Bread Crumbs

Since this is a writing blog, I have decided that I should probably start posting more of my own creative work. This is a short story that I began working on early this year. 

I have been experiencing feelings lately that I did not have while I was living. When I first died, I could see all of my life. I felt no remorse for my past actions. Now that I have been dead for four years, I am starting to look back and feel differently than I did before. I am beginning to understand kindness, empathy and love. I am also starting to understand regret. During my four years of death, my memories of life have faded. I only have one memory left of my life. Although it is my final memory, I do not want to hold on to it. I want to forget. But I can't. It is sticking to me; like saran wrap used to stick on my skin while I covered up leftovers from dinners I ate alone.  I see my final memory in my mind every day. Because I cannot let go of it, I am trying to understand. I'm looking for an answer. Why is this the final memory of my life? My attempts at understanding always end in defeat. Now, I am just wishing to forget.

~

“Mom, stop. You’re embarrassing yourself…and me.”

Those are the last words my daughter said to me. It was the day before I died. I was out for dinner with Sarah and her husband, Antonio, to celebrate their fifteenth wedding anniversary.

“Hi!” says a perky girl holding a pad of paper, “My name is Molly, and I will be your server today. Can I start you off with something to drink?"

“Shut those blinds, the sun’s in my eyes.” I say.

 Sarah shifts in her seat and glances at Antonio, then up at the waitress.

“Don’t worry about it,” Sarah says, “you don’t have to.”

“No, she does have to.” I look up at the waitress and squint at her through my thick glasses, “It’s your job to serve customers, isn’t it?”

“Yes, ma’am.” Molly says. She bends over the booth next to us and shuts the blinds.

"So, can I get you guys some drinks?"

“Yes, and some food; we've already been sitting here for fifteen minutes.” I say as I pick up my menu and hold it close to my face. I push my thick glasses up farther on my nose, hoping it will help make the menu clearer. I look up at the waitress. “You need to make this print bigger.”

“Mom.” Sarah says. 

Molly looks at me with her mouth slightly open, thinking of something to say. “Well, I guess I could run it by my supervisor after I take your order.” she finally replies.

I squint at her and wag my finger. “As you should,” I say. “The customer’s needs should always come first.” I look back down at the menu.

“Now, I want the sixteen-ounce steak, rare- and don’t bring it out here medium rare- and I want the house salad as my side. And bring me an iced tea, no lemon. Only two ice cubes- no more than that! I ordered an iced tea for a reason, if I wanted a watered down drink I would have just ordered water.”

Molly furrows her eyebrows as her pen scribbles across the pad of paper.

“Anything else, ma’am?” she says after her pen has come to a rest at the bottom of the page.

“No. If there had been something else I would have told you right away.”

Sarah and Antonio order quickly. Once the girl leaves they are silent. I start up a conversation.

“The music in this restaurant is too damn loud.” I say. “When that waitress comes back, I’m going to tell her to turn it down.”

“Mom, please don’t.” says Sarah, gently touching my hand.

I pull my hand away from her and rub it. “Well I don’t know how anyone is supposed to enjoy their meal while they are being tortured by all this infernal noise.”

“Do you want to turn down your hearing aids?” Sarah asks, starting to move her hand up behind my ear.

“No, I don’t want to turn down my hearing aid.” I say as I slap her hand away. “I wouldn’t be able to hear you. This damn restaurant just needs to turn down their damn music.”

Sarah leans back in her seat and sighs. Antonio reaches for her hand under the table.

Molly comes back with our drinks. I talk for fifteen minutes until she comes back accompanied by two other waitresses with our food.

“You need to turn down this music,” I say to Molly, “nobody can enjoy eating in an environment this loud.”

“I’m sorry, ma’am, I will talk to my supervisor.” she says as she sets my plate down in front of me. “Here is your meal.”

I wrinkle my nose as I look down at my food.

“How does it look?” Molly asks as the two other waitresses set down Sarah and Antonio's meals. 

