Sand Trap

 Henry glanced up at the darkening sky as he hurried across the unnaturally green grass. There had been a lull
in the rain, but the clouds were heavy and ominous, threatening to unleash further torrents of cold, soaking
rain.

 The sky wasn’t the only thing contributing to his bad mood. He had awakened that morning from a bad dream, one he couldn’t seem to stop having. In it, he was back home in southern Arizona on a cool spring morning, in the shade of the Chiricahua Mountains. He could smell the wildflowers, the sweetbush, scarlet beeblossom, and desert lavender; he could hear the faint hum of the bees waking in their hives. He stood in front of an old, rusted out pickup truck that had been abandoned there so long ago it had become part of the landscape. Henry and his little brother Bobby had played on it as kids, taking endless imaginary road trips, mostly to California, which they imagined as a sort of border-to-border Disneyland. But in this dream they were no longer kids, and the truck loomed, forbidding, and deadly. Yet his bare feet carried him closer, over the rocky, weed-strewn ground, toward the slumped over shape visible through the space where the windshield used to be. And, as he always did in this half-dream, half-nightmare, he walked to the driver’s side door and pulled. It opened with a screech of tortured metal, showering the ground with flakes of rust. He didn’t want to see what was inside but he was helpless not to look. As always, he was hit by the coppery, meaty smell, took a moment to wonder why the ancient cracked upholstery was soaked with what looked like motor oil, and then he reached for his brother’s shoulder—
 “There you are.” A man’s voice startled him from his reverie. He turned to face Mr. Phelps, the head groundskeeper who had hired him about a month before.
 “Yes, sir. I was just looking for you.” He spoke in the bright, chipper tone he assumed his employer wanted to hear from his underlings.
 “Henry, I need you to help Rodolfo swamp out the sand trap on nine.” He looked from his ever-present clipboard up to the clouds, a troubled look on his face. “I sure hope this shit clears out by tomorrow."
 “I didn’t think it rained this much in California,” Henry said. “I had always heard it was sunny all the time.”
 “Not this far north.” He was already walking away. “Rodolfo should have an extra bucket.”
 Henry watched him for a moment before heading to the ninth green, thinking about how far north he had ended up. His original plan had been L.A., but once he got there he just kept driving. There was no place to stop in LA, not a single highway exit that looked like it led somewhere still and quiet where he could catch his breath and think over his plans. So he kept going north until he hit Mendocino County, and there he came to rest. This had been the first job he applied for. The application process had consisted entirely of Mr. Phelps asking him, “Are you a U.S. citizen? Can you prove it?” Henry had produced his Arizona driver’s license and that was that.
 He came over a rise and saw Rodolfo, wearing his waders and the mandatory blue vest that identified the groundskeeper’s staff, hunched over in the sand trap in a knee-deep puddle of water, bailing water with an intense, steady rhythm.
 “Buenos dias,” Henry said.
 Rodolfo glanced up at him and nodded, his Mayan features and dark eyes impossible to read. Henry had been nothing but respectful and polite, hoping to win over the man’s trust, but he had no idea if it was working.
 As a trainee on probation, Henry had neither waders nor a vest. He stopped on the edge of the grass to strip off his shoes and socks, roll up his pant legs and grab a plastic bucket from the bank. He waded into the ice-cold water, hissing a little from the shock of it, and started bailing, sloshing the water out in an arc over the grass. He tried to lose himself in the repetitive physical nature of the work, but his mind roved of its own accord, still stuck in his dream of that awful morning a few months before he had left Arizona, ruminating over the consequences of what Bobby had done, still trying to figure out why he had done it.
 He felt an acute pang of homesickness, imagining his mom as he had last seen her, sitting at the kitchen table, clutching the rosary beads she had brought with her when she emigrated from Mexico, her lips moving soundlessly, her black hair uncombed and wild. He saw his dad, burly and bearded, tending to the hives, his bare arms crawling with bees, a permanent frown stamped into his features. For a moment he wanted nothing more than to be there with them, in their small adobe house in a field of wildflowers. He missed seeing the jars of honey on the shelves in front of the window, the amber sweetness of the fall’s crop, the unfiltered spring honey, crunchy with sugar crystals. He and Bobby used to test each batch, dipping in wax honeycombs and chewing thoughtfully as their dad stood nearby, waiting to hear their reaction. He encouraged them to free-associate, to say the first thing that popped into their heads as they experienced the taste and texture. Sunflower, Henry might have said, while Bobby was more likely to say something like, Batman, just to make them all laugh. The truly clever and descriptive words might make it onto the labels that their mother carefully hand-glued to each jar.
 “Once I found a Rolex in this sand trap,” Rodolfo said out of nowhere.
 Henry straightened up. His hands had gone numb. “A Rolex?” He hadn’t been sure the guy even spoke English.
 “A very expensive watch.”
 “I know what a Rolex is. You found one here?”
 Rodolfo stopped bailing for a moment and looked out over the trees. “Imagine that,” he said. “Losing something so valuable and not returning to look for it.”
 “No one ever claimed it?”
 “To the man who lost it, it was not worth claiming.”
 “Did you get to keep it?”
 “Yes.” He leaned over and resumed bailing.
 “Did it still work? I mean, didn’t the sand mess it up?”
 “I took it apart and cleaned it. Then I sold it and paid three month’s rent.”
 Henry let out a low whistle, suddenly hating the guy who had lost the watch. “Fuckin’ rich people,” he said.
 “California,” Rodolfo said, as if that explained everything. And maybe it did.

