100 Word Story: Mommy First

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100 Word Story: Mommy First

I post a new 100 word story on my Alicia Audrey blog every week. They are based on prompts posted at Julia’s Place. If you haven’t already, please hop on over and read this week’s story. Read, comment, and share!

Monday Madness

It’s Mondaaaaayyyyy! Did ya know?

I feel all fgfkgjfjfgnb today. So much to do! I went through some websites that have information on submissions and contests, and FINALLY updated my little planner. I’ve given myself deadlines to get pieces done and submitted. I need to be ahead of those deadlines if I want time to post them to Scribophile to get feedback from other writers. I have at least one piece due every week for the rest of the year! Crazy, right? That’s not even including the assignments for my Writing for Children & Teenagers course. This should be interesting.

Here is some info on my work in progress:

• Food Flash – It’s for a food festival, and they’re looking for short stories up to 2500 words on the theme of “Food & Drink”. There are no other restrictions, so I decided to make mine short and sweet. Well, it’s really not sweet. It’s kind of evil. But I like it! I’ve been getting crits on it for a few weeks now, and it’s ALMOST to where it needs to be. Before the end of this month, I’m going to have to let that baby fly.
• Ice Cream Truck – Have I ever mentioned the super annoying ice cream truck that comes by our place EVERY day at the SAME time? It drives me crazy. I hate it. The music is awful. The other day, I was trying to have a little nap. Note that I am NOT a nap person. I HATE it. I was just SO tired from waking up a 6am to get a ride to work and working all day. Enter the ice cream truck. Playing CHRISTMAS music. I HATE Christmas music. It really annoys me. Anyway, I got my Neo, and wrote a little story. I was pissed when I wrote it, so it’s funny in a snarky sort of way, but it needs work.
• The Other – It’s about a married woman who is seeing someone else. Her husband is also seeing someone else. Their marriage is pretty much over, but they still live in the same house. Things get a little weird. I wanted this to be a short, snappy piece, but a lot of the critiquers keep asking for more. They want to know more about the woman than I really care to tell. The story isn’t meant to be ABOUT her. I’m struggling with it. I like it the way I wrote it, but it needs to please the reader too. I’d decided to let it rest a while. BUT… It’s perfect (in theory) for a magazine’s theme that I want to submit it for. This week. GAH!
• Comatose – A woman is in a coma, completely unresponsive. She gets an unexpected visit from the daughter she never had a relationship with. The daughter offloads and rants, but the woman can’t explain herself. I gave this one a looong rest. Time to look up the crits and polish her up. From what I remember, people wanted more backstory on this one too. To me, that’s not what  a short story is about. A short should be started as late as possible – close to the action – and focus on as short a time period as possible. I’m going to have a look at WHO is saying WHAT. If the people who want backstory are novel writers (primarily), I’m gonna have to veto their opinions. This baby needs to fly too!

That’s just what I have already written. There are some other ideas floating around. Can you tell how busy my week is going to be? It’s okay though. It’s about time I put more time and effort into what I REALLY want to do. It’s just difficult to balance a day job and home life with my work. I don’t want anything in the equation to suffer. This may take some trial and error, y’all, so excuse me for blogging far less than I used to. I’ll be back on track soon, I hope!

How about you? How is your Monday going? Any goals for this week?

Feel Good Monday

Happy Mondaaaaayyyyy!

I love Mondays, and you know this, right?

