M.L. Boyd
 
 Click here for part one of "The Shadow Thief"

... I went back to my study cubicle.

The girl in front of me was gone. Throwing the book down, I snatched up my bag and thundered towards the door. Surveillance, Shannon, you were here for surveillance. Hurtling down the stairs, I glanced out the window and caught a glimpse of perfectly curled brown hair of bouncing down the brick path under a black umbrella. I had little time. If I didn’t catch up with her quick, she’d get lost in the twisting halls and corridors of the old mansion.

My bag, it seems, had other ideas and wanted to make friends with the railing. Lovely day when the most fascinating thing you discover is the ringing sound your head makes when it connects with a hollow metal stair rail. Bonus: when a cute guy helps you untangle yourself from the half-nelson your bag has you in. Gee, thanks! Like the huge red welt on my head? I worked really hard on it. You have gorgeous eyes.

It’s okay, though. I love migraines. The aura makes the rain more interesting. Oh, and the black umbrella? Definitely made Perfect Hair Girl stand out in a crowd. I wanted to shoot myself.

Rain-soaked, I hurried toward the old mansion. And waited. I could hear the seconds grinding by as the metal and glass automatic doors inched open bit by bit. Once I squeezed through, I was tempted to run, but I needed to look casual. So, I settled for a fast-paced walk. Bad idea. The terracotta tiles turned the hall into a skating rink. Two seconds later, I was flat on my butt, and staring up at the same gorgeous pale blue eyes.

“Maybe I should stick around incase you need help again.” Gorgeous Eyes had a melodic baritone voice and a dazzling smile.

I shot off a quick, “Uh, thanks… gotta run!” way too loud. And I’m pretty sure everything came out in Neanderthal speak, “Uh, thu-uh… gog-ruh!” Smooth.

I bolted toward the end of the hallway. I felt like a gnome was whacking the inside of my head with a chisel as I sprinted up the stairs. This place was three floors high and had no sense of order to the stairs and halls. My only hope was to work from back to front. Rear exits first, top floor next, bottom floor and lower exits last. And I had to do it without looking conspicuous.

Opening the rear doors on the second floor, I stared out onto the battered flagstone that led to the back pathways and scanned the paths for anyone who might look remotely like the girl with the perfect curls. Hypnotized by the downpour, I wracked my brain for a decent excuse. “I lost my cell phone.” Uncreative. “I’m looking for a friend.” Uncreative and cliché. Right now, “My hamster ran away,” sounded like a more believable excuse. I turned around and slammed right into gorgeous-eyed-melodic-voiced-dazzling-smile-guy.
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The rain pelted the glass angrily, causing water to run down the window panes in sheets. I stared at it, numb. The rain was stupid, anyway. It washed out the landscape, muddied the paths, and soaked everything in grey. The only thing that made the rain worse was the optimists, “Oh, isn’t it wonderful? The rain will make the flowers grow!”

Right, like you’ve never had half an inch of rain in your cutesy pink galoshes, and your adorable flowered rain coat magically keeps your legs from getting soaked through in a 20 minute walk across campus in a typhoon. Call me a realist, a pessimist, or whatever, but you can judge me after you’ve been sitting in the library for an hour with dripping wet socks and jeans that refuse to rid themselves of the ridiculous below-the-rain-coat-but-above-the-rain-boots watermark. Everyone’s a pessimist when they’re on the verge of hypothermia because some cranky librarian thinks kids study better when it’s 56 degrees inside on a rainy day.

Lucky for you, you caught me on a good day. Trust me, Wednesdays are much worse. Statistics and a late lunch put me in a nasty mood before my hand’s even beat the crap out of my alarm clock. That’s tomorrow. Today, however, is far better. No classes means my alarm clock is silent. Hence my good mood.

While the other girls on my hall would take a free day to focus on fashion, attracting boys, and the occasional spasm of studying before a midterm, I prefer a darker realm. Growing up where I did, you learn pretty quick that the world isn’t Candyland and lollypops. It’s more like Shoots and Ladders where someone greased the rungs with bacon fat and left the bacon at the bottom to attract the wolves. Life is ugly. It’s not some orderly thing you can control at will. You can ignore the ugliness and try to make everything glitter and rainbows, you can wallow in it and go emo, or you can learn to navigate the ugliness and make it work for you. The latter requires a serious case of cynicism mixed with tenacity. Two things I excel in.

I looked down at the book in front of me. It was huge. And it smelled like something had died in between the pages. Considering the yellow stain that ran down the spine between page 435 and page 436, that was a strong possibility. I turned a page and scanned a few columns about Edward IV. Who knew that the Wars of the Roses had nothing to do with English gardens? On a side note, Parliament had Edward’s children declared illegitimate so his brother could take the throne, and, would you look at that, Edward’s oldest daughter married Henry VII, dear old dad to good ol’ Henry VIII. I snapped the book shut. I wasn’t here to read.

