loopy? Yikes, I'm scared of myself.

P.S. We watched Men in Black tonight. It's on VHS. We had to rewind a tape. Ah the nostalgia . . .

A Write on the Dark Side

The other day I finished a packet of material that I received from Dave Farland. I'm going to his Writer's Death Camp next week, and he suggested some reading before we got there. The information I was reading included his 10 steps to outlining a novel. I think it had a much better title than that, but that is the gist.

One of the steps is to take each character through their conflicts within the novel.

I'm still trying to get my head around my YA novel. Like I mentioned, I finished round one a few months ago, but the story was all action and no emotion. Well, the story is an emotional story (or should be) so I decided I needed to go back and revise it.

I realize that writing is all about revising. My brain understands, but my OCD wants to know why I have to do anything more than once. It's a bitter feud that will most likely only be solved after I'm dead. Or rich . . . no, dead.

Distracted again. Sorry about that. Anyway, this article mentioned that you should do the conflict exercise with your antagonist, not just your protagonist. I'd read the same thing before, but never thought to actually try it.

People who know what they're talking about are hard to come by—Mr. Farland must be one of those people, because this exercise, simple as it was, really helped. Not only with the villain and the plot, but with things that the protagonist has to do in order to combat what the villain is trying to accomplish.

The whole thing sounds very simplistic (and I'll be the first to admit that it's the simple things that get me every time) but it was very revealing. Hopefully that put me one step closer to being able to learn awesome things at Death Camp next week.

Oh, and my Star Wars--Visas Marr costume just got accepted to the 501st Legion Alpine Garrison. I guess I'm one of the bad guys. Who'd have thought it?

And my mummy pumpkin (K's idea) won 3rd place at my work Pumpkin Carving Contest. Yay! Go Immie.

I Love Halloween

I am happy to report that the pumpkin made it up the stairs. Not only did he make it up the stairs, but he got gutted by Kathryn (who takes remarkable delight in scooping out the insides of innocent pumpkins) then first carved then wrapped by me.

I call him Immie—short for Imhotep

We have an open house at work on Tuesday and they want pumpkins there for décor. So now I did my part. The tricky bit might be getting the pumpkin back down the stairs tomorrow morning in the snow.

There Goes the Good Knee

Ouch. That's really all I have to say. Well, that's not entirely true. I have a few other choice words to say, but I'll spare the blog readers. I don't usually indulge in “colorful metaphors” . . . at least not where anyone can hear me.

I wasn't planning to go to Kempo class today. I was supposed to go to Lagoon with some good friends. Well, the rain this morning squashed that idea like a bug on a windshield. The car has to be moving, of course, for the whole bug thing to work. Drat, distracted. Where was I? Oh yes, Kempo class.

Saturdays are usually sparring class. I don't love sparring, but sometimes it's way fun, and goodness knows I need the practice. So when the Lagoon plans fell through (drated weather) I decided I would go to class. Get some practice, maybe get a workout, maybe even have some fun.

Because I'm hurt, I will now whine. Starting out with serious lunges (with no warm up before that) was not nice. By the end of those my legs were burning (which is okay) and my knees were mad. Not furious, just mad.

The rest of class went okay. We finally got to sparring and I was almost the last person to get to spar. We were doing point sparring, which means whoever gets their opponent first, within the point parameters, gets a point, the match stops and then starts again for the next point.

My opponent, who has a good foot on me, but I'm old enough to be his mother, and I exchanged a few kicks which were blocked. Then we got serious . . . at exactly the same time. He brought his knee up to kick and so did I. He was quicker and got his foot out before I did.

That's when I brilliantly blocked his kick with my patella.

Not one of my better moments. It wasn't a plan, it just happened.

I felt my kneecap get jammed into all of the tissue that sits behind it and grind in there. We both jumped back. Apparently my knee cap is pretty hard, which makes me feel a tiny bit better. I turned around, jumping up and down, saying “ouch” out loud. In my mind I was saying some much nastier things.

Sensei was laughing and going on about a shin-shot (those really suck), but I managed to stammer that it was my knee and that I was done.

I don't think I've ever not finished a sparring match before. I've had to take a minute to recover from a few kicks and my contacts getting stuck on a glove or two, but I've never stepped out. It sucked.

What's even more fun? A swollen knee that is not happy about anything and 15 steps going up to my apartment. There goes Ninja's week.

Anyone want to bring the pumpkin I have in my car up the stairs for me so I can carve it tomorrow?

Triumph and Drudgery

Mosquito. Need I say more? They're everywhere, along with those tiny, white, flying bugs that seem to have invaded the area. Anyway, bug are all over the place, and mosquitoes are the worst. Worse? Worst. Shinny.