Maybe I’m a little bit EXTRA happy today. If I am, here are a few reasons:

• I did my run AND yoga even though I was struggling with the first day of “the affliction.”
• I had a few minutes on the beach, just looking the ocean, smelling the salt in the air, feeling the breeze, with the sun at my back.
• I found the perfect writing desk, untreated, at Wood You. Now I just need to save the money, and think about/find the designs I want to stencil onto it before finishing it.
• I edited a short story a wrote last week, and it’s alllllmost there. It will definitely be ready for the Cheers Reader competition on Thursday.
• I feel like my short story writing skills are improving. The quality of this story in comparison to the last one (yes, I remember that I rushed it) is commendable. I’m going to go back to the other story later this week to bring it up to par.
• I’ve been doing well with drinking water, and I’ve been practicing yoga more. I definitely feel the difference, and I like it.
• I’m making soup tonight. It should be good for 3 meals each. Hopefully, I’ll find some nice bread to go with it.
• My friend of 21 years or so celebrated her birthday on Saturday evening. It was a nice bbq at her house. It’s always nice to catch up with her. Another friend (of about 15 years) was there, and we hadn’t seen each other in about 3 years. Some other interesting people were there, so it made for a pretty cool evening. I was glad Babe got to meet two of my oldest friends – two of the only people from way-back-when that I bother to keep in touch with.
• Babe loves me. I hear it and see it every day. How fortunate am I?!

Goals for this week:

1. At least 3 evening runs to get back into the groove
2. Grocery shopping
3. Lunch from home at least 4 days
4. Polish short story for competition
5. First draft of flash fiction for competition
6. Full inventory of items in storage unit
7. Develop a plan for the purchase of my own vehicle without bank financing

Funny exchange from the weekend:

Aunt: “Is this your first time seeing a rainbow?”

Cousin (8 yrs): “No. I saw one before, when I was a kid.”

Anxious about:

Dad: “How much do you have saved towards a car?”

Me: “Not much…”

Dad: “Have you been doing ANYthing?”

Me: “Yeah…[volume goes way down as I say things that don't make sense]“

Sooo, yeah… I was given one of my dad’s/brother’s cars to use, but now the one my brother was driving is down. It won’t be fixed for a while because it costs over $1000. I think they need the car back. I might be screwed.

Hope you had a great weekend, and you’re feeling positive and full of energy for the week ahead!

What are you up to today? How do you feel?

Quick Notes

Not too much to say today. Just some quick notes:

• I have a short story written for a competition at the end of the month. Just the first draft. I’m hoping to edit it 2-3 times before submission. It changed directions about three times while I was writing it, so some parts of it don’t make sense. It’ll only take one revision to fix that. Then another revision for language and grammar (which is never a problem for me). Then another for setting and descriptions. Then, a final read-through. Oh, and giving it a title. Always a hard part.
• I have a short story that isn’t the best quality, written in a rush for a competition. It’s not going to even place. It’s not because it’s not a good story. It is. It’s just in that first draft mode. I need to move it beyond that place. Now that I’ve distanced myself from it for months, I can go back to it. Maybe I can get it to a level where I can submit it for another competition.
• I really don’t like grocery shopping. Not here. And I really, really don’t like having to do it more than once per week. We went yesterday, and didn’t have enough money. We clearly did not communicate about it properly, so it was kind of a wasted trip. It’s not that we’re broke. We just didn’t prepare properly. I would have preferred to make one trip. Gas is expensive. The grocery store sucks. And I really don’t like having to do things after work. Thank goodness I didn’t have to get my mother from work after that trip (as originally planned).
• I have to go to the storage unit today. Repairs need to be done, so I have to be there to open it up, and guard the stuff. While I’m there, I guess I’ll start organizing things for the support tents at the bike-a-thon. I can’t stand to be idle. I just hate having to drive there, and all the way back this way. I tried to schedule it for 3pm so that I could just go home from there, but I guess they get off earlier than that. Ugh.
• Came across the Spread the Word to End the Word campaign yesterday. I pledged. You should too. I tried adding the badge to my right column, but no luck, WordPress really pisses me off. By the way, why is it that every time I follow someone now, it signs me up to receive an email EVERY TIME THEY POST?! I do NOT want posts in my inbox. I just want them on my “Read Blogs” page when I log in. Anyone know how to fix that?
• Going to practice my sun salutations. That always makes me feel better.
• I’m feeling really mellow today. I’m not sure why. I didn’t sleep well at all last night. I fell asleep on the couch, during a rest-my-eyes moment during reading time. I woke up on the couch, light off. I was a bit peeved that I wasn’t awakened to go to bed. Anyway, I brushed my teeth and put myself in bed around midnight. I didn’t sleep soundly from there. I was between sleeping, thinking, and scowling. The thinking and scowling slipped into my dreams, so there were arguments and standoffs. Eventually, I decided to give up and just lay there until it was time to get up. I got up, got ready, and got out. The radio was on the classical station from last night (when garbage was playing on the other stations). That must be what shaped my day. I just feel… Mellow. It could be the weather too. I forgot about that. It’s pretty cool (not cold) for The Bahamas right now. I even saw an idiot in a puffy jacket with the fur-fringed hood up.

