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Date Posted: 14:03:20 11/26/10 Fri
Author: Larn
Subject: It's been so long, I forgot for a moment how to post a message!
Is....is that new people I spy with mine eye? Awesome! Hello!
Wow, can I say that this has been an absolutely crazy past few months? I've moved twice since we last spoke (I'm getting good at fitting all my crap in a cargo van) and quit my retail job to chase my dream in Los Angeles. And it's actually working! I'm getting steady employment as a prop master and set designer. LA is finally getting back on its feet, and I'm happy to be a part of it!
It is hard, and a little scary, being self-employed and non-union, but I'm getting by, surrounded by good college friends and making new ones. It doesn't leave much time for writing, though!
Whelp, I've finally got a day off and time to sit and relax and FINISH MY NOVEL! WHOOOOOO!
Ok, ok, so I'm nowhere near actually finishing it, but I did realize that I meet the standard acceptable word count for many publishing houses. And even though there are great big chunks still missing from it, somehow crossing that barrier has made it easier. Sorta like the rest of it just icing or something.
Anyways, I'm having trouble with a fight scene. I just...don't like it. I think I know what I don't like about it, but I'm not entirely sure how to fix it. I've stared at it, put it away and come back to it, sweet-talked it, cajoled it, rewritten it, and cursed at it. Once, I insulted its mother. No good.
I suppose what I'm sayin' is, RIP IT TO SHREDS! Ya know, like, if you feel like it.
Now...to try and get caught up on stuff....
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Stuff here! -- Larn, 14:22:52 11/26/10 Fri
A little backstory. Mike is the head wrangler at a family-run ranch in Wyoming. He's been there for years, longer than any other employee. Margie, the ranch owner, is a little nuts about some of the rules she makes. One of her decrees was to ban all inter-staff sex, which totally worked believe you me.
Emma is a temporary worker, at the ranch just for the summer. A kind of modern-day Ramblin' (wo)Man, Emma is really only about the hear and now. She's been having a fling with Mike on the quiet, surprised at how much she has come to care for him. After a trip into town, meeting and having drinks with another woman who shares her love 'em and leave 'em philosophy, she learns something surprising about Mike.
I took the steps calmly, one at a time, hand sliding along the well-worn wood of the rail. The door was open, so I went in, closed the door behind me and leaned on it, crossing my arms.
“You really are a dirty sonofabitch.”
Mike looked up from the paperwork on his desk. Hot damn, how this ranch liked paperwork.
“Oh yeah?” he said, smiling up at me. “Why’s that?”
Slowly, with my most shit-eating grin, I waltzed my way to him, planted both hands on his desk, and leaned it to whisper.
“You’re fucking married, you lying sack of shit.”
He sat there like he’d been poleaxed.
“I-”
I threw up my hands.
“Don’t say a thing. Not one fucking word.”
“Emma, please.” He stood up, reaching a hand towards me.
I backed away from him and my control broke. I screamed at him.
“NOT ONE FUCKING WORD UNLESS YOU’RE GOING TO TELL ME IT’S NOT TRUE!”
He stood still, his mouth open and his eyes sorrowful. The silence sucked the air from the room.
“Oh god,” I said, forcing the words past my dry throat. “It is true. You are such a piece of shit, you know?”
“Emma-”
“‘No one can know!’ you said. ‘Margie wouldn’t like it, we have a history.’ Well fuck you very much for lying to my face. After....after all of it. I asked you, that first night. It could have just been a mistake. But you came to me, again and again. You lied-”
“I thought you knew!”
“You thought I knew?” I repeated, indignant. “You thought I knew!”
“Yes.”
“And that I didn’t care.”
“Yes.”
“And what hair-brained notion put that in your head?”
“Caroline! She said she told you everything!”
“Oh don’t even try and blame this on her!” I shouted, taking two steps towards him. We were now only separated by his narrow desk. “It’s not her place to-”
“It’s exactly her place! We’re family!”
It was my turn to look dumbfounded. I shook my head, trying to figure things out.
“Caroline,” he said with a sigh, “is my sister-in-law. Janet is her sister. Half-sister, actually. And Margie’s daughter.”
“You’re Margie’s son-in-law?”