“There are olives on my salad.” I say, picking up an olive and shaking it at her.

“Yes, olives come on the house salad, which is what you ordered.” Molly says as she looks back at the other two waitresses with raised eyebrows. 

“I hate olives.” I say. I throw the olive down on the ground at her feet. “The next time that I come to this restaurant, don’t put olives on my salad.”

Sarah stands up and knocks over her drink on the table as she gets out of the booth. “Mom, stop. You’re embarrassing yourself…and me.”

This is the final memory of my life.

~

The first memory I have of my death is my visitation. I remember seeing Sarah standing over my casket, gently placing her hand over mine and crying at how cool my skin felt. I saw Antonio at her side, kissing her golden blonde hair, and pulling her away from my cold hand and into his as he led her away from me.

My son, Jim, came to my visitation. He brought his wife and three children. I hadn’t seen him in two years. He was talking and laughing with the mortician as he walked into the visitation room, holding his wife by the waist and occasionally bending down to tickle his children who were staying close to his side. When he left his family and walked up to my casket he became very still. He looked at my body; stiff with my hands folded neatly over my stomach. He looked at my white and wrinkled face, which looked small without my thick glasses. Tears started to roll down his face. He tried to wipe them away, but they started to come faster. He looked up at the small collage of pictures from my life that had been hastily put together that was on display next to my casket. Putting his head into his hands, he started to sob.

Everyone in the room looked over when they heard his cries. They looked nervously around at each other when they realized it was Jim. His children walked slowly up to their father with wide eyes. His daughter, Alice, reached up and pulled on his shirt.

“It’s ok, Daddy. She’s in heaven now.” Alice said. Jim smiled, picked up his daughter and gave her a kiss on the cheek. Alice smiled and wiped away her father's tears that were wet on her face.

“I’m not worried about her now, sweetheart.” Jim said. He looked down at my dead body. “I just wish things had been different while she was alive.”

~

 I don’t remember my funeral. It was empty words and prayers spoken by a person who didn’t know me. 

~

I don't remember much of my burial. I can just see Jim and Sarah holding each other as I was being lowered into the dirt. Even though I can see their tears, I can feel their relief as my casket hits the solid ground. 

~

My body is buried five feet underground. Grass has grown over the dirt that was exposed when I was buried. There is a bouquet of fake flowers in a vase connected to my tombstone. Sarah left them there the day I was buried. My body also looks differently than it did four years ago. Scuttle flies have burrowed their way into my casket and into my body. There are also worms.

I can remember every day that I have spent in this graveyard. 

Every morning, I can see the sunrise. For the first year or two that I was dead, it annoyed me that the sun would come over the hill across the graveyard so brightly. It would make the dew on the grass shine obnoxiously and the sunlight always seemed to be the harbinger of quacking ducks and honking swans floating around in the pond near my grave.

Besides the noisy fowl, I started to become confused by how quiet the graveyard was during my first couple years of death. I expected to see people stooping over graves to pay respects and dropping off flowers. But in the four years that I have been dead, I have never seen another human being.

After a couple of years, I started to become angry at the living. I was angry that they seemed to think they didn't have enough time for the dead. I became bitter. I cursed Sarah and Jim for not visiting their mother.

But, one day, about three years after I had been dead, I noticed the ducks and swans swimming hurriedly to the edge of the pond and waddling up onto land. They were honking and quacking loudly and I wondered what was causing their distress. As I watched closely, I noticed tiny white bread crumbs appearing out of thin air and falling onto the ground, only to be quickly devoured by the hungry birds. I observed in awe, believing I was experiencing some kind of miracle. However, as I continued to watch, I realized that it wasn’t a miracle. The swans and ducks were making a large circle in the grass. They were keeping their distance away from something… or someone. That was when I realized someone was there, a human being, throwing them the bread crumbs.

