Writing From the Inside

Title: Giving Thanks

Author: Sylvia Bond

Genre/Rating: Gen/PG

Word Count:  18,182

Fandom: Dark Shadows

Verse: Gina Lee (# 4)

Summary: It is Thanksgiving time, and Gina Lee, who has extra pies in her kitchen, brings one to Willie at the Old House. Entertaining guests is not within servant’s rights, so Barnabas pitches a fit and then punishes Willie. Only trouble is, now Willie needs to return the pie pan, which he does, and then it gets worse from there.

A/N: I had to call my brother in law to find out what they used to call Thanksgiving back in Barnabas’ day, and of course he knew, because he’s totally cool like that. As for Barnabas, he never could appreciate a nice Pilgrim hat.

***

Gina stared at the pies on her kitchen counter as they cooled fast in the chill of the coming dusk. It was raining, but she didn’t want to light a fire without the kids in to enjoy it. They were ensconced at the neighbors, two houses down, who, shortly after Ezra’s untimely demise, had knocked on her door and announced their intention to be friends. It was hard to resist the couple, who with two little boys of their own, plied her with company, and food, and charity that was given in such a way as it never seemed like charity and by the time she’d realized it, it had always been too late.

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Title: Gina Lee

Author: N.J. Nidiffer

Genre/Rating: Gen/PG

Word Count: 7,455

Fandom: Dark Shadows

Verse: Gina Lee (# 3)

Summary: Willie once helped out Gina Lee, now she wants to invite him home to lunch to repay him. But even that simple act is fraught with problems.

A/N: By this time, the Gina Lee verse was up and running, taking on a life of its own. When she wrote this installment, Nik admitted to me that she was leaving threads and breadcrumbs strewn about on the hopes that I would pick one of them up and make a story about it. Of course I did, because I was as much in love with these characters as she was.

***

He didn’t really jump six feet in the air when he felt a tug on the back of his jacket. He only felt like he did. Willie dropped his armload of caulking supplies into the bed of the truck and spun around on his heels, searching for the unexpected hand that had touched him. There was no one there.

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Title: Tree

Author: Sylvia Bond

Genre/Rating: Gen/PG

Word Count: 11,210

Fandom: Dark Shadows

Verse: Gina Lee (# 2)

Summary: Willie’s doing his best at the Old House, but he accidentally cuts down the tree that Josette planted many, many years ago. Barnabas, of course, punishes him, and then demands that he get rid of the wood. Willie, for some reason, decides that it would be a good idea to give the wood to the widow, Gina Lee Logan, as well as Sam Evans, to keep them warm through the winter.

A/N: It was Nik who said she wanted a development of a snippet of a scene from another story, where Willie references the time Barn locked him in the cellar, in the dark. She wanted to know why Barn would do that. Well, cutting down that damned tree is why, of course!

***

Willie sat in front of the kitchen fireplace, his chair pulled up close and his bare feet toasting on the flagstones laid along the hearth. The sun was just going down and a damp fog was setting in, and he’d been working outside in the weather for three days. Chilled to the very core of his muscles, the tree he’d just finished chopping and splitting and stacking gave off a bright, hot light. Moreso than the ordinary kindling he ordered from the local lumberyard. And the wood had been so hard, he’d had to sharpen the axe every hour or so on an old whetstone he’d found in the basement. He was worn through.

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Title: Deep Water

Author: N.J. Nidiffer

Genre/Rating: Gen/PG

Word Count: 3,354

Fandom: Dark Shadows

Verse: Gina Lee (# 1)

Summary: Willie picks up a local village woman and her kids after their car breaks down in a storm. And, of course, seeing as this is a story about Willie, bad things happen after that.

A/N: My friend Nik wrote this story, and I thought it was a very good story, so much so that I was inspired to write a sequel of sorts, called Tree, where more bad things happen.

 ***

Willie spotted them on the coastal highway, trudging through the slush on the side of the road nearly two miles outside of town. He drove past, and for a moment his foot tightened on the gas. He had somewhere else he had to be.

But. . . .

Ah, hell.

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This is a sad followup to the other post by a similar name, in which I talk about two great fanfic writers that I know who have completely internalized the art of the simile. Sadly, one of them has just passed away. Her name was Nik. She had a heart attack on the 2nd of December, and went into a coma. Diagnosis was never good, she was brain dead from lack of oxygen, but they kept her on life support until they pulled the plug on the 9th. She breathed on her own for a bit, they moved her into hospice, and then on the 13th, she finally passed away.