Checking to make sure the girl in front of me was deeply involved in her physics homework, I shoved the book onto the return-here-or-die cart and went off to find something less interesting. As much as my fingers itched to pick up Bram Stoker, I veered away and looked for something old and boring. Preferably in Latin. Anything I couldn’t read. My fingers danced over the more fascinating titles and rested on a little rat bitten book covered in watermarks and what I hoped was coffee stains. 


Click here for part two of "The Shadow Thief"
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It's a tricky thing creating a world. 

In fact, it's frighteningly easy for a story teller to kill the world they're creating. The story gets going, and the author thinks, "Right! And then this happens over here, and wouldn't it be perfectly metaphorical if this happened - so, of course, it must happen - and then..."

Before you know it, the created world is gasping for air, struggling under the choke hold the author unwittingly has on it. Real life doesn't happen in an orderly sequence. There aren't always explanations for what happens. And, while poetic justice and perfectly metaphorical things do happen, they're rare.

The same holds true for a created world. It's going to be a messy, unpredictable place. If the author is in full dictatorial control, the story will be flat and stagnant. But, if the created world is given an element of free will, exciting things are bound to happen.

I love to hear authors talk about how the world they're creating catches them by surprise. One minute you think your character is headed off to grandma's house and the next thing you know, they're stranded and floundering in a bog with filled with ill-tempered alligators. And the author is stuck wondering how on earth alligators ended up in Canada and if there's even a bog in Ontario.

Or, in the case of the story I'm working on, you end up with Mongolian death worms prowling the woods in the winter. Who knew?
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Up for a quick workout? Close your eyes... well, squint or something so you can still read the rest of this, and think about your purse, briefcase, backpack, or whatever you use to carry things in on a daily basis. Now, picture a small, fuzzy creature with a stubby little tail, short rounded ears, and big brown eyes. And a big, big mouth full of razor sharp teeth. The little creature you're picturing? It lives in your bag. Explains how things go missing, doesn't it? Your little monster must have been eating something or it's chubby little tummy wouldn't be so round. You can name your little critter if you want, but be careful how quickly you reach into your bag the next time. I wouldn't want anyone losing a finger to those sharp little teeth.

Would you look at that... just a moment of your time, you've exercised your imagination. Well done! Oh, and while you've been exercising, the critter in your bag has eaten a few more things. Hope none of those items were very important.

Best of luck, and happy adventuring with your newfound sack monster.
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On Blogging 09/19/2011
 
I heard a great bit of advice today from Erin Reel (aka The Lit Coach). Speaking to an unpublished writer, she said blogging was a great way to establish one's voice. I've heard that advice before. Unfortunately, I haven't liked many blogs I've seen. Most come off as gratuitous and self-centered. Myopic. I've seen good blogs. Several of my friends have envy-worthy blogs. Personally, I didn't want to stumble into the territory of egocentric babbling. Getting back to Reel's advice, she addressed the question of what one should blog about. Her answer: People want to hear your perspective.

That's an entirely different thing than writing a myopic epic about one's daily life.

I can write about my day - what I ate for breakfast, how I triumphantly started 5 loads of laundry, the humor of trying to throw myself out the door to get to my midwives' office on time, how my appointment went - and so on. But that's just narrating. I did this, and then I did that. Oh, and this was funny, right?

Perspective delves into deeper things. For example, I had a bowl of Cinnamon Toast Crunch for breakfast. Whoop de do. Who cares? Perspective would explore something else. Say, an argument about whether eating a full bowl of sugar-and-preservative-laced cereal is more harmful to my unborn child than only being able to choke down a few bites of something I can't stomach because of my nausea.

The laundry? No big deal. People do laundry every day. Families with children do far more laundry than I do and would laugh that I thought five loads was a note-worthy deed. Perspective would add the dimension that I have fibromyalgia. As someone who has dealt with the fatigue and aches of fibromyalgia for as long as I can remember, I've dreamed of the day I could conquer two hampers full of laundry in one day without collapsing on the couch in muscle spasms and utter exhaustion. I could write about the daily choices one has when faced with a chronic illness: succumb to despair or choose hope and press forward. I could expound on how those daily choices lead to daily failures or daily triumphs. Most people wouldn't count 5 loads of laundry as a triumph. Someone with a chronic illness would.

I could go on, but I'm wading dangerously close to the currents of blathering. So, I'll leave you with this: I think perspective is something we can never have enough of. Drink deep, friends. Work to get outside of the daily grind of your world. Try to see the forest; get clear of the thick of the trees. There's so much to be unearthed if only we would look beyond what our hands are doing right now.
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