As I watched the throwing of the bread crumbs, I started to wonder if Jim and Sarah had come to visit me since I had died. I looked down at the flowers on my tombstone. Surely, if Sarah had come to see me, she would have brought new flowers. I looked away from the graying flowers, trying to push away the thoughts in my mind. I looked back at the birds and the flying breadcrumbs. I wondered if it was Jim feeding the birds. Maybe he had brought his wife and children. Maybe Alice was chasing the ducks around wearing a frilly blue dress.

After I witnessed the throwing of the bread crumbs, I started to enjoy the sunrise more. Now I like how bright it is. I like feeling blinded as I look directly into the light. I enjoy looking down at the sparkling dew on the light green grass. I have even learned to love watching the swans and ducks as they swim around the shimmering pond. I especially like to watch them when they became loud and start to waddle onto the land. I watch carefully and eventually can spot bread crumbs flying through the air.

I don’t look down at my flowers anymore. I am afraid to. The last time I did was over three years ago. They were still gray. 

Nanowrimo to the Rescue

By: Colin Halbmaier

Colin Halbmaier is a student at Loras College studying Creative Writing and Media Studies. He has presented his work at Streamlines, an undergraduate English conference, serves as the co-executive editor for his school newspaper, and has been published in The Limestone Review at Loras. Primarily a fantasy writer at heart, Colin has dabbled in a number of genres. He hopes to one day publish a series of young adult fantasy novels.

The first time I sat down to write a novel was during the fall of my senior year of high school. It was nearing the end of October and NaNoWriMo was about to begin. For those unfamiliar with the event, NaNoWriMo, or National Novel Writing Month, is an annual challenge in November for writers and non-writers alike to create an original, 50,000-word novel in thirty days. I had been looking forward to the event for a few months, and was excited to finally put my epic three-part futuristic fantasy into words.

Thirty days later, my final word count was just short of 10,000, adding up all three times I had started over. The characters were paper-thin, the plot was all over the place, and I had no idea where I wanted to take it. Suddenly my brilliant idea was what some might refer to as a “hot mess.”

Needless to say, I was embarrassed by my writing, or lack thereof. So what did I do? I gave up.

              

Fast-forward a year later to my first year of college and my life seems to be falling apart all around me. Being away from home was hard, juggling classes was challenging, and my relationships were faltering. I felt like I was drowning in the negative energy, and needed some way to channel it. Out of that madness, with only a few days left in October, NaNoWriMo came forward.

               

At the stroke of midnight on November 1^st, I sat down and began to write. There was no game plan or premeditation this time—I was entirely on my own. Unlike my first attempt, however, I was writing with a purpose. There was more to this than simply writing a bestseller. I was channeling my deepest fears and insecurities into the story of a character not unlike myself—and overcoming them in the process.

Suddenly writing a 50,000-word novel didn't seem nearly as daunting as the year before. I would push all but the most urgent schoolwork to the side and give up hours of sleep for the sake of writing even a few extra words. The story had to go on, because this time, it was my story that I was telling.

I passed the 50,000-word mark on the 29^th with a day to spare, but the story didn't end there. I spent the final day pumping out a final 8,000 words, leaving myself with a grand total of 58,340 words. More importantly, I had overcome the greatest enemy to my writing—myself.

I’m a firm believer that anyone can create something great if they believe in what they’re doing. As cheesy as it may sound, true passion and ability comes from within. By taking everything that I thought was wrong in my life and putting it into words, I was putting myself in control of my own destiny and creating something heartfelt and honest in the process. If you believe in what you’re writing, you’ll find a way to make it happen.

Carpe Diem, Writers!

Let's face it. Most of us writers are not lounging on beach chairs wearing sunglasses with a margarita in hand or sitting cozily on an over-sized couch next to a fire wearing a turtleneck while writing. The majority of us are trying to write after working 10 hour shifts while taking Excedrin and drinking Pepsi just to stay awake. At least that's my experience.