 He had the nightmare again that night. Arizona, the morning light, the wildflowers, the bees, the truck, the shape behind the wheel, the rusty creak of the door hinges. He woke up covered in sweat. It was raining outside.

 The next morning he joined Rodolfo to help swamp out the sand trap again. It was another cloudy morning but the air seemed brighter and maybe, just maybe, this wasn’t an exercise in futility.
 Henry straightened up, put his hands on the small of his back and stretched, wincing. “Don’t you ever get tired of this?” he asked.
 Rodolfo shrugged and kept bailing.
 “How long have you worked here, anyway?”
 “Five years. Since I moved from Guatemala.”
 “Wow, you’re a long way from home. I’m from Arizona, myself. I got here a month ago, but I’m still homesick.” He picked up his bucket and got back to work. “Do you still miss Guatemala?”
 “It’s a very dangerous place. Many murders. My own brother was killed.”
 A chill went up Henry’s spine. “Your brother died?”
 “One day there was a knock on the door of our family home. Someone had left a box on the step. When I opened it, I saw his face looking up at me.”
 “Oh, my God. That’s awful.” He suddenly found himself near tears and he wondered how Rodolfo could be so calm about it. “Why? Why did someone do that to him?”
 “There is much injustice in my country. He spoke out against the wrong people so they sent us all a message.”
 They bailed in silence for several minutes.
 “My brother died, too,” Henry said, keeping his voice low so it wouldn’t shake. “He shot himself. A few months ago. We never figured out why.”
 “I’m sorry.”
 “I was the one who found his body. It was the worst day of my life.”
 “Yes.”
 Henry’s bucket scraped against sand. The trap was almost empty of water. “You know what the worst part is? I can’t stop seeing it. Every time I close my eyes, I see his dead face. I can’t sleep without dreaming about him. I thought moving here would help, but it hasn’t.” He kicked at the wet sand, sending some flying. “How do you handle it? How does the thought of it not drive you crazy?”
 Rodolfo thought for a moment before answering. “It hurts to remember him that way.” He upturned his bucket and sat down on it. “So when I think of him, instead of remembering his face in death, I remember it in life.”
 “What do you mean? How do you do that?”
 “He was going to marry a beautiful girl named Olivia. He was a very serious young man, but she always made him smile. That’s how I choose to remember him. When I start to think about opening that box, I change the picture to see him happy.”
 “Does that work?”
 Rodolfo made eye contact with him for the first time. “I miss him every day,” he said. “But I can’t be scared of my brother. I loved him.”
 Henry let out a long, shaky breath. “Yeah,” he said. “I loved my brother, too.”
 Mr. Phelps appeared on the edge of the grass. “Looks good, fellas. Probably as good as it’s gonna get. The sun should take care of the rest.” He consulted his clipboard. “Rodolfo, I need you to take care of a dead possum on six. Henry, you’re on litter. Somebody’s been smoking behind the clubhouse.” He shook his head. “Some people.”
 They clambered out of the sand trap and headed in different directions.
 “Henry,” Mr. Phelps said.
 He turned around.
 “Your probationary period is up. The job’s yours if you want it.”
 Henry smiled. “Cool.”

