Tag: #dailywritingchallenge

Posted in Fiction, Uncategorized

Indelible – #JusJoJan 2018

Posted on by

13A2427B-123D-4C63-B819-338D243369AC

She was awakened this morning by one of her recurring nightmares. He was trying to steal her dogs again. She sat up quickly on the side of the bed. So many things that had happened in her first divorce from him had made an indelible mark on her psyche. Harper, her small dog, who was lying on top of her bed had been nudging her. Maybe that had triggered the dream from events that took place 25 years ago.

That divorce and the involvement of the dogs she had at that time hit her like a battering ram. He had tried to use anything she loved, or anything or anyone that loved her, against her. To hurt her. To ruin her reputation. She knew that, this time, this ending of the second marriage, he would do it again. The thought made her lose her breath and feel nauseous.

She let Harper outside and her mind drifted back to the custody fight he had started over her three dogs all those years ago. He had warned her that he was going to take them from her. He didn’t succeed, but he cost her a lot of money and worry in order to keep them. During their first divorce hearing, the judge ruled that she would have custody of the dogs, her precious corgis, even though they were legally considered property. But, he gave him visitation rights. Since he had two pit bull mixes at his house, she let him come to her house to see them. It was a nightmare and everyone knew he was there to see her. She was disgusted.

Over a year passed. She finally received a letter from his attorney. Extortion, she called it. He wanted money in exchange for the cessation of visitation rights. One of the dogs was her mother’s dog. Her mother was terminally ill and lived with her. The middle dog was crippled from birth and a rescue from a breeder. Then there was her precious Kelly. Her dog. There was no choice but to pay the ransom. $25,000. She paid it and kept her dogs. As she watched Harper in the backyard, running and playing, she felt, deep in her gut, that it was about to happen again.

She would not let it. She would take matters into her own hands.

 

This post is part of Linda G. Hill’s JusJoJan 2018 Challenge.

Posted in Fiction

Recover – #SoCS – 01/06/2017 and #JusJoJan 2018

Posted on by

She sits and wonders if she can ever financially recover from the devastation he has caused due to this fraud of a second marriage. That’s what it had been. A fraud. A marriage for financial gain under false pretenses. She was so stupid. She had fallen for all the old, “I’ve changed,” clichés. She’s not even thinking about the emotional damage he’s inflicted. That’s a given. The financial impact is huge and will be worse.

He was a gambler but he had quit before they reunited. He had also quit drinking. She knew both had been hard for him. She had watched him struggle. Now she knew why he had done it. He was looking for a bigger payoff. Except he couldn’t wait. He’d thought that her illness was so severe when he had learned about it before they remarried that she surely would not survive very long. It only goes to show you that he didn’t know her very well. After all the years he had known her, he knew so little about her.

He didn’t know that she was already in the process, before they got together again, of grabbing that illness and wrestling it to the ground, getting it under control. It had been the hardest thing she’d ever done, but it was still under control and she would keep it under control. He knew it. He grew tired of waiting for her to slip up, for her to let it get the best of her, for her to die.

He decided to give that illness a little nudge. He was still nudging it, even from afar. Still hoping for that ultimate financial payoff. But, this time, she would win.

 

This post is part of Linda Hill’s JusJoJan and Stream of Consciousness challenges.

Posted in Fiction

Memories – #JusJoJan

Posted on by

13A2427B-123D-4C63-B819-338D243369AC

She remembers the first time they met. What’s it been? Oh yes, 43 years ago. A lifetime of memories. They were very young. The first thing she noticed about him is that he was very kind. They started dating. No boy that she’d ever dated had been this kind to her. After several months passed, they moved in together. Living together was popular in those days. They decided to eventually marry.

They married and those were the halcyon days. Theirs was such a calm household. She’d never lived in a tranquil household. She’d grown up in a household filled with hysteria, yelling, upheaval. When she looks back, she thinks that’s the reason she married him the first time. Her search for love and peace. Her parents weren’t brave. They didn’t discourage her. His mother was brave. She took both of them aside individually and advised them against marriage. She knew they loved each other, but they came from such different backgrounds. His mother knew it would never work out in the long run. They didn’t listen to her and she was right. She died a year later.