I've tried to kill a few in the dojo over the past week or so, but I usually miss. Tonight, as I was closing the door to my room so I could curl up in bed and write random things to people, I saw it. A fuzzy, flying spot hovering next to my bathrobe.

My game hasn't been on all week. Heck, let's just go with all month. But tonight, out of the blue, I reach up and kill the mosquito with one hand . . . without even really trying.

Death of mosquito in my house—good. The fact that I had just washed my face, hands and brushed my teeth—bitter irony. Wait, is there any other kind of irony? Needless to say, I had to wash my hands again.

Too Early

This morning I did a good deed. At least I think it was a good deed. I left my apartment about 6:20am and went out to my car. As I was walking towards my car I clicked the doors open with my keyless entry (one of the best inventions ever, by the way). The SUV parked next to me looked strange, but I thought it was just my lights blinking. Nope, it didn't go away. As I got closer I noticed that the back seat light in the SUV was on.

What to do? I knew who the SUV belonged to—the neighbors just across from us. A simple glance, to see if there was a light on, told me that someone in their apartment was probably awake. At first I got in my car. I turned it on, got situated and waited. All the time wondering if I should go tell them.

First off, it's early. Really early. I have no idea if they're awake, but a light in the front room tells me that someone is probably awake. Second I hardly know them. I wave hello and all that, and at one point I knew their names, but now I've got nothing.

I put the car in reverse, pulled out of my stall, put the car in drive, pulled back into the stall and turned my car off. Realizing that I would very much appreciate someone telling me that my light was on (thus avoiding a dead battery at most likely a very inconvenient time later) I went up the stairs to their apartment and knocked softly.

The husband was awake. I informed him that his light was on, smiled and basically bolted.

A good deed, no? Yes? If the day started out so nice, why was the rest of it so rotten?

The Curse of a Mother's Kiss

I wrote this a few years ago. It's kinda cute.

Tonight was the last night of monster camp. Everyone, and everything, was assembled in the large, outside amphitheater. Benches sat along the grass terraces, and every seat was taken. The swamp and water monsters were down in the front, swimming lazily in the pond. A few of the giant ants were staging a mock battle with two of the evil robots, while the mummies were trying to wrap a blob up in their bandages.

Billy sat with the other crawling eyes. They were situated at the end of the handicapped ramp, next to the ghosts and under the vampires.

Creatures, monsters and ghouls were talking excitedly, passing around their addresses, global positioning coordinates or magical summoning chants.

“Hi Billy,” Sherie said slowly, she did everything slowly,“can I sit next to you?”

Billy waved his eyestalk in a yes pattern. He could have invaded Sherie's mind, but she didn't like that much.

“Are you excited to go home?” she asked.

Billy's eyestalk shrugged. His friends thought he was stupid to hang out with a golem, but to Billy, Sherie was the most beautiful creature he had ever seen. A red fire smoldered behind her eye sockets and when she smiled, cracking her mud face, she looked like an erupting volcano. Her voice was like two stones scraping together and she smelled of rotting earth. Not to mention she could crush boulders with her clay hands. Billy liked that.

“Me neither,” she sighed. “You will write to me, won't you?”

Before he could sign yes the camp director, Mister Ducky, came out onto the stage. This evening he was a cute, fluffy kitten. All of the monsters hissed and booed until Mister Ducky shape shifted into a wolf man. Cheers broke out and he bowed.

“Well campers,” he said in a rough voice, “tonight is your last night here! We are about to send you back out into the world. Not as the little, sniveling children you were when you arrived.” He pointed at the Blob. “No, you go as Monsters!”

Everyone cheered. Billy rang a skull shaped bell with his eye stalk.

“But before you go, there is one last thing you should know.” The wolf man shifted into a giant brain. “One last story I must tell you.”

A nervous silence settled over the camp. A few creatures shifted in their seats and Billy felt Sherie scoot closer to him.

“For you must warned!” Mister Ducky shouted. “You must be told about...the curse of the were-baby!”

A handful of the evil robots screamed and the vampires hissed, showing their fangs.

“It is a true story,” Mister Ducky said. “And if you do not heed my warning then you too could end up with a fate worse than life.”

Reshaping into a Frankenstein, Mister Ducky went on, “Not too long ago there was a young shape shifter named Blech. Blech had a couple of friends, a vampire and a giant scorpion. They were always daring each other to do things and were constantly getting into trouble.

“One night the giant scorpion dared Blech to turn himself into a human baby and go into one of the human's houses.” A few monsters gasped. “Blech said he would, but only if the vampire went in and took the baby first...before sundown.”

A murmur of appreciation rippled through the campers. Everyone knew that vampires were not nearly as graceful before sundown. It was a worthy dare.

