It is officially Buffy Bear Day!

Buffy the bear has now been here in the house for a year.  I was NOT looking for another kitten when I heard her crying outside at about 1 am or so.  She had gotten stuck between the house and a door.  I kept hoping mom would show up.  She didn't.  The weather was not good for a kitten outside, so . . .

Yeah, I knew it was going to happen the moment I saw her, of course.  Got a towel and brought her in.  The other cats were better about it than I ever expected.

She was a hellion as a kitten.  At Forward Motion she's generally known as The Demon Cat from Hell.  Russ swore she was raised by snakes because of her spit and nip threat beahvior (see second video).

This was Buffy a year ago:


Oh yeah and this one:




As of today, she's been here a year.  I'd do a video, but I'd have to wake her up.  Yeah, much calmer cat. 

You can see a huge collection of Buffy Pictures Here

FM Flash Friday #2: Transgressed

Transgressed

By

Lazette Gifford

Copyright 2012, Lazette Gifford

 

I didn't like to do the killing. It wasn't a good one, the young woman so pretty and young. Boss said she transgressed the laws and I knew that meant she had to die. He never tells me what transgressed is but I know it's bad. He don't have me kill no one 'cept those what transgressed.

So I did Cellie, quick and clean with a knife to her heart and walked away, leaving her on the bus bench at the corner. I can hear people screaming but I don't look back. Cops would come next. I don't want to be here for no cops, so I call Boss on the little phone I carry and tell him the job is done. He says I did good but to keep moving. People would ask questions.

So I run for more than a mile, keeping to the alleys, avoiding the cop cars darting here and there looking for me. I know they want me. The cops always say they want to bring me in, if they can catch me. I never let them, but sometimes the game's real hard to play.

The city is all smoggy and my lungs hurt. I want to be back in the building where the air smells sweet and everyone is so polite, even to me. Here, out on the streets, even the bums glare at me, as though they was better. I never knowed why they don't like me. I use to be like them, all dirty and homeless, before the Boss saw me and said he had a place for me. I wish Boss would come out and find places for a few more. He's got a big building. No one would hardly notice if some more homeless live there.

Boss don't want me to talk to him about it, though. Boss is busy. Banking, gambling, numbers -- he's real smart. I don't know why he even bothers with me. I never been smart -- but I am fast and I know how to kill real easy. He says that's a talent mostly lost in this generation. That makes me sound special.

A cop car goes by real slow at the end of the alley. Maybe they know I'm here, hiding in the shadows. They got tricky electronics now and can pick out a body like magic. I look around, trying to decide if I can run, maybe, back the way I come. But there's another cop car.

They stop and cops get out, two sets at both ends of the alley. I can see people standing back beyond the cars, curious and glaring. Why do they glare? They can't see me yet.

The phone beeps softly in my pocket. I pull it out and hit the button, nervous I'll mess up again.

"Joey?"

"Yes, sir?"

"I'm listening to the police scanner, Joey. It says they have you cornered in an alley about three blocks away. Is this true?"

I hear a hint of anger in the voice. I bite at my lip and look around. The cops are coming real slow now.

"I'm in an alley and the cops are here. I don't know about three blocks. I'm sorry, sir."

A moment of silence. I know that's bad. Boss doesn't hardly ever have to think for very long like I do.

"They've caught you, Joey. You can't get free and I can't afford to have you taken in."

"Boss?"

"Joey, you've transgressed the laws. Do you know what that means?"

"Yes, sir. I'm sorry. Didn't mean to," I said. My voice stays calm and I carefully put aside the phone. I pulled the little gun I always carry and put it to my head, my finger tightening.

Wish I knew what transgressed was, though. . . .

The End
650 words

Find more of the Forward Motion Flash Friday Group here:
http://www.fmwriters.com/flash.html

FM Flash Friday # 1: Evolution

Evolution

By

Lazette Gifford

 

Copyright 2012, Lazette Gifford

Gangs had fought their useless battle in the alley, losers dragging their dead and injured away as the winners jeered.  Then the conquerors passed so close to Alishin he could almost taste the blood on their clothing.  Rank emotion filled the air like the scent of flowers in spring.

He hungered.

They never saw Alishin; humans rarely did.  If the strutting victors had noticed the tall, dark-shrouded figure in the shadows, they would have known their true place as prey and not victor.  Humans, though, never willingly looked upward to see what stood above them in the evolutionary ladder.

The triumphant gang left the battlefield, their crass jokes and harsh laughter fading in the night.  Soon...

Alishin would have one of those tasty morsels tonight.  He knew the patterns of his particular prey. He waited, patient for his reward in the hunt.