 In his dream that night, he stood facing the old truck, smelling the flowers, hearing the bees. His brother was in there, a dark form behind the wheel. As he walked toward it, he realized he was ten years old again, wearing his favorite pair of patched overalls, his hands grubby from playing outside all day. He felt a surge of relief. If he was only ten, then everything was still okay. He saw motion behind the wheel and, as he pulled open the rusty door, he saw his eight-year-old brother in the driver’s seat, bouncing as the truck went down the imaginary road.
 “Come on, Henry,” he said. “Get in! We’re going to California!”
 “Let’s go,” Henry said. “Scoot over. I’ll drive.”

Hell. Yes.

I finished my book yesterday, clocking in at just over 50k. It was exhilerating, exhausting, frustrating, sometimes discouraging, and, ultimately, enlightening. In order to finish, I had to throw my perfectionism out the window. I had to give myself permission to write crap, to let typos and misspellings go uncorrected, to allow glaring continuity errors and clunky prose. And the end result, shockingly, is the best thing I've ever written. I like my characters; they're weird and funny and smart. The situations I've put them in are plausible and intriguing. The happy ending is far less corny than I had feared; they deserve it, after what I put them through.
Yes, I'm tooting my own horn. Loudly. But I think that's kind of the point of NaNoWriMo. You can no longer convince yourself that writing has to be arduous and drawn out, that a true writer must wait for inspiration to strike. It turns writing from something ephemeral and spiritual into a messy, honest day's work. You end up with an honest-to-god book on your hands, something that can be edited, refined, and polished until it shines.
All that comes later, though. For now, I'm going to take a well-deserved week or two off from writing (except for the occasional blog post). I've got some TV to catch up on, a house to clean, a baby to play with, and some Sim lives to lead, with no guilt that I should be doing something else.

20k is A-OK

Well, I made it. Not to the end, but to the point of no return. Basically, I've invested too much thought and energy in my novel to back away now. I'm in it 'til the bitter end. Quite honestly, I wasn't sure I would even get this far.

Seeing that my word count is now over 20,000 words has affected me in a profound way. My worries that the writing life is incompatible with motherhood are fading away. I'm proving to myself that all it takes is a little time each day and, more importantly, the will to keep writing. Comparing my word count to those of my writing buddies spurs me on to catch up, to stay competitive. In sum, NaNoWriMo is pretty damn cool.

I've reached the point in my book where my main characters have identified their main problems and realized their need to solve them. The next section, which I begin today, will have them begin to plan (some might say scheme) to fix the broken things in their lives. The final section will put the plans into action, with all the messiness that comes from major personal change. Then comes the Happily Ever After, though not in a way (hopefully) anyone will foresee.

If I reach the ending before the end of the month, I'll be thrilled. Even if I just reach 50k, before my story ends, I'll feel like I've accomplished something major. I don't know if my novel is any good or not, but I don't care. And that attitude is the best thing that NaNoWriMo has given me so far.