It’s been a long time and memories of that early time, those early years, have faded now especially since there are so many bad memories. But, she remembers the early years as good, fun, romantic. Something she only recently learned wiped away some of it. He told her he had an affair for the last ten years of their first 18 year marriage. She’d had no idea. She had been crushed and nothing had been the same since. He had persecuted her so badly during their first divorce for the things she had done.

Their second marriage to each other was a mistake. She had to walk away now from the good memories and the bad ones. The good ones broke her heart. The bad ones would make her old and bitter. She didn’t quite know how to walk away from the boy she grew up with and the very different man he had turned out to be. It had all gone so terribly wrong.

She hung her head and cried all night as the telephone remained silent.

 

This post is a part of Linda Hill’s #JusJoJan writing challenge for 2018.

 

Posted in Fiction

Passionate – #JusJoJan

Posted on by

13A2427B-123D-4C63-B819-338D243369AC

She couldn’t remember the last time she felt passionate about him. She was capable of such passion about so many things. Sex and love in her marriage used to be two of them. Her husband only cared about sex in their marriage and when she was ill and sex was not possible for a time, he became resentful. Without sex, he withheld love. Without love, the desire for sex with him died within her. She knew they were at a stalemate.

The longer the stalemate went on, the more resentful about sex he became and the more embittered about love she became.

Resentfulness turned into aggression and combativeness on his part. He became deceitful. Without love, she became contrary and morose. Feeling passionate toward him didn’t seem  possible any longer. They were estranged while living in the same house. He wouldn’t talk to her, wouldn’t communicate about their situation.

She tried to do things that would make him happy. It was late in life to divorce, but she couldn’t see how they could stay together. It was so uncomfortable. It took a shocking turn of events for her to remember the mental illness that plagued his family and the symptoms that he was exhibiting.

She was afraid and she ran.

 

This story is part of Linda Hill’s JusJoJan 18 challenge.

Posted in Fiction

Boisterous – #JusJoJan

Posted on by

13A2427B-123D-4C63-B819-338D243369AC

He spoke in a most boisterous way, telling her he was never coming home. Asking her where home actually was? Telling her he had no home. That home certainly wasn’t with her. He even emphasized it. He said he was never, ever coming home.

She had given him the run of the place since they had married. It had become his home more than hers. He did whatever he wanted. He’d changed it. With tools and carpentry, certainly, but also just with his argumentative, aggressive presence. Everywhere she looked, it was his home. She knew what he meant. She hadn’t made it official. She hadn’t gone to the courthouse. Put his name on the deed. She was afraid of doing that. One other time, he had essentially blackmailed her into giving up her home. Another city. Another house. In another time. She couldn’t take that chance again. She had never put any constraints on him here.

Now he was using emotional blackmail. With every word he spoke, it became too late. In his rough, tempestuous manner, he was killing anything that was left between them. He hung up the phone. It was done.

 

This post is part of Linda Hill’s Just Jot Jan Challenge 2018

Posted in Non-fiction

Drama – #JusJoJan

Posted on by

13A2427B-123D-4C63-B819-338D243369AC

Drama. What a word to start off the Linda Hill’s Just Jot Jan Challenge 2018 !

There are lots of definitions of the term “drama.” The current popular usage of drama is when emotional conflict is caused by a person or a situation or surrounds a person or situation, for whatever reason. Drama also describes the production of certain types of plays or television shows and branches of literature. It always involves conflict.

At this point in my own life, I like to avoid drama, but drama is not avoiding me. I am undergoing a change in my living circumstances that has turned into something fairly dramatic. Not of my own choosing. I find myself wondering why, at my age, can’t people just be adults as opposed to badly behaved children? Particularly when the change in living circumstances was their idea! I’m likely to think of the word “drama” pretty often in the early part of. 2018. At least I hope it’s only in the early part of 2018 and not in the later parts of the year. Going back to the definition of drama, I can be certain that conflict will be involved which I dislike even more than drama!

By this time in 2019, I hope all drama and conflict in my life will be long past and the future will be bright once more.

