The library hasn’t called to tell me my book is ready to be picked up. It’s terribly annoying. 😦
Also, this weeks posts have been great. So I have nothing smart or witty to add as far as writing goes. How can I compete with Andy, Carol Lunch, and Christ Crown?
Here are some videos to watch.
🙂
This is the funniest clip of all time. 🙂
{Ignore that corny background music}
Okay. That’s all I have to say.
Filed under Uncategorized
Before I begin this post, I just wanted to tell Carol “Happy Birthday!” I was hoping her birthday would land on the day I post.
You’ll never hear her say it, but Carol is a fine person. She’s not only an amazing beauty for her age (she’s much older than I am–but you can’t tell until we pull out the birth certificates), but she’s a fine writer, fine friend and very, very funny. When I started reading this blog she and Andy write, I said to my wife, “I need to try out for a day to post.” After almost two years, I got my day in the limelight (I was scrubbing the floor around the toilet when I said this. My wife was handing me toothpicks so I could get things super clean.). But back to Carol.
I met Carol when her youngest, Carolina, was a baby (I was later Carolina’s bishop. What a privilege to be the Williams’ bishop. I sure have missed BEING bishop and wish I had that calling again and I have missed that family of amazing women plus Cheri Earl. I put the fear of God in Carolina when I would do the birthday interviews.).
During the years I have seen Carol publish one amazing book after the other, seen her serve the writing community and watched as she performed many times from the stage (she is a fantastic singer. And yes, I’ve sung up there with her as a back-up).
I’ve watched Kyra grow up. Her writing will probably be supporting us all. And I’ll tell you what, she certainly DOES have a ‘hot Indian boyfriend’ (though I feel a little uncomfortable saying that).
While I’m at it, I need to say a thing or two about Andy. While Carol and I were singing, Andy was growing up. Now that she’s old enough to be published she has written some amazing books. These books are full of voice and feeling, and while I might sound a little like a woman when I say this next part, Andy’s books caused me to choke up. I actually cried on an airplane, EVERYTHING IS FINE in my used-to-be football player hands. More on that later.
Here’s my own haiku about Carol Lee and Ms Andy (!!! another rhyme right there)
Andy and Carol Lunch Will
“Yums” are the word for
those two girl writers
That probably says it best.
Happy Birthday, Carol. And to the two of you–Thank you for letting me be a part of this really great blog. While we may only have two readers (especially on the days I post), writers just don’t know what they’re missing. This blog is smart, funny and teaches the writer to become better at what he does. It’s certainly taught me to be a finer professor and human being. Please wait a moment while I wipe my eyes and blow my nose.
Now on to my post
On Monday, I spoke at a civil rights conference in Oakley, Kansas. I stayed in the home of the conference organizer in Quinter, Kansas, about 30 miles east of Oakley. Here’s a writing prompt based on my real-life experience:
Find Quinter, Kansas on a map. It’s there, in western Kansas, right on I-70. It’s a quiet little town, population 918, surrounded by cultivated fields that have gobbled up most of the great plains. Kansas, you’ll remember, is the state that hosted the grisly murders that became In Cold Blood, and if you have a chance to chat up a bunch of Kansans, you’ll assume that the two killers who cut up the Clutter family, must have been from out of state.
Like most small towns, Quinter has a Main Street and a few blocks of wood-frame houses, each with an elm tree or two in the front yard. There’s a Rexall Drug store on Main Street, just across from the public library, which closes at 5:00.
Across the street and down a block, a four-story Victorian house occupies most of the corner. The buffalo grass in the front yard looks dry and crunchy, like it could use a good rain. Though the house, built in 1904, isn’t shadowed by trees, it has a shadowy look about it.
If you cross the yard on the winding path of concrete fragments that lead to the front door, you will reach the four well-worn wooden steps that take you up to the covered porch. Before you take that first step, something, you’re not sure what, makes you pause. Wind in the trees? A squirrel scurrying across the porch roof? A faint and desperate whisper? Even though it’s sunny outside, you shiver in the shadows and look behind you, to the right and to the left. No one, nothing. In fact, for a moment you imagine that you’re in some sort of Twilight Zone and you will soon discover that not only is this Victorian house empty, but so is the entire town. But you know better, you have the address, 508 Main, it’s real and right and before your eyes, so you walk up the creaky steps and ring the doorbell. The front door is open, and through the screen door you see your hostess, Valerie. She’s much younger than you expected, and when she sees you, her face lights up and she hustles over to the screen door to hold it open while you drag your suitcase into the house.