Hit the Ground Trotting

Well, I'm off. I got almost three hours of writing done on November 1st and clocked in at over 2000 words. Not too shabby, although there are people out there whose clickety-clacking puts mine to shame. I think that all things considered, I'm off to a decent start, though I'll be hard-pressed to keep up the pace.

My strategy is to write what I can during weekdays, in between changing diapers, nursing, soothing tantrums, making homemade baby food (why did I decide to start doing that this month?), cleaning the house, and compulsively reading the blogs I follow. If I fall behind, as I undoubtedly will, I'll try to make up for it on the weekends. Ideally, I'll have the time and a little extra cash to do so at a coffee shop, away from the responsibilities and temptations at home.

I'm done with write-ins, however. My first experience with one was a dud. I was kind of expecting a friendly, supportive atmosphere, but no one even made eye contact with me. Plus, having a ton of laptops in a place with limited outlets was a problem; I ended up sitting at a counter with my back to the room, hardly the sort of social experience I was hoping for. It's possible that I'm just too shy, and may have missed a welcoming smile or gesture, in which case I'm being too hard on my fellow WriMos. Whatever. The point is, write-ins are not for me.

Which is not to say I don't have support. I've got a few writing buddies through Pen and Palette, the online writer and artist forum I occasionally post on. And I've got a mentor, through the local forum on the NanNoWriMo website, who seems quite friendly and knowledgeable. Slowly but surely, I'm clawing my way toward respectability by getting to know other writers. I'm opening myself up to their criticism as well as their praise, which will hopefully make me a better writer. In the meantime, I'm just going to keep getting those words down, and keep my eye on that 50k.

NaNoWriMo Uh oh

Holy crap. Only three more days left in October, which means it's almost time to see if I've got what it takes to write an entire novel in a month. My last novel took more than three years of false starts, major shifts in character and structure, and finally, creeping along scene by scene until I reached my destination. And that was before I became the proud mother of energetic and very loud baby boy.
This will be a huge challenge, indeed. In addition to caring for the baby and writing my butt off at every opportunity, I also have a couple of weeks of work coming up and my best friend is scheduled to descend on Austin for a long weekend of drunken debauchery. On top of all that, I have to keep the house clean, shop for and prepare the meals, and keep up with my compulsive blog reading (I need the Comics Curmudgeon).
The bright side to all this is that I work best under pressure. For the past week I've been scoring essays 8 hours per day while managing to keep the baby satisfied and the house clean. I'm harried and disheveled, with huge bags under my eyes, but at least I know I can step up the pace and still hold onto my sanity.
To minimize the impending craziness, I've been doing as much pre-writing as possible. I know how my story starts, who the characters are, what their conflicts are, and how the conflicts are ultimately resolved. I've started a rough outline to show me which scenes happen where. Now all that's left is the hard part: sitting down to actually write the damn thing.
But ... this is the best story idea I've had in a long time. Writing it while it's fresh in my mind will surely be better than agonizing over every little detail until I get fed up and lose interest. If I pull this off, I won't have just written a novel -- I'll have written a good novel.

"The Estate"