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Having waxed poetic about my expectations of how great Jeffrey Dean Morgan was going to be in the upcoming movie, “The Watchmen,” I decided that it might be a good idea to actually read the original comic book, and, after having fun purchasing a copy, read it I did. Here is a link to my review on pinkraygun.com. Enjoy!

So, on November 24 of this year, I unplugged my cable.  And how’s it going, you ask?

I’m still struggling with not being able to just sit down and find something mindless to watch, but, I think the end results will be worth it. While I miss the History Channel like crazy, I do not miss the reality shows that were getting stupider and stupider. The Amazing Race seemed like it might be fun, but really. I get enough of that kind of reality when I’m late for a plane.  Sometimes I do sit down, and spin through my ginormous collection of about, oh 15 selections, and YES, sometimes I’ll watch something for five minutes before realizing I have no idea what it is or what it’s about. And then I’ll turn the TV off. It’s a hard habit to break.

Here’s what I’ve found that’s cool though. Last Sunday, I cooked. Now, I do that a lot acutally, cook on Sunday to make rice and stuff for the rest of the week, but normally, I’m thinking, well, I’ll get down to the TV (which is in the basement) and get all ready and…and then I remember. I’m on MY schedule now. I don’t have to rush. I’ve got tons of DVDs and movies I can instantly watch on Netflix. I have books to read – I’m way over my head with stuff I can do, without having to race to match the network’s schedule. Isn’t that nice?

I go to bed now when I’m tired and when it’s time, NOT when the show is over.

I’ve stopped looking at the clock while writing because it doesn’t matter what time it is.

I’ve cleaned out three closets (yes, three) with the extra time I’ve found.

I wrote an article reviewing The Watchmen comic book/graphic novel, and was finally able to finish it up. I’ve started a new project about fanfic and fanwriters for PRG. I’m trying to determine whether I want to focus on a) writing more fanfic, b) writing more articles, c) writing on that novel of mine, d) making songvids. I’m pretty sure that I’d have time for ALL of these if I was more disciplined with my time.

I barely look at the TV anymore. I’m sure it feels lonely.

You can read my review of the Supernatural episode “Hollywood Babylon” at pinkraygun.com. Thank you!

An excerpt:

“There’s some lovely close-ups of Sam and Dean’s faces in the next scene, where once again in the trailer, the boys view the dailies. Sam uses his super smart ginormous brain to figure out that the invocation that “Wendy” is using to raise whateverthehell is real, and that this and not the ghost of the actress might be their real problem. The trailer is well lit, and the close-ups are excellent, I must say, especially of Sam thinking. His forehead gets this delightful squinched up expression, and his mouth kind of hangs open, all soft and pink, and his eyes glitter. I think he rather enjoys being smart, you know? He looks so beautiful when he does it that I rather enjoy it too.”

Pics…

 Squinched up and perfect

Scruffy and work ready

Not bedazzled by actors

Tool belt or crotch

Hair in eyes

Fitting in

Pyro boy

Thighs astraddle

Thinking things through

Redwood tree with hair

You can read my review of the Supernatural episode “Heaven and Hell” at pinkraygun.com. Thank you!

An excerpt:

“And THEN Dean takes his shirt off. In a word, incendiary. My couch was still charred from last week, thank you very much, and I kept thinking I might want to disconnect all those fire alarm batteries just in case. Because it was hot, full stop. It was hotter than burning, it was seduction and skin and a whole lot of sizzle, and I was bought and sold by the images of Dean’s bare back. He’s got a beautiful one, made up of curved muscles and that dip of spine, and lord, you could see a little bit of his underroos, which just sweetened the whole deal. I about died. Anne Shirley who? Doesn’t matter who he was with, he was, at LAST, with somebody. For all we’ve gotten the message pounded into our heads that Dean is Romeo and Casanova all rolled into one, it’s about time we got some canonical proof. More like this, please.”

Pics…

Angels want to wear his red shoes

Sam doesn’t like plumber jokes…

But Dean does…

Sam in daylight

Dean in daylight 

Flutter of angels’ wings 

 Following Dean’s lead 

Never give up, never surrender…

Shouting at angels

Tawny boy

Trying to find the truth

So there I was, one day last week (not Thursday), goofing around. I was on the couch, clicker in hand, surfing, desperately surfing for something to distract me. The TV offered up nothing, and an hour later, I found myself watching commercials. I checked the clock. It was 8:30, and I’d accomplished nothing. Done nothing, cleaned nothing, organized nothing, and most important of all, written nothing.

