Three Useless Sentences

I have a directory on my computer called “outlines.”

The title’s a lie. It’s not really outlines, or at least not just outlines. It’s got all kinds of things in it, and one of them is this. I have no idea who she is. I have no idea why she’s so angry. Maybe someday I’ll write her story, but in the meantime, here’s today’s quick glimpse into my mind:

     The air’s so still, the mist so eerie, the newborn morning so quiet, that when she slams the front door, the startled echoes fly back from every house, kicking drowsy robins into short little gusts of flight, to land confused and rattled. Every angry footstep echoes clapping back until the grating rasp of her key in the lock echoes nothing, not a thing, not a whisper. The staring windows, the taunting garages, all are silent, breathless, waiting for the final shouted insult of her car door slammed shut as hard as she can, as loud as she can, as door-slamming angry as she can.

Technorati Tags: writing,beginnings,character development

Don’t Shoot Me – I’m Just the Keyboard Man

I was recently taken to task for an opinion expressed in one of my short stories, Yellowbird Diner, available as a PDF on my website, www.levimontgomery.com. There were three tracks I could have pursued in defending myself: 1) that the person who is credited with the opinion in question isn’t even a character in the story, but is the father of a character, and that any connection to me or my opinions is tenuous, at best; 2) that the words chosen to express the viewpoint, given as “Dad’s favorite insults,” are old-fashioned and fairly mild, compared to some of the words that I could have chosen; or 3) that my purpose was to expose some of what the character had had to deal with while growing up, and how that might have affected his development.

I chose a fourth track.