I know a lot of you out there struggle with similar situations. We have jobs, families, relationships, responsibilities, health problems, Internet, TV and other external factors that take huge chunks of our precious writing time away from us. But are these factors the only thing stopping us from writing?

How many times do you doubt yourself as you sit down to write? How many times do you think that you could be doing something else with your time? How many times do you feel guilty for writing instead of spending time with family and friends? How many times do you sit down to write and tell yourself that you are not good enough and that you should just give up?

So many external factors get in the way of our writing, but we need to remember that we can create a lot of stifling internal problems as well. So let's stop those negative thoughts and seize every opportunity we have to write!

Don't Blow Chunks

Harney Peak: located in South Dakota- elevation 7244'

Yesterday, my boyfriend and I had the day off and decided to hike Harney Peak for our second time. Last summer, our trip ended badly for me. I was severely dehydrated and spent the day after in bed with a massive headache and parched lips while sipping slowly from a bendy straw. Vowing that the second time would be different, we packed over 5 liters of water and lots of healthy snacks to keep me hydrated and energized. Since I like hiking at a quick pace, we reached the summit in a little over an hour. I felt tired at the top, but better than I did last year. Excited that I had succeeded, we explored for awhile and then started our descent.

Guess what started to happen as we hiked down the peak.

I started to feel awful. Despite the fact that I had drank almost all of the water that we had packed, I had a pounding headache and my legs were shaking. I found a cool stream and dipped a hand towel we had packed to hold on to my head. We had anticipated my sickness and brought ibuprofen. But our attempts to preserve my health were too late. On the drive home, I became increasingly sick until I finally told my boyfriend to pull over so I could puke on the side of the road...and if that wasn't humiliating enough...I was in sight of Abraham Lincoln, Thomas Jefferson, Theodore Roosevelt and George Washington. Embarrassing.

I know...this story is gross. So why am I telling it? What does it have to do about writing?

As writers, we need to be prepared. But, more importantly, we need to know our limitations.

Both times I hiked Harney Peak, I didn't listen to my body and only compared myself to people who can complete the hike with little or no ill effects. I ignored the fact that I suffer from altitude sickness which I am positive was a contributing factor to my sickness after both hikes.

We need to know ourselves as writers; know our limitations. We can't compare ourselves to the best and assume that we are capable of doing everything that they can. If we haven't taken necessary precautions, considered our strengths and weakness, and practiced beforehand, we will fail miserably if we try to write something that is out of our limit.

Don't ignore your weaknesses. Know them... and fix them. If they can't exactly be fixed...like my altitude sickness... take proper precautions and don't push yourself places that you can't go.

You are capable of reaching your writing summit...without blowing chunks afterwards.

The Writers' Favorite Pastime

Ah...the mall. Many hours of my teenage years were spent shopping for American Eagle jeans, earrings from Claire's, shoes from Dillard's and of course- ice cream from Whitey's. Once I had a few different colorful bags of merchandise and a Whitey's ice cream cone in hand, my favorite thing to do with my friends was to sit on a bench and people-watch.

Who doesn't enjoy this pastime?  What better thing is there to do while surrounded by people but to sit down and observe behavior? As a writer, this hobby is critical to the art of character development. Realizing this at a young age, the mall became my laboratory for observing, analyzing and recording personalities.

Today, I have a bigger and better research lab. I work at a popular tourist destination that is visited by people from all over the world. I have observed cultural differences of people from Australia, South Africa, Canada, Jamaica, Germany and China. I have talked to people from Tennessee, Alaska, California, Wyoming, Louisiana and Maine. Everyday I see people who are young, old, big and small. I have had contact with disabled people from the crippled to the blind. I have communicated with non-English speakers using hand signals and I have struggled to understand people with thick accents.

Even though I observe a lot of cultural differences, there are also many personality differences I have observed. I have helped people who are happy, angry, sad, stressed-out, high-strung, nervous, shy and obnoxious. I have the same set of lines that I say to tourists and I am always surprised by the variety of responses I get after saying my standard speech due to personality differences.