The tall man and the woman with the long hair stood side by side in the doorway of the old house.
"There used to be a Turkish rug there," she said, indicating a patch on the floor that was slightly darker than the warped wood surrounding it.
"What a mess," he muttered, his eyes roving over the peeling wallpaper and sagging ceiling.
He walked into the kitchen and she followed. The counter where she used to make bread was gone, ripped away from the linoleum. Mouse droppings drifted along the baseboards. There was no sign of the wooden high chair.
He sighed heavily, hands on his lean hips. She liked the way he looked, standing there in his leather jacket with a beam of sun falling across his face.
"Upstairs is better," she said.
She followed him as he went up. He clung to the banister as the creaking staircase swayed slightly. Something larger than a mouse scrambled inside the wall, startled by the noise. The man's long legs skipped the last two steps and arrived safely on the landing. He looked around the large room at the top of the stairs.
"This is the parlor," she said. "This is where we used to throw parties."
"This isn't so bad," he said softly, walking to a tall arched window and looking out. "This room has potential."
"The piano!" she said. Somehow, improbably, the piano was still in its usual spot near the fireplace. It gleamed, still brand new, not a speck of dust. "I used to play," she said to his back.
She sat at the bench and opened the lid that covered the keys. As always, she was pleased by the orderly rows, black above white. She ran a quick scale. Still in tune. She took a deep breath and began to play Chopin, the golden notes filling the room. The man turned slowly, an amazed look on his face. He squinted as though she was too bright to look at.
She smiled and stopped mid song. "You didn't expect that, did you?"
He started to say something, and that was when the door to the master bedroom burst open so hard it banged off the wall. A wild-eyed man barged into the room. He was dressed all in black, with a white collar. "What is the meaning of this?" he yelled.
"Hello?" the man by the window said. "Who's here?"
The priest ignored him, storming to the piano and slamming the lid shut with an echoing bang.
"I'm sorry," she said. "I didn't realize--"
"We were sleeping!"
That was when she heard the baby, crying from the nursery. She stood quickly to go to him, but the man in the leather jacket was going back down the stairs. The priest went back to his room, closing the door behind him.
"Wait!" she called, not wanting to be left alone in this place. She followed him back to the kitchen where he stood in front of the open back door, breathing deeply.
"What the fuck is going on here?" he said.
"Ignore him," she said. "He's mean."
The man stepped out onto the back porch into the bright afternoon light. She followed. He looked over the back yard, a vast stretch of green run rampant, rosebushes untrimmed, herb garden grown amok into a riot of color and smell. He went down the steps and onto the grass. She wanted to follow him, but there were dead animals at the bottom of the steps, a mouse, a lizard, a baby bird, arranged in a row as though left there by an orderly cat. She frowned at them, feeling like crying, but the man stepped over them without a word.
"I can't go down there," she said. But a cold wind from the open door behind her changed her mind. The man was getting far away and she wanted to feel him near. She gingerly stepped over the row of dead, broken animals. Her bare foot sank into the grass, indented the soft earth beneath.
That's when she heard it. A low, rumbling growl from the bushes to her right. She froze with one foot on the ground, the other on the step. Her head turned, slowly, and saw a pair of eyes glowing from within the tangled branches.
"No," she whispered.
The eyes moved closer and light fell onto the face, like that of a dog but bigger, meaner, more ancient. The growl grew louder as the animal's massive shoulders came into view. It crouched as if to spring.
"No!" she screamed.
The man, halfway across the yard, spun around.
She fell backward onto the steps, screaming. "The wolf! It's the wolf!"
As soon as her foot left the earth the growling stopped. The eyes dimmed as the beast backed into its lair.
Sobbing, she backed into the house. Upstairs, someone was playing a song on the piano, jangling, out of tune. Behind the music she could hear the baby crying, ceaselessly, hungrily. The sound pulled her up the stairs, through the parlor where the demented priest sat behind the piano, and into the nursery. She hovered over the crib and there he was, swaddled in a cotton blanket, crying out for her touch. She picked him up, hushed and soothed him, and he quieted down.
She heard the front door slam. She drifted to the window and looked down. The man in the leather jacket hurried down the front walk, his collar turned up against the cold.
"Wait," she said, putting her hand to the glass. "Don't leave us here."
The man stopped and turned around, looked up at the nursery window, his hand shielding his eyes from the sunlight. After a moment he shook his head, turned around, and hurried on. She watched him go, sadly. The baby voiced a small cry.
"Shh ... everything's all right," she said. "Mama's here."

The Purpose of this Blog

I'm going to use this blog to post excerpts of works-in-progress so they can be easily read and critiqued by people whom I direct to this site (or whoever, really, but I have no illusions that random people will be showing up to read and comment on my stuff). I will likely also post my thoughts and insecurities about the writing process as I go along. It may turn into something more than that, or not. We'll see.