Today’s Prompt: Write about a loss: something (or someone) that was part of your life, and isn’t any more.

So, the loss that I’m going to talk about today might not seem like a very big one at first, but it’s honestly something that I am impacted by on almost a weekly bases, even though the loss of the actual thing occurred many years ago now.

My husband and I were moving into our very first apartment together.  My goodness, it was so small and crappy.  There were four rooms; two ‘bedrooms’ a bathroom the size of a closet, and a living room/kitchen area.  You had to walk through our daughters’ room to get to our bedroom, and you had to walk through both to get to the bathroom.  Did I mention it was small?

We didn’t care, though.  It was our first place together, we could afford it, and we could have a cat.

On moving day, there was this one box that I’d backed from my old living room.  I wanted everyone to be very careful with it, because it had my whole dvd collection.  Some of my regular readers will remember that I am a huge geek, so when I say dvd collection, I mean a huge collection. I mean all five seasons of Angel, Firefly, The Critic (most people haven’t even heard of the critic), the first three seasons of Psych, all the Charlie Brown Holiday specials, both Scary Godmother movies, first three seasons of Dexter and a limited edition version of Nightmare Before Christmas.

Like a fool, I wrote ‘DVDs’ on the side.  I wanted everyone to be careful with the box, you see.

Of course, being a cheap and small apartment, it was also an apartment in a bad neighborhood.  Not like a ‘don’t go out at night, lock the damn door, keep a crowbar by your bed’ neighborhood.  More like a, ‘stupid downstairs neighbor’s smoking up again, and there are the cops for the third time this week,’ bad neighborhood.  Needless to say, my dvd box got stolen.

Here’s the real problem, though.  There was more in that box than just my collection.

There was also a quilt, with three mountains, three trees and a river.  My grandmother made it for her twin boys, who left it behind when they moved out on their own.  She was going to throw it away, and I took it instead.  I loved that quilt.  It made me think of my grandma’s house after church on Sundays.  It made me think of watching Star Trek and X-Files with her on nights my mom worked. (I come by the geek gene honestly, even if it did skip a generation.)

There was also a little brass turtle.  You could take his shell off, and put things in him.  He belonged to my great grandma.  When I was little, I used him as a pretend tea set.  I played with him every New Years Eve when we’d go there and play Penny Poker.  My mom and Grandma June would smoke, and I’d drink diet Pepsi out of a can with a straw.  When she passed away, our family went through her house and put things in keep, toss, donate piles.  The little brass turtle came home with me.  My daughter played with him.

Now, I’ve rebuilt my collection of dvd’s.  It took time, and money.  But my quilt and my turtle, which the thief probably tossed without another thought, those things I miss.

Today’s Prompt: Write about the three most important songs in your life — what do they mean to you?

Only three?  That might be hard.  Well, let’s see, if I’ve only got three, we’ll go with Run, Rabbit Run, by Eminem, Angel From Montgomery by Bonnie Raitt, and Landslide by Stevie Nicks.

If you’re a writer living in obscurity, likely broke, maybe with kids, and you’ve never listened to Run, Rabbit, Run, go do it.  Don’t bother with the awful movie that spawned it, I wouldn’t want you to have to sit through it.  But the song speaks to something very deep in my heart about writers block, and trying to find the right words to express the image I’ve got in my head.  It’s nice to know that maybe I’m not the only one who can see a scene just right in my mind, but then when I try to write it out, it just crashes and burns like the Hindenburg.

Angel From Montgomery is one that my mom used to sing when I was little, so I hear her voice when I listen to it.  Even though she and I aren’t close, and never really were, it makes me think of the way I felt then, when I was little and she was the strongest person I knew.  Besides that, Bonnie’s just got this voice, you know?  It’s so deep and powerful.

And Landslide.  Just step away for a moment from the legacy and legend that is Stevie Nicks, and think about the song itself, and the myriad of meanings it can have for the listener.  When I first heard it, I would have said it was about a woman who’s husband was leaving her, and she didn’t know what to do with herself.  She’d wrapped up too much of who she was in being his lover.  Now, I hear a mother’s lament in it.  “Time makes you bolder, children get older, I’m getting older, too.  And if you see my reflection in a snow covered hill, the landslide will bring you down.”  Now, it’s the image of a woman who’s daughter is moving out into the world, away from her.  We build our lives around our children, and when they leave there’s a hole where they were.  But I think we all secretly believe that they’ll look at themselves and see a part of us there.  No matter how bad your relationship with your parents, there are parts of them in you, the same as there will be parts of you in your children.  For better or worse.

Music’s always been so crucial to me.  It expresses emotions in a way I have very rarely seen prose writers manage, hard as we may try.  We writers, we paint a landscape.  Song writers show us one flower.

Today’s Prompt: If you could zoom through space in the speed of light, what place would you go to right now?

So, this one didn’t have a time limit, so I’m going with my normal ten minute sprint.

If I could be anywhere at all right now?  Pittsburgh.  I know, it’s not exotic, and it’s not far away, but it’s my favorite place in the world.  I got a chance to explore some more of my favorite city over Christmas.  My mother in law got tickets to a musical event at Heinz Hall, thinking that my older daughter wouldn’t be with us that night.  Plans changed, and she was.  We couldn’t get an extra ticket, but I saw a Starbucks across the street.  Now, understand that I live in a very small town, and I am sometimes a hipster.  I love Starbucks and we don’t have one in my little town of Butler.  So, I jumped on the chance to go write there while my family saw the show.

