A Bit of Horror Before Halloween

So today has been a work day and a homework day.

It's not fun when the two overlap, but what's been nice is that husband and I have been doing homework together. It's been what I call: "A Homework Party" (woop woop). You have to make the woop woop sound. I even made husband do it. We've been eating pizza, listening to music, and just getting stuff done. In someways I think my homework is better. He has to study nursing stuff (SUPER gross pictures) and I get to do writing (WOOP WOOP!)

Anyway, I have to do these different exercises for my online class. For each lecture (we get lectures on the different genres: poetry, short story, historical fiction, fantasy/ science fiction, etc.) we are given anywhere from 5-10 exercises and we pick one and write.

So here's the exercise from the short story lecture that I picked...

Exercise #3

Take a well-known nursery rhyme or fairy tale and now take the off-stage horror and put it on center stage. If you pick The Three Little Pigs, for example, let us see the wolf’s fangs and smell his breath. Let him devour the first pig and let’s see the blood. Grim, right? I was going to make some joke about the Brother’s Grimm, but I figure it’s been done before. Anyway, re-write a nursery rhyme or fairy tale and make it ghastly. Your choice about the ending. 


And this is what I wrote...

The Woodsman unsheathed his knife. It didn’t gleam in the dying sunlight like it once had, back when his father had first given it to him. But it was still just as sharp. It still got the job done.

Slowly, the Woodsman slipped the tip of the knife into the wolf’s swollen belly. He couldn’t cut too deep. He couldn’t slice the girl or her grandmother. He slid the knife in till half the blade was buried in the wolf. Blood, as red as the holly berries in winter, pooled out of the cut and stained the wolf’s white fur. Like blood and snow. It was almost beautiful.

His knife met no resistance as he drew it from tip to toe. More blood spilled out. It was darker. More like the red leaves of the trees in the fall. Closer to the color of death. It smelled like iron. Bitter and cold. Like the winter. Like the wolf. The Woodsman could almost taste it in the air.

Once he had finished the incision, he eviscerated the wolf with his bare hands, searching for the women inside. He ripped organs from the body. They smacked the ground with a heavy wet sound as he tossed them aside. Finally he felt something different.

Wet hair beneath his fingers.

He reached in with his other hand and grabbed.

He pulled.

This time the wolf hadn’t eaten them whole.

No, he had taken his time, the old sinner.

The Woodsman cradled the girl’s head in his hands. Her face was mutilated past recognition. Her jaw was missing and there were deep slash marks that ran from her forehead down. A scrap of fabric was tangled in her wet hair.

Gently the Woodsman worked it out. It was only a scrap. 

It was red.     

Not a full blown short story. Maybe closer to flash fiction (even though I'm not 100% sure what flash fiction really is...) but there you go. Maybe it's not as gross or horrific as I could've made it. But, I like it. And totally in a Halloween-I've-been-watching-too-many-slasher-movies kind of way. 


So, Happy Almost Halloween!

One of THOSE weeks...

You may be asking yourself, "Hey, you're (usually) pretty awesome about updating your blog on a regular basis...wtf?" 

Or you might not. I'm not sure how many days its been since I last posted. 

So this is one of those posts where I assure you that I am still alive. See ---> I'm alive!

This week has been crazy. I am a creature of the night (but not in the Rocky Horror way... just saying) but for work, I have had to get up at 5:00 am. That's right. I wake up before the sun. I go to bed after the sun. Stupid, lazy sun... So, this new "morning person" thing has really thrown a wrench into my life. I'm not complaining. In some ways it's super nice to have gotten in 4 hours of work by 10:00 am. Huzzah! Granted, it does come at a cost. My creative hours have now become sleeping hours. I hope I will adjust.

What else has made this week crazy? The extra stress of classes. I had no idea that taking two online classes was going to be such a balancing act. I mean, I finish my work, get all excited that I'm done, and then realize... oh no I'm not. There is ALWAYS something to work on. And, I don't want to go into it (because I've moved on) but since it's a creative writing class, and so much depends on other students being responsible and getting their stuff posted on time, it's horribly annoying when people just don't meet the deadline. Yes, I've been told they have had technical problems. But, I would like to point out -- we have everyone's e-mails. So, if you can't post something in time (for whatever reason) don't wait and figure out how to post it three days later but 30 minutes before the critique is due. No, send out a damn e-mail and let your classmates know. Is that too much to ask? For graduate school, I think not.

OH! Good things about this week 1) Castle Season 4 started Monday night AND 2) Castle Season 3 was released on DVD Tuesday. 

I love my escape. 

Also, I have been reading Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children and so far I'm a fan. Not just of the story but of the formatting of the novel. It's like a grown-up picture book in a lot of ways. When I post a "formal" review I'll include some snapshots with it. 

So, there's my update. Hopefully I'll post some fun stuff soon. Keep reading!

Here I Sit

And here I sit, not doing anything that I SHOULD be doing.

Here's what I should be doing:

1. Working on my poetry presentation for my online class. This is due Monday.
2. Reading the poetry that was assigned for my online class. I'm not sure when this is do.
3. Reading A Wrinkle in Time also for my online class. I think this is due later this month.
4. Working on my description presentation for my other online class. This is due in November. I think.
5. Laundry.
6. Unloading the dishwasher and then reloading it.

What am I doing instead? Blogging. Blogging and it's not really an exciting post. But in a way it is productive. I mean, I like blogging. Even when I have nothing to say...

Well I did get a new job. So yay! Not a completely starving artist! Only slightly starving. I have a feeling that this new job (while I enjoy it) is part of the reason why I don't want to do anything today. But it's cool. It's at a cafe/bakery/catering place. I get free baked goods (sometimes) and I have discovered that I am terrified of the walk in freezer. This is when having an over-active imagination is bad.

Here is what I think will happen:
So to get into the walk in freezer you have to walk through the walk in fridge and then go to the BACK CORNER to a door that leads into the freezer. Even though both doors have way of opening it from the inside I don't care. I see me getting locked in the freezer (which is REALLY REALLY cold and small -- I am not a huge fan of small places with only one door that is hard to open). I see me banging on the door, but no one can hear me because the mixer is making cake batter and really, how could they hear it through the fridge door? And I see me turning into a frozen me.

Here's what really happens:
I go into the freezer for bread or whatever. The door is a bit tricky to open. So I freak out, push the door knob in (the way to open it from the inside) and throw all of my 130 pounds into the freezer door -- which flys open and I'm thrown into the fridge. And then, from here, I can exit like nothing is the matter.

Needless to say, I don't like the freezer.

At all.

So, I'm debating about posting some of my creative writing stuff here. If you would like to read it -- well comment and let me know. Serious. You don't have to have a g-mail to leave a comment. I'm magic like that.

OKAY! HERE I GO! BACK TO WORK!
...maybe