The four-year-old as The Doctor: “I turn daleks into vampires with my screwdriver, then I have to kill the vampires!”
When You Have No Choice About Letting Go
My childhood home is being sold in the morning. Coincidentally, I just reached the part of my novel where my main character’s beloved spaceship is brutally destroyed.
Fairy Tale Crossover
The four-year-old is explaining to me that there are three piggies in Little Red Riding Hood — one building a house and two looking for the wolf.
Tidbits from NaNoWriMo
[Discussion of day-old guinea pigs]
4-yr-old: “What?! If they eat carrots, then they are bunnies!”
Daniel: “Do you eat carrots?”
4: “No!” Continue reading “Tidbits from NaNoWriMo”
Coat Based Irony
I wish I could hang my coats in my closet… but I can’t open my closet due to all the coats stacked in front of it.
Writing Amusement Park?
#NaNoWriMo is such an emotional roller coaster.
Surreal Dream
I dreamed the four-year-old was a balloon. Two stars, would not like to dream again.
Mouthful of Nightmare
HAPPY HALLOWEEN!
Last week, we gave you a treat — two Shreddy the cat stories. Today, we have the corresponding trick — a trio of bite-sized stories that add up to a mouthful of nightmare:
- FemCloud Inc. — Every action is a choice. [~400 words]
- Birthing Class — Daniel has a sinister alien life growing inside him. [~2,700 words]
- Take Them to the Happiness Zoo — A mother considers an impossible choice. [~400 words]
Take Them to the Happiness Zoo
by Mary E. Lowd
Originally published in Theme of Absence, April 2016
Exhausted, Junie watched her five-year-old daughter and two toddler sons play with Gorvall. They stacked up colored blocks and knocked them down. Gorvall’s long gray fingers helped pry apart the building blocks that stuck together. The colorful towers reflected in his large, teardrop-shaped black eyes.
Birthing Class
by Mary E. Lowd
Originally published in Theme of Absence, June 2016
Standing in the hospital lobby, Daniel spread his hands over the shirt covering his flat belly. He tried to imagine the alien life growing inside him, but it didn’t seem real. He didn’t feel any different than he had a week ago.
A couple women walked by Daniel, chatting with each other. The base’s hospital was otherwise quiet at this time of evening. Daniel turned back toward the row of glass doors that led out to the dry, desert air of Eridani Mu, wanting to leave the hospital. The buildings of the human base were under the shadow of twilight now, but the majestic spires of the alien city in the distance were still lit by the pink-and-orange tinged sunset. In only five years since the humans had crashed here, those spires had grown and stretched until they dwarfed the human base. Continue reading “Birthing Class”