Sunday, January 11, 2009

It's My Turn To Chase

My brain has decided to chase the shiny new germs of ideas that keep churning around in my head, abandoning the wips that I've been diligently trying to complete for the past year. I need a relief pitcher or a closer to come in and finish my manuscripts. The sad part is I basically know how I want them to go, but can't force myself to sit down and begin the arduous task of all the little nuances of putting them on paper well.

So my brain decides to wander, which is nothing new. Here's some places it's decided to go. Remember this is first draft writings that I just jotted down in my idea file. Be gentle with me.

“Can I buy you a drink?”
A somewhat maniacal laugh escaped her before she could stop it.
She turned to the devastatingly handsome man, and looked him up and down. “I don’t think so, but thanks anyway,” she answered before turning back to the glass of wine she’d been nursing.
“May I ask why?” His smooth voice played down her spine as she gave him her attention yet again. His face was quizzical and slightly amused.
“Because I don’t box out of my class.” She turned back to her drink once again.
“Wait. What? What do you mean by that?” He placed a large hand on her shoulder and gently turned her back to face him, obviously not used to being turned down.
“I meant what I said. I don’t box outside of my weight class.” When his questioning stare didn’t waver, she waved her hand in an all encompassing gesture up and down his body. “Look at you. You’re extremely handsome, well-dressed, you come across educated and cultured. In other words, a heavy weight. Me? I’m a light weight, maybe a middle weight on a good day when my hair doesn’t frizz out and my socks are free of holes and my hips decide to fit into my favorite pair of jeans.” She stared at his amused eyes and tried not to get caught up in them. She took a deep breath and hurried on. “What I’m telling you is that I’m not equipped to handle you. You’d tear me to shreds, whether you’d mean to or not.”
“It sounds like you’re talking from experience.”
“Not particularly, just a solid knowledge base of how the world works.” She tried to return to her drink, but he inserted his knee between both of hers before she could swivel back around on the barstool.
She rolled her eyes at him. “Look, you need one of those high maintenance girls who moisturizes every day and gets facials. And who would never go to work in two different colored shoes because it was dark and she was late. I mean yeah, some days I can pass for cute, and sometimes I have little moments of adorable, but that’s really not what you’re looking for.” She took a breath from her ramblings and saw the interested spark smoldering in his blue eyes.
“Oh no. Stop. Stop looking at me that way. I didn’t mean to pique your interest. It’s not what I wanted to do at all. I’m trying to be honest. I’m not prepared to handle someone like you. I don’t do casual sex. And if I ever got started with you, I don’t know how I would. . . survive.” Her voice quieted and trailed off. “And then when you got tired/sick of cute and quirky and moved on to sexy and gorgeous, how would my fragile ego be able to handle that?” she whispered.

Or how about this?

He looked down at her picture as the silence of the empty house drowned him. God, she was beautiful. When was the last time he told her? He couldn’t remember. The smooth burn of the scotch did nothing to dull the tight ache high in his throat, the relentless squeeze of a cold vise in his chest. He hurt. How could he hurt so bad when he felt hollow inside? As if when she left she took everything that was in him with her.

Here's one more.

Sunlight tried to break through the barrier of his eyelids, so he squeezed them tighter against the offending assault. His mouth felt like a dirty ashtray ground into an old motel carpet. With a grimace, he peeked open an eye to take in his surroundings. His bleary gaze traveled over the area as he recognized his own patio in the back yard. At least he was somewhere he recognized. Not like last week where he couldn’t even find his damn truck for the first hour and a half. His best friend, Jerry, had to come pick him up and drive him around town till he found it.
He sat up, his stomach lurching with the effort as his head spun in eight different directions at once. A low groan made its way around the sickening knot in his stomach. He looked back at the bare straps of the folding recliner he'd just peeled himself from and wished the cushion had been on it as he stretched his stiff limbs. But that was a detail that Sandy would have thought of. Which reminded him that she wasn’t here any more.
“I need a beer.”
He scanned the bricks, and kicked the empties out of the way as he gingerly brought his feet to the side. Elbows on his knees, he held his throbbing head in his hands and prayed for the world to stop spinning.
A slamming truck door made him wince in pain. As every crunching footstep headed his way, tension and annoyance zigzagged down his spine.
“Mornin’, sunshine!”
“Fuck you,” he muttered. “You gotta be so loud? Can’t you tell when a man’s nursin’ a hangover?”
“When ain’t you nursin’ a hangover these days?” Jerry asked.
Steve flipped him off and regretted the quick move immediately as his stomach gave a sick lurch.
“So, you gonna sit out here all day, or you gonna go call off work again?”
Damn. Work.
“Or do you remember Scott tellin’ you that if you came in one more time worthless he was gonna can your ass?”
“Fuck. I need a beer.” He searched again half-heartedly on the ground around him.
“It’s nine-thirty in the fuckin’ morning, Steve.”
“Best cure for a hangover. More beer.”
“How much longer is this gonna go on, man? When are you going to decide to pick yourself up and figure out what to do?”

Does it make me a bad person that I want to run away from home for a few days? Run away from bottles and diapers and potty training and teething and sick husbands and housework and dogs that crap on the floor and dogs that are so needy that they follow you everywhere including the bathroom whose latch is broken so it can nose its way in with no problem and in-laws and laundry and clingy changeling children and bills and no Supernatural.

The retreat can't come fast enough right now.

4 comments:

Victoria said...

Wow! I love all three of them! Get busy! lol
No, it's not wrong that you want to run away. I don't know a mom who's never felt like that! Sometimes we need a break! The no Supernatural part is probably the worst. But, hey, only 4 more days!!!
And the retreat definitely can't come soon enough. I'm ready right now!
Hand in there!
WV - rellyca - a rally car for gnomes.

Ava Quinn said...

No! You're supposed to tell me to finish what I start! lol

Thanks for telling me I'm allowed to want to runaway.
4days!!!

(loved the wv def.!)

Natalie J. Damschroder said...

I ditto everything Smith said. Excellent snippets, and wanting to run away is so normal it's boring.

On the plus side, we're in the same year as the retreat! It'll be here soon!

And SPN is only 3 days away now!

WV: imbuloni = a pasta sauce made with bologna and served over corkscrew pasta

Ava Quinn said...

Thanks, Natalie!

And eeewww on the wv!

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