“Yes.”
“I don’t believe you,” I said, taking a few steps back, bumping into a chair without feeling it. “How...how could no one have told me?”
“Not many people know.”
“Who?”
“What?”
“Who knew about this?”
“I don’t know, Margie, Caroline, Andy...I don’t know.”
“You lying bastard.”
“Would you stop insulting me? I get it, ok? You’re mad. Now maybe you wanna calm the fuck down and hear my side of it?”
“Oh your side of it!” I said, plopping down into a chair and raising a sarcastic eyebrow. “By all means, please! Enlighten me.”
Mike sat back down in his chair. He opened his mouth a few times, but couldn’t seem to find the words.
“Here’s an idea. Start with the part where you’re married.”
“No, it’s...it’s further back than that.” Raising a hand to rub his forehead, his voice was low and hollow as he began. “I was one of Margie’s foster kids. I would come here during the summers and go wild. Ran all over the place, raised hell, generally got in everybody’s business. Then one day, Jerry, the head wrangler, he caught me by the neck and sat me down. Said if I was gonna be a pain in everyone’s ass, then I’d never come back again. But if I was good, I could maybe work for the ranch and stay there all year. I was sixteen, and the idea of never coming back to HR scared the hell outta me. This place was the closet thing I’d ever had to happy. So I promised to be good and he put Andy in charge of straightening my character.”
“I never thought I’d speak ill of the dead, but he did a shitty job.”
“Do you want to hear this or not?”
“Probably not.”
But I folded my arms and shut my mouth. Mike continued.
“I came to live here full time, staying on during the winter months when it was just the bare bones staff and the Goss family. Janet was Margie’s oldest daughter. A real looker, too. And I’d been looking.”
I snorted. He gave me a look, then continued.
“She wasn’t quite so plastic back then. Spent most of her time in town, thank god. That was back when Margie had a house there. Janet was two years older than me. I’d been raised in all-boy foster care and she came onto me like a train. I didn’t see her often, but when I did, she was always flirting with me, finding excuses to touch me, or brush into me. By the time I was nineteen, well, a boy can only take so much. That summer, she was still twenty, she came to me on my birthday, came to my room down in the Gulch and-”
“I don’t need the dirty details,” I said, not moved by his pathetic attempt at a sob story.
“Margie made us get married. It was that or leave the ranch. I had nowhere else to go and, well, stupid kid that I was, I thought that what Janet did meant that she loved me. She didn’t. She just loved sex. I thought the first time I caught her sneaking back from a guest cabin, maybe she’d gotten drunk and lost or something. The second, fifth, ninth time, well, I knew the truth. I wasn’t enough for her. I tried to hide it from Margie, afraid if she knew how bad of a husband I was, she’d throw me out. So I worked harder, did whatever I could to cur her favor and hide Janet’s infidelities.
“We were living in Sagebrush Cabin, you know, the one with the side swing and the long porch?”
I caught myself halfway though a nod. I refused to pity the man.
“Caroline was just a kid then, three, maybe four years old. It was the end of the season, and I was working late trying to get the water system re-insulated before it started freezing at night. Janet was supposed to be watching her. I guess Caro went to sleep and Janet thought she could slip out to see a guest and be back in time to wake her up for breakfast. At that point, she wasn’t even bothering to hide it from me.
“Anyway, she was off with some guy when Caro woke up, wandered out of the cabin and got lost in the dark. I was up by the barn when I heard her screaming. I remember running through the dark and the cold, trying to find her. Margie heard, too. Hell, the whole ranch heard. Even as a little kid Caro had a big mouth. Margie got pissed, wanted to know why her daughter was out getting frostbite in her pajamas. Janet came stumbling from some cabin, Margie saw her and all fuck broke loose.
“Short story long, Margie threw her off the ranch. Basically cut her off. Mostly it was cause of leaving Caroline alone, but, well, Margie always knows a lot more that she lets on.”
This made my stomach roll a little. Mike paused to, probably wondering the same thing as I was.
“She knew her daughter was less than faithful in her marriage. I thought for sure it was gonna be my fault, you know? But Margie chose me. She let me stay and sent her daughter away. On the condition that I don’t mess around.”