I wrote a whole new prolog for Broken Patterns.  And I looked around at all of the people.  There was just so much life there, so much going on.  Tired college students working on their studies, a couple sitting way too close to each other, parents trying to have some quiet time while their kids munched on some huge cookies.

After the show, back out on the streets, there was a girl doing a fire eating show, trying to make some extra money for school.  Did you know there’s this great place in Pittsburgh called the Cathedral of Learning?  It’s like a massive castle, and it’s open all the time for the college students to go study in.  Situated in the middle of the campuses, it’s like a dream of a mage acadamy.  Oh, and there’s a little coffee bar on the second floor that sells snacks.  If I could be anywhere at the speed of light right now, I’d be there.  I’d be sipping a coffee, typing this up.  Well, I’ve got the writing and the coffee (Starbucks house blend, I buy it in bean form and grind it myself,)  But I don’t have the Cathedral.  That’s my favorite place on Earth, I’ll tell you that.  If you ever get a chance to visit, do it.

Oh, and the park right in the middle of the three rivers, with the huge fountain?  You know, the one so big they had to install a special meter that lowers the water on windy days so it doesn’t hit the nearby buildings, and kids play in the outer ring in the summer.

Did I mention that in Pittsburgh you can find people fishing in the rivers in good weather?  Just fishing, in the middle of the city. Yeah, that’s how we roll here.

That’s the end of my ten minutes.  See you tomorrow.

Ugh, I’m a slacker.  This was meant to go up yesterday, sorry.

Alright, so day one’s prompt is to just free write, about anything, for twenty minutes.  So, here’s mine.  Forgive any messiness in this post.  As the rules say, I am not thinking about what I’m writing, just keeping my fingers moving for twenty whole minutes.

Now, this is really fun, free writing.  I’ve always loved it.  See, I see writing as play acting, always.  I act out the characters in my head, and I play every part, even the men.  Even the bad guys, especially the bad guys.  I love writing for the bad guys.  so, free writing is like just playing make believe with your friends, the way my daughters do.  Alright, let’s play secret agents, or princesses in space, or FBI.  Now we’re Dr. Who’s companions, now we’re mermaids.  My kids are kind of eclectic.

Speaking of mermaids, I found a picture on Pintrest earlier that showed Ariel, from the Little Mermaid, sewing up her legs to get her fins back.  The message was that if you change yourself for someone else, you will eventually regret it with all of your heart.  It was a rather gruesome picture, but boy did that strike me.  I mean, think about the ramifications of that.  The love of her life, it didn’t matter at all when compared to being herself.  What if she had just stayed who she was?  What if she had found someone who could love her for who she was?

On the other hand, Ariel wasn’t happy as she was born.  She really wanted to be human, and live on land.  I have no idea why, but it was what she really wanted.  Maybe she did what she did to be comfortable in her own skin like Chaz Bono.  Just a thought.

See what I mean?  Having to keep your fingers moving four a whole twenty minutes brings out all sorts of things you wouldn’t normally consider.  I usually hate old Disney Princess movies.  Bell had Stockholm syndrome, Sleeping Beauty and Snow White were useless even if they were the main characters.  Cinderella was a wuss.  Arial might have had to be saved by the men in her life, but at least she went for what made her happy.  There’s a lesson in that, I think.

Sorry, I have daughters, I spend way too much time talking about princesses.  You should hear them go on about Anna and Elsa.  My goodness.

Which is a good example of the amazing amount of age bracket cross over recently.  Hunger Games, Divergent, Frozen, Harry Potter and Doctor Who are all good examples of things that are loved by people my age, (I turn 29 this year) and kids my daughters age,(10 and 11)  Is it because my kids are getting older?  Are they just more mature than other kids their age?  Am I childish?  Or is it just something about my generation?  Are we terminally stuck in our own childhood?  Maybe, think about all the remakes of things my generation loved.  TMNT, Transformers.  Even The Giver can be traced back to us, you know.

Now that was a great book.  Really, the gem of the dystopian future genre.  Really, if you haven’t read it, do.  I read it once a year for my birthday, and have ever since I was thirteen.  That’s fifteen times I’d read the same book, and every time I read it, it means something new to me.  Seriously, read it.  Before you see the book.

That, I think, is something that we as writers must all have a love/hate relationship with.  We see all these books get awesome blockbuster movies, and that makes us drool.  Makes me drool, anyway.  The thought of having my story, that started in my head, playing out on the screen?  But I think that we, as readers, also worry that it cheapens the story somehow.  For instance, I hate hearing someone say, “I loved the Divergent movie, but I had no idea it was a book until you just told me.”  Really?

On the other hand, I’ve always said that there is some great writing that’s never been in the binding of a book.  Gotham’s got a great story line, I’m a huge fan of the whole Avengers Vs. X-men story, Mass Effect is a great story too, and it’s a video game.  So maybe we shouldn’t be so judgmental of people who appreciate a great story in alternative forms?  And, I mean, it’s not like there aren’t books that are total trash.  Fifty Shades of Grey, Twilight.  You know what I mean.  So maybe we should be focusing on telling the good stories, no matter how we tell them.  I’m sure watching Leverage is going to be better for someone than reading Twilight.

Well, that was twenty minutes.  Thanks for indulging me.  And I hope that gives you a fun behind the scenes look at how weird my brain is.  We went from free writing about free writing to Leverage.

Have a great night, everyone.