Climbing Her Way Out

An attempt at microfiction. It was crazy-hard to keep it under 150 words (it's currently 147), and I need your opinion on whether I lost the plot or meaning, if there's an "ending," etc. . . critique away! And then maybe I'll try to get it down to 100 words - yikes!

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The day the office celebrated Julie's year-anniversary with the accounting firm, Julie stepped off the elevator and tripped. She looked back, noticing the elevator didn't quite line up with the 15th floor. Thinking nothing of it, she went about her day, staring at numbers, waiting for the work day to end.

Each day, the elevator stopped short a few more millimeters. The millimeters turned into inches, until one day Julie had to step up to get off the elevator. When she complained to management, they tested the elevator, said nothing was amiss, and gave her a funny look.

As the elevator grew worse, Julie's work began piling up. Then, the day of her company review, the elevator stopped so short, that she couldn't see the office floor. When she reached up, to start climbing out - she couldn't. Only the tips of her fingers touched the floor.

Getting to Know Anne

(WARNING: Spoilers for my forthcoming novel lay ahead. Read with caution).

The other night, Tyler and I were watching the first episode of this season's Nip/Tuck (Note: This was the first episode I've ever watched of Nip/Tuck, and I think I'm already kind of hooked - but that's a different post for a different day).

When Sean McNamara got stabbed in the back by that crazy, old lady, Tyler expressed shock that Sean didn't try to turn around and knock the knife out of her hands. I immediately referenced Charlotte - the main historical character in my novel - and how she killed her victim with one, perfectly placed stroke. Historians say that had she stabbed him one centimeter below, she would have hit a rib, resulting in just a minor wound instead of near-instantaneous death.

I've been doing this a lot lately. Things I see or talk about inevitably result in me referencing Charlotte in some way, as if I actually knew her. That's how well I know her and her life. It also reminds me of how little I know of my other character, Anne, in comparison.

Granted, Anne is fictional, so I had to start from scratch with her, whereas I just read a ton about Charlotte and just had to fill in what the history books left out. I need to get to a point, though, where it feels like Anne is a historical character too. I need to know the everyday and mundane things about Anne, like her favorite color or favorite drink, just as much as I need to know her life-changing moments, like how she found out her mother died when she was just eight-years-old. I need to be able to reference Anne's life, as if she was real, as if she was human - just like I do with Charlotte.

So, this is what I've been doing lately with my novel: I'm revising, but I'm also going back to my original character sketches. I'm filling them out more, writing more background - not to include in the story, but just to know. Because if this novel is going to be about Anne and Charlotte - I need to know every detail I possibly can about both of them, whether it's fiction or not.

Painting (walls)

Yesterday, I helped my friend Renae finish painting her new condo. We were focused on turning the closets from a snot-yellow to a clean white, but we were also doing a few touch-ups, like on the outside of the closets, where the white closet paint accidentally hit the tan color of the walls.

My job placed me on a step stool, carefully adding the tan color back in with a tiny watercolor brush. Renae laughed—appreciatively—as I hunkered close to the wall, carefully getting the line just right. We’re both suckers for detail.

Luckily though, the work was quick; there wasn’t too much to fix.

But what if I only had a watercolor brush to paint the entire wall? I could imagine it’s a lot like what Seurat felt when he painted A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grand Jatte: intimated by the expanse of the wall, but satisfied as each dot is carefully placed down onto the wall (canvas) to slowly form the big picture.