“All three monsters were proud, so neither of the dared would back down. The vampire,” Mister Ducky pointed to where the vampires were sitting, “did as he had been dared. Just before sunset he crept into the house, past the other humans, and snatched the baby from its bed.”

“Blech had no choice, he had to fulfill his part of the bargain. After one look at the captured baby he ran off towards the house.” Mister Ducky shifted into a kitten again. “Taking the form of a cat he crawled in through the pet door and up into the baby's room. Then he began his dare. To be a human baby for an hour.

“To Blech's horror, he found that the bed, the crib he was to stay in, was filled with toys!” Mister Ducky threw his paws wide. “Rattles, chew toys and stuffed animals surrounded him.” Then he was twice as tall as an evil robot, shaped as a cute, fluffy teddy bear. More monsters screamed and Billy felt Sherie right next to him, trembling.

“Now if that had been the worst thing Blech had encountered, he would have been a happy shape shifter,” Mister Ducky said in a whisper, morphing into a blob, “but it was not. No! It was not.

“Blech’s friends had dared him to stay in the house for just one hour! Who here is brave enough to stay in a human’s house for an hour?”

The question hung in the air, unanswered.

“I thought not,” Mister Ducky oozed from one edge of the stage to the other. “But it was a dare, and Blech couldn’t back down from a dare!”

The crowd nervously murmured agreement. Even Sherie nodded.

“The hour was quiet and time was almost up. Blech thought he was home free, but then he heard the sound of footsteps on the stairs.” One side of the blob turned into stairs. “Louder and louder came the foot falls as someone ascended to the bedroom. When to door opened Blech knew he was in trouble. The sister had come.

“She had come to see if the baby was awake!” Mister Ducky said over the cries of horror. “Blech had made too much noise moving the stuffed animals away from himself, and now he would pay the price for his cowardice.

“Blech tried to get away, tried to climb out of the prison bed, but in the tiny, human body he could not. Shape shifting in front of humans was forbidden. Not to mention,” Mister Ducky’s wolf man face came out of the blob and sneered, “he was too afraid to try.”

“The sister peered at him from over the bars and smiled a wicked smile. She said something, but Blech could not understand her. He tried to dodge her poking fingers and ignored her taunts with the stuffed animals. Blech was backed in to the corner, he had nowhere to run to, when the sister finally reached her long, pale arms into the bed and picked him up.”

Nearly everyone gasped in terror. Sherie put an arm around Billy, who wound his eye stalk around her hand. Both of them were shaking so hard Billy wondered how they were still on the bench.

“And not only did she pick him up, but she hugged him.”

A few sobs sounded and one of the swamp things dove under the water.

“She sang to him, she danced with him and she put different clothes on him! Blech was so terrified that he couldn’t even remember how to shift. He could hardly remember his name.” Different scenes played out of the blob. First a baby, then singing, then a baby in a bonnet.

“And then,” Mister Ducky morphed into an evil robot, “then the most horrifying thing of all happened. Without warning, as if she had simply appeared from thin air, the mother came in!” Mister Ducky’s voice boomed and his robot arms flew wide.

“Blech started to cry. He could not stop himself, it was the human body’s reaction to fear. Loud wails echoed through the house, and Blech was sure his friends would hear and come for him.

“However, Blech never found out if his friends were coming. Before he could get out of the sister’s arms, before he could fight or bite or kick, the mother scooped him up in her arms, and began bouncing him up and down.

“Blech cried harder. He tried to remember how to change, but he was too terrified.” Mister Ducky’s robot head looked around at the campers. “He was helpless, and he knew his fate was sealed when the mother hugged him and then, without hesitation, kissed him on the cheek.”

“No!” half of the monster campers cried, while the others whimpered.

“Yes!” Mister Ducky changed into a human female, “Blech was kissed by a mother!”

The camp director waited for the tumult to die down. Monster campers were cowering, crying, fighting, biting and clawing, but each one of them heard Mister Ducky’s next words.

“Now, every time there is a half moon, Blech is turned into a human baby and placed into a human home for the night. Nothing can stop it, Blech is cursed forever, and he wants company.

“So beware!” Mister Ducky pointed his mother finger at the campers, “beware the dares you take, and beware the friends you make.

“It is said that Blech still wanders, choosing a different form each day, looking for those who will join him in his curse. Some say if he curses enough monsters for the human mothers that his own curse will be lifted.

“Now you have been warned!” Mister Ducky boomed from the human woman’s body, “Beware the curse of a mother’s kiss.” Mister Ducky changed one last time into an androgynous body of light, the shape shifter’s natural state. On its head, where its cheek would be there was a black spot, a black spot in the shape of human lips.

“And beware the shaper with the mark!”