I sat there for a moment, shaking my head.
“That,” I said, narrowing my eyes to mere slits of hatred, “is the biggest load of horse shit I’ve ever heard.”
“It’s true. I haven’t seen Janet in years.”
“So why stay married to her? Why not get a divorce?”
A that, Mike colored, and sat back down in his chair. He looked so pitiful, a tiny part of me wanted to give him a hug. The majority of me told that small part to shut the fuck up.
“HR Bar is a family business,” he said, staring down at his desk. “I thought...I used to think, maybe. Maybe if I was family, she’d...”
“She’d give you the ranch.”
“Maybe.” He shook his head. “It’s stupid, but yeah, I guess I did.”
“You selfish bastard.”
Mike looked up at me, though it wasn’t me he was seeing in a new light. He swallowed hard and looked down again.
“Why me?” I said after a bit. “Women throw themselves at you all the time, prettier ones than I’ll ever be. Why me all of the sudden?”
“Nobody else has been worth the risk.”
I snorted again.
“I mean it.” He stood up again and came around the desk. “You are the best person I’ve ever met. When I’m near you, and I can’t touch you, I feel like I’m choking. Cause I just want to reach out and hold you, bury myself in you. You make me forget myself, like I’m free.” He put his hand out to touch my cheek but I leaned away.
“Stop.”
“I can’t.”
“Michael, you cannot say these things to me.”
“Why not?”
“Because you aren’t free!” I stood up from the chair, backing away from his reach. “It doesn’t matter how I make you feel, Mike. You are somebody’s husband. You’re a fucking liar.”
“Stop saying that.”
“Not saying anything don’t change the truth. Not one bit.”
Mike’s face screwed up. When he spoke, his voice with tight with emotion.
“I never set out to hurt you. And I sure didn’t mean to make you feel like that. I just wish I could make you understand-”
“I understand everything.”
“No, Emma, you don’t get it!”
He reached out for me but I backed away until I was against the wall. It seemed to make him angry.
“So yeah! I’m married. And it’s awful. Because I love you! I love you so much. And it’s wrong, I know it’s wrong but I am so fucking tired of not feeling anything. And you love me.”
“Shut up.”
“You love me and I can feel it. I feel loved. Emma, I cannot go back to what I was. I thought you of all people would understand how much I want to hold on to that!”
“You,” I said, sliding along the wall away from him and towards the door, “you have nothing to say to me right now. Not one damned thing!”
I reached for the doorknob and pulled the door open, but stopped. I wanted to walk through the door. I wanted to walk through it and never ever see that room, never see that man again, just leave and never come back. I’d run so many times. How was this time any different?
Because, in one small part of my heart, I had believed him to be different. I had only been fooling myself.
I looked over my shoulder at him.
“Everyone, every fucking person in my life has let me down. I shoulda known it was just a matter of time. Damn you to hell, Michael.”
I walked through the door, slamming it behind me so hard I heard the glass in the window rattle.
But I wasn’t really mad at him, I realized on the walk back to Hell. I was mad at myself, so fucking mad at what I had let myself become. So wrapped up in this man, this person who didn’t give a shit about me, not really.
“If he had cared,” I whispered to myself. “If he had really cared, he wouldn’t have lied.”
And it was that discovery that truly broke my heart.
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$%^&*&^#W#$#$ forum.... -- Debi, 15:08:50 11/29/10 Mon
This place sucks for eating replies. And I'm just too damned sorry to repeat the whole review that shoud be posted here now (POS bastard forum...)
The gist of my reply is that I enjoyed the piece. Maybe it just needs some polish and some going over, a little embellishment ehre and there. I find it very unfair of Margie to have made Mike marry Janet, and basically condemn him to an unhappy life. It's not saving anyone's feelings or reputation, but I totally see Margie doing it, to 'do the right thing'. I like how Emma calls him 'Michael' twice toward the end, like she's already trying to distance herself from him. His admission of love it sweet and touching and totally not what she wanted to hear right that minute. Emma was spoiling for a fight and he didn't give it to her. Good man. Caroline out playing mountain lion/bear fodder as a toddler is an excellent reason to cut Janet off, but again, I know Mike is wanting to keep his position on the ranch, but it's so unfair for him to remain married to the owner's slutty daughter. Obviously Margie thinks the ranch is better off with him than her own flesh and blood, maybe that's what pissed the old girl off. ;-)
Come back and play again soon!
