Sunday Scribblings~Flash Fiction

The prompt was: What scares you most?

Ailurophobia

"It's not the end of the world that scares me." Kit announced to her therapy group. "I used to worry about that, you know, some cosmic piece of debris hitting the earth and we all blow up."

Mrs. Tuttle attempted to break in, "Well, I've always..."

A withering glance from Kit silenced her and anyone else who thought to express their fears in their little group.

"Then, I moved on to some huge epidemic...what are those called, pandemics or something? I'd be all shriveled up and choking on my own puke. Can you imagine?" Glancing around the faces in the circle around her, she silently dared them to disagree. Not a one picked up the gauntlet.

"Finally, I knew the one thing that scared me the most was to die at home, and have my cats eat my face. Starting with my eyes, because they are tasty even when your body is ready to explode from gasses. Still soft and yummy. Now, every day, I practice falling forward so they can't reach my face should I die, you know, at home." Looking around again, she sought approval for her ingenious plan to thwart the cats future dining pleasure.

Dr. Mason broke in to make the salient points that a)Kit didn't own any cats and that b)she lived in an asylum because c)she was found next to her husbands body, purring with the remains of his chewed upon eyes in her curled hands.

She got the last word, "See?"... her bit of word play making her laugh to herself as she walked back to her room, to practice her falling once again.

Small Town Living.

I'm going mad here.


Just thought I'd put that out there.

Shameless Self Promotion

I'm nominated for something!

As in, nominated, may win, could win, possibility of winning, although I'm against some excellent competition.

My writing homebase, SixSentences, has put me up for the Best Six of March. You can read all six entries there, and voting is here.

Have a read, enjoy the amazing work, and please, vote for the best one. Then, have a try yourself at a six...

They are addicting.

Flash Fiction~Three Word Wednesday

Word prompts-flirt, ploy, stunning

Knowing What You Want

Miranda's world consisted of her sofa, the fridge and her little laptop, and in a stunning revelation, she discovered that she preferred the films of TCM far more than those shown on AMC. She ignored the marketing ploys that touted the American Movie Channel as the next best thing to film lover's heaven, as she found their commercials took away from her movie watching pleasure. Sure, she'd taken time to flirt with HBO and Showtime, but, her heart always brought her back to Ted Turner's little format of classic film perfection. Between the offerings and Robert Osborne, she could find no reason to change...not her closed existence, her beige emotions nor the programming that was the closest thing to a lover she'd ever known.

New York Bound

New York, New York...

Long ago and far away in a town I lived in for a bit along with 8 million of my closest friends, I worked in the film industry. I started as a script supervisor, moved to continuity and did my last film as an AD (assistant director). Never anything from the studios, all of them were independent films of varying sizes.

One will be released soon, I'll put a link to 'The Apostles of Park Slope' (you can find it on youtube) when it's out and ready. A few were put forth as projects that went no where... and one, my first film, is ready to finish up filming.

I was fortunate that I became friends with the director, KB... she's talented, driven and a sweetheart. When I first talked to her, she'd just sent me her script to be 'timed'... Timing is when the script supervisor takes the script and her trusty stopwatch, and times how long she thinks the film will run. You have to figure out action sequences, dialogue, simple shot of silence and a static camera. I'd also taken on another script I didn't like...but, had agreed to time.

KB called me, all light voice and laughter and asked how long her film timed out to be...and I said, "I have it at 90 minutes."

You could hear crickets.

"90 MINUTES?? For a SHORT??" I've never heard a woman's voice crack before that time. I realised I'd given the wrong time to the wrong director, and quickly backtracked to a rough 22 minutes. Her sigh of relief was audible for six blocks around me.

We shot in Greenpoint in one of the hottest weeks in the early summer of 2007. We were miserable. We shot in stairwells, in the street at night, in an airless room that was pivotal to the plot.

We worried about budgets, feeding the crew and finding the Terrier a comfortable place to stay. She went to every shoot, and never made a sound. She's to be listed as 'Crew Dog' on the credits, proving her worth.

It's a tight little film, well written, well acted... and the crew was tight, all of us giving our time to make this short one that can go to festivals in the fall and winter of this year.

I've been bumped up to Assistant Director, which is swell for me. I like the calling out of my shots, of keeping the call sheet tight, and working with a director who never stops smiling. She is excited about our new shots, how we'll tie it all together. The film in existence is rockin' she said.

So, Quin Browne of Hard Cold Cash Productions (a division of Nepotism, LLC) will be back on the set the 22nd of April and will follow up with the editing and final paper and wrap-up work until the 5th of May. Quiet on the set. Action. Oh, I love those words!!

After that, festival season, where I get part of the swag.

And, I could use a pair of Uggs.

Desert to Snow

Three rental cars to get me to L.A. and back.

Thankfully, they didn't charge me for the full trip, knocking it down to just 2 days of rental fees... it almost paid for the headache from the cigarette smoke in the last one. I left California using my air conditioner, and arrived here to inches of snow.

Sophie is tickled with her new toy--a crinkle tube. I thought it was a great idea when I bought it, and, after 47 trips through it, I'm ready to toss it outside and burn it. Silent it isn't.

Thoughts settled, and acceptance made of some things that went from sterling memories to rotten egg smelling ones. This, too, shall pass... with the bonus of making a friend who is pretty amazing. That friend joins those already in my nightly prayers to God and the Universe, wishing contentment, peace, joy and love to wash over them.

I left my tarot cards in LA, blargh!

I am working on the Neville story, I promise all three of his fans! I spent my LA time reading, knitting and enjoying TheBrother and the SIL. Thus, it was time well spent.

Well spent, indeed.

Sometimes

Last night was....odd.

I spent a long time on the phone with someone, both of us opening up and discussing things that needed discussion. Both of us cried. Both of us laughed. We formed an odd bond.

I cried myself to sleep. I imagine their pain was considerable, too. In fact, I know it was... nothing we did to the other, just the facts of what is and was.

I appreciate the time and bravery it took to reach out... and, I think that feeling is reciprocated.

In the end, that's all you really can have, is respect...

...I have that for my caller.