Rules for the #JusJoJan 2018 Challenge

Here are the general rules to follow for Just Jot it January:
1. Just Jot It January starts January 1st, but it’s never too late to join in! Here, we run on the honour system; the “jot it” part of JusJoJan means that anything you jot down, anywhere (it doesn’t have to be a post, it can even be a grocery list) counts as a “Jot.” If it makes it to your blog that day, great! If it waits a week to get from a sticky note to your screen, no problem!
2. I’ll post the daily prompts at 2am my time (GMT -5), every day except for Saturday’s Stream of Consciousness (SoCS) prompt–you’ll find that one on Friday morning at 9:30am. That daily post (i.e. this one) will be where you leave your link for others to find in the comment section. There will be a prompt for every day except Wednesday, when the prompt is simply my One-Liner Wednesday.
3. As long as your blog is on WordPress, you’ll be able to link via pingback. To execute a pingback, just copy the URL from the daily prompt post, and paste it anywhere in your post. Check to make sure your link shows up where you want it to, and go back occasionally to see other bloggers’ entries – the more you visit others, the more they’ll visit you! If you’re participating from another blogging host, just drop a link into the comment section. Note: The newest pingbacks and comments will appear at the top.
4. Tag your post JusJoJan and/or #JusJoJan.
5. Write anything! Any length will do! It can even be a photo or a drawing – you’re going to title it, right? There’s your jot!
6. The prompts are here both to remind you and to inspire you to write. However, you don’t have to use the prompt word of the day. You can link any kind of jot back here. Note: If it’s 18+ content, please say so in a comment with your link or close to your pingback.
7. If you’d like to, use the JusJoJan badge so that others can find your post more easily.

Posted in Non-fiction, Uncategorized

The Sounds of the Gulf of Mexico

Posted on by

 

IMG_1407I stand on the pier listening to the sounds of the Gulf of Mexico. It’s always overwhelmed me just to see the Gulf or any part of the ocean. When I get accustomed to seeing it, then I begin to listen to its sounds. There are far more sounds than sights.

The Gulf is generally a calm body of water. If you just listen to the sound of the water, you will hear it gently lapping at the beach or whatever lies at its edge. Other places, such as the island where I live part-time, it laps at the mangroves trees along its banks. Mangrove forests surround parts of my island. They serve as fish hatcheries, protection from hurricanes for the island, and many other purposes in tropical areas. If the tide is coming in and you are at an area where there are rocky beaches, the water sounds like it is slapping the rocks with that sound of slapping turning into almost a cracking sound as the tide comes in faster and faster.

If you are facing the Gulf and not a bay off the Gulf, the sound differs. If the tide is coming in and hitting rocks or a sea wall, you hear a percussive sound, almost a booming. If the Gulf is stirred up due to a storm, the sound becomes almost thunderous and to some, very exciting.

The sound of the Gulf or any part of the ocean appeals to something primitive, perhaps embryonic or even evolutionary, in most of us. It soothes my moods and evens out my temperament. It makes me feel at home.

Posted in Non-fiction

Jiffy

Posted on by R.M. Carlson

IMG_0761

Jiffy How funny. When I went to the Daily Post to see what the “word of the day” was, this was a word I never expected to see. The word “jiffy” means a moment, even a second. Like “just give me a moment.”

When I saw the word “jiffy” this morning, I had an immediate flashback of my mother. My mother has been gone for almost 17 years. But, when I saw the word “jiffy,” I could see her standing at her kitchen sink, her back to me, and saying something like, “Supper will be ready in just a jiffy.” My mom is the only person I can ever remember using the word “jiffy” and it’s a good memory for me of her. It was nice, on this Sunday morning, to have a good picture of my mom in my head. That doesn’t happen often enough.

Interesting to me is that this is the colloquial use of the word jiffy. It is an actual unit of measurement in physics, computing, and electronics. It is a measurement of a unit of time in all three disciplines, this word that is very much used in the vernacular in the English language. Who knew?

 

Posted in Non-fiction

Magnet

Posted on by R.M. Carlson

IMG_0699

All of my life, I have been drawn to writing as if it were a magnet. Even on days like today, when life’s burdens are very heavy for me, I only feel like myself if I write something before the day’s end.