	Today	Tonight	Tomorrow
Partly Cloudy	Partly Cloudy / Wind	Showers Late	Showers / Wind
73°F	78°	69°	80°
Feels Like: 73° Get FREE weather on your desktop	High	Low	High

  What are you up to today? How’s the weather? Working on any special projects?

Valentine’s Day 2011

I went to work, as usual. Nothing special. I don’t remember whether or not flowers or other special treats were delivered to other people in the store. I probably didn’t notice. I didn’t care. Nothing had arrived for me. No one had thought of me.

I was dating someone, but he was on his way out. I was no longer interested. I’d lost interest shortly after Christmas. For some reason, I was very lazy about getting out of the relationship. I just made myself unavailable and become almost comatose. Unresponsive. He was just not the right person for me. He was nice enough, but it just didn’t work. We just didn’t click. He was quite happy, but me? No. He was busy. He worked, worked, worked. He had a child. I wasn’t really interested in step-mothering. His values were not in line with mine. Above all else was money. Becoming a millionaire. Like an obsession. I was appalled.

I met someone. I met her months before things started to really break down. She was a friend. Then, she became a really good friend. Soon enough, I was enamored. Now, don’t get the wrong idea. There was no rebound. There was no stealing. There was no plan. One thing just fell apart, and another came together.

One of the ladies in the front office came to my office carrying a little gift bag. In it was a bottle of tequila (*swoons*), two cupcakes, and a card. They were from her. It was Valentine’s Day. And she thought of me. Enough to pick out some of my favourite things. For me. I didn’t even want to eat the cupcakes. They were so pretty. And so special. She was so special. And she still is.

Later that night, he called.

“You ain’ even mention the flowers and shits what I sent you.”

I held the phone to my ear, waiting for the punchline.

Silence.

“What?”

“The shits what I send you. You ain’ say thanks or nuttin.”

“First of all, don’t swear at me. Secondly, what are you talking about? I got nothing from you.”

He seemed pretty surprise. Shocked, really. That I didn’t get “the shits” that he sent. It did not take long to realize what had happened.

“Stop jokin’! You ain’ get the stuff what I sen’? I sen’ it to Donald’s Furniture!”

“Um…” I stifled my laughter before saying, “I don’t work at Donald’s Furniture. I work at Roberts…”

I hope the “Alicia” at Donald’s Furniture enjoyed the flowers “and shits” sent by a man who was too busy trying to be a millionaire to pay attention to where THIS Alicia worked. I thoroughly enjoyed my cupcakes, loved the card, and still smile when I see the bottle of tequila in our kitchen that she and I only open for very special occasions. In ten days, we’ll be celebrating our first year together, so we’ll welcome Jose Cuervo – the only man allowed to live with us – to join us.

Happy Valentine’s Day, y’all! Wishing you lots of pretty flowers, yummy chocolate, presents in tiny boxes, and looove.

Got any good Valentine’s Day stories? Do tell!

Vix wrote and shared a good V-Day short story in this post. She has a V-Day theme going on this week, so keep checking it out. Especially on Thursday for my guest post with a surpriiiiise for yooou.