Debi
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Re: Stuff here! -- Alex, 15:25:26 11/30/10 Tue
Well I have good and bad news. I got laid off from my job. Kind of a bummer before the holidays, but hey, on the plus side, I have time now. Time to catch up on my TBR list, dust off my own writing, visit internet haunts and *gasp* actually be able to participate! *s*
So with that in mind, lately I've been reading like a fiend. A friend recommended Barry Eisler's stories with his protag John Rain. The thing that really struck me through the series is how believable his male characters are. Dialog, emotional outlook, reactions, etc. His female characters are pretty good too, albeit a little more fantasy in spots (i.e. always receptive to sex, despite a tragedy just occurring (family member dying, etc.)).
I literally put BE's story down and read your scene and was immediately struck by Mike's unbelievableness (if that's a word) and how two dimensional he seemed. I kept shaking my head, thinking, why would he confess his love? He feels intensely vulnerable here. Why didn't he clam up? Get defensive? Or angry? Regardless of right or wrong in the situation, while under attack, he's going to either hunker down and weather the storm, or he'll go on the offensive. The last thing he'd do is open his defenses and let the attacker rip his heart out.
That's the first thing that struck me, the second is E's anger dialog is too wordy. Especially when she's yelling.
>>>"NOT ONE FUCKING WORD UNLESS YOU'RE GOING TO TELL ME IT'S NOT TRUE!"
That's a lot of breath, and she's undermining her position by giving him ultimatums. Painting herself into a corner. TELL ME IT'S NOT TRUE! has more impact. Direct. To the point. And she doesn't lose face if he tries to explain himself.
I love Mike's sorrowful eyes. Really adds impact to his silent answer. Instinctively he knows their relationship could be over though, so his dumbfounded expression doesn't jibe. The shit's hitting the fan here. Would he revert to damage control mode like in a crisis at the ranch? Maybe he'd use the dumbfounded expression after his silent affirmation? Would certainly carry more bite if E (and the reader) realized he assumed she knew he was married and hooked up anyway. (Nothing like adding a little insult to injury. *s*) It's also an excellent tactic to try and put her off balance. (Or put himself on equal footing, anyway.) IMHO, the reader needs to 'see' more of Mike, especially the dull paper grind he's doing, to better understand and sympathize with his position and accept why he made the choices he did. So as a scene overall E come through loud and clear, but Mike isn't as vivid. Maybe to tap into his side of the equation, try mapping out the scene from his perspective?
As always the intent of my crit is to be helpful, not to slice and dice. I hope I haven't caused offense by offering my feedback. ~Alex
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Don't want to work on Margie's farm no more... -- Fi, 10:13:58 12/03/10 Fri
Please bear in mind that I have v little context, just what you've given here + the love scene from a while back.
Over impression: it starts off well, plenty of righteous anger. E&M talking across each other, like people tend to do when they're arguing.
Then the story about Mike's background on the ranch - which I liked overall, but the speech about his marriage hit a few wrong notes. What kind of guy talks about how his ex came on to him, when he's in an argument with his current squeeze? A guy who's making excuses, or wants to make his current gf feel bad?
Then his declaration of love - which again seemed verbose for someone in a knock-down argument. Fewer words would get the point across just as well and sound more natural. Like maybe he just says “Nobody else has been worth the risk” and "It's awful because I love you!" and that's it before she storms out.
Lines I liked:
>Hot damn, how this ranch liked paperwork.
>“I never thought I’d speak ill of the dead, but he did a shitty job.”
>He looked so pitiful, a tiny part of me wanted to give him a hug. The majority of me told that small part to shut the fuck up.
Typos:
>the closet thing I’d ever had to happy.
the closest thing I’d ever had to happy?
>cur her favor
curry her favor?
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Nailed it, all of you! -- Larn, 21:16:01 12/03/10 Fri
You've all pointed out the things I can't stand about this scene and couldn't put my finger on. Hurray!
Ok, back to work...
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