My love affair with writing began when I was a child. I got stories published in the Highlights for Children magazine. Writing was interrupted by the other things that children do. I rode horses. But most importantly, I played the piano. I suppose I can count that, in a way, as writing because I wrote scores of music.

Then came lots of academic writing in the form of scholarly papers. Suddenly, twenty years ago, when I was right in the middle of my career as a college professor, I was hired by a brokerage, which will not be named! For several years, I was a journalist for them and wrote breaking news, while continuing my career as a college professor. I was working for this organization on 9/11/2001 when the Twin Towers came down. I had to cover that story and I will never forget it.

Throughout the decade of the 2000’s, I wrote for a variety of organizations and in many capacities. What I wrote is more important than who I wrote for. I wrote in my field of finance as a freelance writer. I wrote magazine articles on a whole variety of subjects. I developed online courses for corporations and their executives.

Then, I discovered blogging. I had become interested in writing fiction. I had always had an interest in fiction, but I had a busy career. I had really had two busy careers, academia and freelance writing. Writing fiction was a luxury I could never afford until I retired. I started trying my hand at fiction and ended up writing a novel, which is what I am doing now.

To all of you who are younger than me and embarking on a writing career, let me tell you one thing. You can make a living freelance writing. It is not necessarily easy but it is possible. You have to be persistent and organized. That is actually more important than talent. It wouldn’t be a bad idea to take a class in freelance writing to get started off on the right foot.

I think writing was what I was what I was supposed to do with my life because I’m drawn to it like a magnet. If I’m upset, I want to write. If I’m happy, I want to write. If you feel like that, write, and try to make your living doing it!

kasmin.wordpress.com

Posted in Fiction

The Corn Maze

Posted on by R.M. Carlson

IMG_0654

It was the fall of the year. Adele and her husband, Daniel, decided to take a drive in the countryside. They were a retired couple, but they lived in the city. They didn’t get out in the country very much. Even though they were retired, they led busy lives. The countryside was beautiful. They lived where there were lots of hardwood trees and the leaves were changing. Adele and Daniel were driving down a tree-lined lane through trees with leaves that were golden, red, and every color in between. It was beautiful.

On either side of the road, there were farms. Farms that had grown wheat and corn during the preceding summer. Farms that also had beef and dairy cattle and other farm animals. The couple was enjoying seeing the sights. There were farms along the way with pumpkin patches for children. Farms that had grown apples. There were lots of people milling around.

Suddenly, Adele and Daniel passed by a large farm that had grown corn that year and they realized there was something odd about the dried-up cornfield. Adele slowed the car and Daniel asked her to turn into the farm’s driveway. As the turned in, they saw a sign that said Corn Maze. Daniel was excited. He had gone through mazes before and he wanted to go through this one. But he found it odd that no one else was there to go through the maze.

Adele and Daniel got out of the car and followed the signs toward the maze. Suddenly, an old man appeared with a shovel in his hand. He asked what they wanted. Daniel explained that they had seen the sign about the maze and he’d like to go through it. The old man shrugged his shoulders and told him to go ahead. Adele sat down on a nearby bale of hay.

Daniel started through the maze. The maze didn’t look that large and after a half hour, Adele started to get concerned. Daniel had not returned. The old man was over at the side of the maze digging something. She told him of her concern and he just shrugged his shoulders. Another hour passed. Adele was really upset and she confronted the old man and asked him where Daniel was. The old man told her that sometimes, people went in to the maze and didn’t come out. Adele got out her phone and dialed 911.

The police arrived and a search party went into the maze looking for Daniel. More and more police arrived. They had trouble finding each other in the maze. They erected large lights and searched all night. They found no sign of Daniel.

Finally, the Sheriff of the county confronted the old man. The old man said the same thing he had told Adele – that sometimes people went into the maze and didn’t come out. He didn’t know why. Adele could attest to the fact that she could see the old man the entire time Daniel had been gone.

Finally, Adele had to leave. The Sheriff took her home because there was no sign of Daniel. No one could explain his disappearance. The Sheriff asked Adele a lot of questions about their marriage. Were they happy? Would Daniel just walk off? Adele had no reason to think any of that was true. The Sheriff advised her to wait. That Daniel would probably show up.

Back at the farm, the old man was still digging. The police had not noticed that he was digging a grave.