The night passes pleasantly but unremarkably at first. You meet her husband, tall and tanned with a profile like Cliff Robertson in his prime. Dinner is delicious and plentiful, and the two children pay you little mind while they put away their mashed potatoes in anticipation of the real pay-off: a made-from-scratch chocolate cake with a chilled cream-cheese frosting.
After dinner, the hostess and her husband take you on a tour of the place, proud to show off how they’ve transformed it in the last few years. The stairs are steep and narrow, but you enjoy seeing the tidy bedrooms, sitting rooms, and bathrooms on each level. Every wall is neatly painted or wallpapered, and each room stocked cozy with antiques. On the top floor, where the outer walls slant to the ceiling, you feel a little claustrophobic but can’t imagine why. At the end of the short hallway on the fourth floor, you see the one flaw in their remodel: a splintery wooden door with a rusty iron handle in the shadows. You point it out and ask your hostess about it, assuming that it leads to the attic. Her smile fades, and something flits behind her eyes, and in the incandescent light, you swear that she paled for a moment. But for only a moment, for she recovers quickly and says with a laugh that, well, it’s a big house and they’ve simply not been able to get to everything yet. The husband says nothing, but he gives her a look that surprises you.
The tour takes you down the front staircase, four flights to the main floor, then back through the kitchen and a long playroom to another set of stairs, as steep as any in the house, but these are not wooden but cold black stone. You’ll be down here, says the hostess. She rubs her arms as if a sudden cold breeze came through.
The husband leads the way down the stairs, cautious for some reason, as if he’s worried one of the steps might slide right out from under him. The stairs end in a wide family room that takes up most of the low-ceiled basement that is well lit but dark nonetheless. You bedroom is tucked into a corner. A jet-black refrigerator sits right outside your door. Left and down a wide, dark hallway is the bathroom. The hostess perks up, but it’s forced, fake, and asks if you’d like to see the secret room. Out of the corner of your eye, you notice that the husband is frowning and shaking his head, but she doesn’t see him. She walks to the wall opposite your bedroom, and leans into a section next to the fire place. The wall gives way, and you’re expecting cobwebs and cobble stones behind it, but when she switches on a light, you see it’s a barren wine cellar—long wooden racks, but nary a bottle among them. You step in, feel chilled immediately and step right back out. The hostess says something about the fact that they’re not wine drinkers, switches off the light and pulls the door closed. You think you hear something, something like what you heard when you first approached the house, but no, it couldn’t be. Not down here. Nope. Nothing.
You settle into your windowless bedroom, read for a while, then get into your pajamas, switch off the light, and crawl into bed. With the lights out, the room is blind black. The bed’s comfortable, and the room is quiet as a tomb. At first. Then the darkness starts to feel thicker, and you think you hear something again. Water in the pipes, you tell yourself. And maybe the wind has kicked up.
Or maybe you’re imagining things.
You must have fallen asleep, but you wake up, confused, unsure of where you are. Your eyes strain against the blackness, your heart’s pounding. Then you remember: you’re in the basement of a century-old house in Quinter, Kansas. An ancient house, yes, it all comes back now. You hit the button on your digital watch: 3:13a.m. You’re not sure what woke you or if you’ll be able to drop back to sleep. You lay on your back, staring at the unseen ceiling, feeling the movement of your own breathing and the dull thudding of your pulse.
Sounds. At least you think they’re sounds, but you can’t be quite sure. It’s getting creepy, but you shrug it off. The hostess and her husband are salt-of-the-earth Midwesterners. Don’t let your imagination run away with you. But you can’t help lying still, holding your breath, listening for an unseen presence, fighting to push your paranoid panic aside.
Then the bedroom door creaks open . . .
[OK, dear readers—all two of you—finish this. And make it good. If it’s REALLY good, Andy might give you a prize.]
Filed under Uncategorized
It’s no secret I love Project Runway. If you haven’t seen it, you should try it out. Every week there’s a new challenge and the designers have like twenty four hours to make a fashionable and wearable (no gluing things onto the model) garment. It’s pretty amazing what they come up. Here’s a bird seed dress:
birdseed house from project runway
This was a pet store challenge. The collar is made of sunflower seeds. I love it.
The other day I was thinking, we should have a similar contest (but with writing, of course) on this blog. It would be epic! Anyone can enter and we’d have three judges (I have a few in mind) and there would also be a popular vote so we could all support each other and get in on the fun. Every week we’d have a different writing challenge and one by one we’d get closer and closer to a GRAND FINALE WINNER Â and the prize would be out of this world (sort of–not really, but it would be good. Like better than chocolate or money. something publishy). So what do you all think? Should we do it?
I think we should.
Also. I have something to say about golden tickets. I will say it later.
Filed under Ann Dee
Throwing Up Words 