As a writer, I am grateful that I have a summer job that has constant and exciting opportunities to people-watch. Not only am I making money, but I am observing and analyzing the people that I see, storing away thousands of personalities to potentially use at a later date.

So...who wants to come visit me at work now? I promise not to analyze you...too much.

Down the Rabbit Hole...Again

This morning, I made the decision to start working on my second novel. I wrote a draft for my first novel in November of 2012 during National Novel Writing Month, or as most of you writers out there know it as, “Nanowrimo.” (Please don’t scoff at me; I do not claim the 50,000 words that I wrote in one month to be a stunning final draft of a novel (or even an acceptable first draft of a novel), but I did write 122 pages of a story with characters that I spent a good amount of time developing who got involved in different situations and predicaments. I know there are a lot of people out there who don’t agree with the concept of Nanowrimo, but it gave me the kick I needed to finally write a draft of a novel.)

I am proud of my first attempt at a novel, but it was just a practice round for me. It is not a story that I want to pursue any further, it was just a chance for me to discover how writing a novel is different from writing a short story. Trust me, I discovered a lot. Not only did I realize that it was more difficult to keep the reader interested in a piece so long…I realized how difficult it was to keep my own interest! I also learned about the pacing of a novel and how I could take more time to develop characters and to let the meat of the story unfold. It was a wonderful learning experience for me... and now, almost a year later- I am ready for more.

But this time- my goals have changed. 

This is no longer a practice round. This is the real deal. I am prepared to write a novel that I will see through multiple drafts. I am ready to spend as much time as it takes to write this novel until it is the same story that I can see now in my head. By the time I am finished, I am planning on finding an editor for my novel...and then taking the plunge into the world of self-publishing. 

I see this as the next logical step in accomplishing my dreams. 

As of tonight, I have a grand total of 555 words written. Do I like the words? Of course not. Am I going to worry over them until I get them right, or keep going on?

If I learned anything from last November, it is that I will keep going on. The most important thing I learned from writing the first draft of my first novel, is that you won't be satisfied with the first draft. 

I'm glad I figured that out before today. Because, believe it or not, if I didn't have that practice round under my belt, I would have already quit this second novel by now, less than 24 hours from when I started. 

How Do You Read a Book?

A few months ago, I was at home and saw a book that my mom was reading on her nightstand. Oddly enough, it was titled: How to Read a Book. At first, I was confused by the title. Is there really a "right" way to read a book? After contemplating my process, I don't think there is a "right" way, but I do think there are different lenses we can look through while reading a book.

I am currently reading Hard Times by Charles Dickens. Previously, I have read Oliver Twist and David Copperfield, so I am fairly familiar with Dickens’ style of writing. When I read a book by an unfamiliar author, the first thing I notice is style. Particularly, I pay attention to sentence structure and word choice. I am always curious to see how effective the author's choices are in creating a mood and an image.

Next, I pay attention to character development. How does the author introduce new characters? Are their physical features described right away, later on, or never at all? Dickens certainly belongs in the first group- his descriptions come immediately when introducing a new character- not just as mere physical traits but also as hints to personality. I actually enjoy Dickens' approach- even though I am more of a fan of Hemingway in regards to character description. 

After I have noticed style and character development, I focus on plot structure and story-telling. How is the author shaping the plot? Is it a standard plot structure or something unique? Is the author telling a story or painting a picture? Although I have only read about 40 pages of Hard Times, I believe Dickens is trying to paint a picture rather than tell a story. I'm not saying there won't be a beginning, middle, and end- or that the main characters won't change by the end of the story, but I believe that Dickens is really just trying to portray  the lives of people living in the Industrial Age, struggling with hard work and having little hope for imagination and creativity. 

This is my process; I read through the lens of a writer. What is your process? What lens do you choose to look through while reading a book?