Brick, but mostly mortar

Because I spent the evening putting off “Pine & Meyer: Chapter 5,” I’m going to throw everything I have at the wall to see what sticks.

First off:

A snapshot of Thomas the Tank Engine’s downward spiral into convoyeurism. I boxed up the toys I had borrowed from the Seminary’s version of Goodwill with plans to return them tomorrow (now that my sister is back on the road and her children no longer need entertaining), and holy bananas this about gave me a heart attack the first time I caught him peeping at me from across the room; I’m only just now realizing that his name is actually Tom, appropriately enough. Even better, I somehow repressed the memory each time, and it kept on startling me every time I walked past my front door this afternoon.

Second:

This is the first time I’ve ever agreed to a put together a logo project (not counting the graphics from the law firm), and only because my church was the one asking. Though I ultimately find drawing frustrating, I have to admit that the end product is satisfying, especially since it was a way to help out my church using those talents I am tempted to bury in the ground.

[And on a semi-related note, my next picture book is still nearly five months out. I will not publish a new one until December, followed — finally — by a properly illustrated version of “Apples are Apples” in May/June (around Trinity Sunday), with very tentative plans for a currently unwritten piece called “Thunk, Whunk, Ker-CHUNK” for release in the Fall of 2019.]

And finally, two paragraphs of an introduction I will never develop:

The sixteen-year-old hung upside down from the tree, thick auburn hair reaching for the ground, thinking about life, the future, where he was going, where he had been, and wishing someone came this way more often.

He was a round-faced boy, several inches below six feet (and currently twenty feet above it), cheerfully aware of the fact that he could afford to lose ten pounds and as equally unconcerned about doing so. Though his current predicament had him rethinking both his weight and height. He was either too tall, too short, too fat, or too skinny, and either way it meant that he was exactly the wrong shape for getting out of the tree, and precisely the right shape for getting stuck in it.

I do not know where I was going with this; despite the fact that I remember writing this in college. I had a very vague idea that one of the popular girls in his class was going to wander by (if the follow-up line underneath [He wasn’t sure he’d been stuck in the tree long enough to warrant ruining-his-life-forever.] is anything to go by — and it is, I don’t forget where my bits and pieces fit into my schizophrenically organized story-building easily), but then…nothing. I have no compelling reason to continue this.

In fact, have one more glob of noodles to throw at the wall (a trick my dad actually tried once with spaghetti, mostly to entertain his three children that also totally worked — not to mention the unfortunate stain it nearly left on the wall; as he scrubbed at it with a washcloth he told us not to tell mom, who was at her father’s hospital bedside, four states away, at the time):

The Mad Earl

There was nothing in young Haversham’s face to indicate why he ought to be trussed up in a rather alarming vest of belts and bound to the chair in the yellow room, which, according to family history, had belonged to the first Earl’s daughter some hundred years back. He was a gentle looking young man, not above twenty three years old, with a shock of strikingly dark hair that may have looked dashing on a different man; on Ferdinand it only made his face more pale and drawn, which lent itself to his resigned, if strangely decisive, meekness. In truth he looked a trifle foxed, but he wasn’t; his Uncle, who stood watching his batman and a man from the stables tighten the clasps that bound Haversham to the chair, had forced his nephew, under a watchful eye, to take what he felt was an appropriate amount of laudanum, under the circumstances.

Lord Belling strode into the room, paused at the doorway for a moment, and then entered with an oath. Haversham graced him with a tired smile and said, “There’s a young woman on the bed.”

As there was no such person – indeed, only the young Earl and the Lord Belling appeared to be in the room – this was a rather alarming statement. Belling, however, only pursed his lips, a rather tight expression flickering across his face, and said, “Tell her to go away, Ferdy.”

Ferdy’s smile grew slightly larger. “I’m not mad, Bell.”

Belling, who knew perfectly well that he was but believed just as strongly that his cousin was no danger to himself or anyone else, said, “I know.”

You can absolutely tell I had just read fifteen Georgette Heyer novels before I wrote this piece of Regency era, I-see-dead-people shenanigans. Which is also the reason I will never write it. Only plagiarize less distinctive styles, kids.

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6 Responses to Brick, but mostly mortar

  1. Your Local Friendly IT Guy says:

    Immediate impression: Oh look, a little kitty… wait… no. No. Much worse. And horrifying.

  2. Your Local Friendly IT Guy says:

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