What a waste.

So I called my friend Amalthia (the one who now lives in Alaska) and I talked to her about this for a bit. The TV was, we agreed, a mind suck, especially with all the commercials. I decided to take the plunge and vowed that I would disconnect myself from cable.

I even called the guy at the cable office on Friday, a nice man by the name of Mark, and he understood what I was going through. But here, he said, let me offer you a deal.

Here it comes, I thought.

But it wasn’t too bad. Here was the deal. For $15 a month I could get Basic Cable, which would come directly from the wall to my TV. This would provide me with local channels only, but seeing as that included the two channels I regularly watch “Supernatural” and “Ghost Whisperer” on, I was good with that. What puzzled me was that the last time I wanted to downgrade, they never mentioned this particular option, so for the last two years, I’ve been paying $55 for the “Basic Starter Package,” which contains over a hundred channels (though not the one that has the “Dog Whisperer” on it, sadly), and STILL nothing was on. I guess the cable company wanted to let me down slowly.

Then, Mark offers me a six-month special of 8 mg download speed for my computer at $32.95 a month. I took it. I’m not stupid. (After six months it goes up.)

Because now I’m paying 15 plus 32.95, which is, um,  47.95, which is what I’m paying for computer/internet service now. And in six months, when they up the price of the speed, I can just cut off the cable altogether.

You think?

On Saturday, I did chores, like I do, with the music going full blast, the scrub bucket out, and me singing along with my tunes. I was done by about 11 and the cable office was to close at 1 p.m. I looked at the clock, having been thinking all morning that there was NO way I was going to be able to finish and make it there in time and that the WHOLE plan was going to have to wait till, um, next weekend. Or forever.

Truth is, I just didn’t want to do it. I was hooked, addicted, attached to the teat, and I didn’t want to let go! But I took a deep breath and unhooked everything like Mark told me, and raced down to the cable office expecting to find (as I usually did) a line of angry people protesting their bills. Or, at the very least, a long line. I found neither. It was just me and three lovely ladies behind the counter. They were more than happy to help me, didn’t mind that the box I was returning was covered with dust, and promised me that my bill would be pro-rated and that my lower rate would start right away.

I went to the grocery store and then to home. Dinner was a lovely meal, but I kept thinking, what’s on, what’s on? And had the feeling that I needed to hurry for some reason. So when I went downstairs, I couldn’t help but check. Yep, I still had 100 channels and then some, so I sat down, for no reason at all, and began to surf. Nothing, nothing, nothing. There was nothing on. Really and truly. I turned off the TV and went to my computer, thinking of the 8 mg download speed that was now (or soon to be) mine.

Except my computer is seven years old, and some kind tech guy loaded XP on it, except the computer wasn’t designed for that. It’s always run a little clunky, and now, it’s like a snail. I open a web browser and honest to god, I sit there for a whole minute, sometimes more, waiting for it to draw a page that surely, surely it’s cached long ere this.

It’s not that I do much with it. Mostly I write, and download cool stuff, but what I use it for is to look stuff up. When I’m writing, and I have an idea, I want to look it up, like, yesterday. Trouble is, for the past year, I’ll have something I need to know, open the browser, and then have to sit there while the thing chugs and churns, and all the while my brilliant ideas are getting away from me! So I need a new computer. That’s next weekend.

As for Sunday, I slept in, made myself some tea (Irish Breakfast is my favorite), and then sat down at the computer to write up this week’s review for Supernatural. Long about noon, I got stuck on one part of the review (as in, how to describe the sex scene without coming across as totally pornographic), and sat down on the couch, grabbed up the little clicker that was just for the TV, and turned it on. Scrolled, and within short order discovered that, yep, I only had local channels and guess what? There was NOTHING on! At least as I surfed, I wasn’t wasting my time going through 100 plus channels, I only had 10 or so. Mostly football, so I wasn’t missing a thing. Oddly, I still have the sci-fi channel, so well done, me!

I think it will take me some time to get used to the whole TV-less living. On the one hand, I will have no mind candy to disctact me. On the other hand, I do not have some metal box dictating my daily schedule. I don’t have to work around what’s on TV because nothing is. Ever. Except Thursdays at 9 pm (Supernatural) and Fridays at 7 pm (Ghost Whisperer).

All I can say is thank God for Netflix. (Which I decided after all to keep, since they’ve got this nifty new “instant” watch feature, with lots of things from my orignal queue!)