As he knew he would, the prey -- reeking of blood and sex -- returned after midnight, sniffing around the killing grounds, looking for another battle and the addictive taste of conquest.  Alishin had laid the trap in a simple game of chance . . . as all hunts are games of chance, in one way or another.

The prey found the open door and swaggered inside, unafraid, his hand on the knife in his belt.  A table, draped in black cloth, stood beneath a flickering bulb.  Chance lay in the dice on the shadowed surface, and the boy picked them up, laughing.  Even though he didn't understand, the prey's heart beat harder.  Taking chances and gambling were part of his life.

Alishin closed his eyes, savoring the scent of adrenaline surging through the human and flavoring the blood and meat.  Oh yes, far sweeter than a dull kill in the shadows with no feel for the hunt.  The boy threw and his heartbeat soared as the dice rolled.

Trap sprung.

"Never throw the dice before you know the game," Alishin said as he stepped forward, the wisdom wasted on this one, of course. The dice stopped on double skulls.

They always did.

The boy's heart pounded, the pulse beating in the neck as the prey started to back away.  Alishin smiled and grabbed an arm, strength stilling any hope of escape.  His fingers caught and twisted the head, exposing the neck where the blood pumped, the scent of adrenaline intoxicating.  He bent close, his lips near the boy's ear.

"The game is called evolution, human," he said softly.  "The higher species is always the better hunter."

But as Alishin bit into the pliant neck he wondered if he would ever dare to look up. . . .

The End

442 words

Find more of the Forward Motion Flash Friday Group here:

http://www.fmwriters.com/flash.html

Zette Vs. The Giant Green Grasshopper from Hell

Okay, first, I am not afraid of grasshoppers or many other bugs and insects. You can tell this by wandering through my picture a day blog and seeing how often I post pictures of the things, especially on the window beside my desk. (http://zettepicaday.blogspot.com/ )

However, when you happen to look up and see a huge green insect about as long as the palm of your hand clinging to the ceiling above your desk -- yeah, he's overstepped the line.

I did not want to kill him though. He was really quite lovely. And this was the second one this week, so I thought I'd just do what I did the last time. Got the broom, let him catch hold, and out we'd go. No problem.

Right.

After a couple pictures (of course), I put the broom up. He caught on. Cool!

I moved the broom.

Grasshopper panicked.

His first leap was onto Buffy.

Yeah, wish I'd had the camera in hand for that one! She leapt up in shock, grasshopper leapt to printer. Buffy moved. Grasshopper moved faster.

So for the next ten minutes I had a fun time trying not to trip over cat while grasshopper tries frantically to find some place away from broom and the increasingly crazed cat and her little cat buddies who are all now interested in the fun. Okay, this isn't working. I ditch the broom and go for a big plastic bowl and lid.

Come on little (or not so little) guy. Into the bowl -- yes!

No! Back out before I can get the lid on.

Across the light (did get a good shot there) and up the blinds. I knocked him down into the bowl. Got the lid on! YES! Success!

Out to the porch and out the front door and he's free! Yay!

Except he leaps on my arm and back into the porch.

Now, you know, it's a matter of honor. I'm not going to let this grasshopper win. The problem is there are boxes all over the porch and I'm not as good at climbing over and around these things as I used to be. I knock him down with a backhanded swipe of the lid. He's now somewhere I can't reach him at all. I tear away a box. He's glaring at me, I can tell.

I try appealing to him. "Outside. Grass. Grasshopper. You belong together."

He moves farther away.

But I'm ready for my big move now. Lid in one hand, bowl in the other; Leap forward, swat the grasshopper into the bowl, snap lid on!

Yes!

Only I'm not sure I actually have him and I can't see inside.

So.

Okay. I'm sure the neighbors are thinking I've gone insane by now anyway. What the hell. Outside. CLOSE PORCH DOOR BEHIND ME.

Open lid.

Grasshopper leaps straight up at me and I scream.

Now I'm positive he's on me somewhere. I start dancing around hitting myself on the back and legs. I do not look towards any of the other houses. I find no mutant huge green grasshopper on me so I leap back into the house, close and lock the door behind me and race into the house.

I've won!

Only . . . This was the second one this week. I don't know how they're getting in. I suspect the cats are behind it as a new way to drive me crazy. Or, given how the thing startled Buffy, maybe they're wise and thinking a nice live-and-let-live attitude is the best one here.

Or maybe it was the same grasshopper. Maybe he has a vendetta and now it's his honor against mine.

He's not going to win.

Well, not unless the neighbors have me committed.

Zette's Take: Outlines aren't creative?

     I was told something interesting today: People who use outlines are not creative in their writing.

I looked at the line for a few minutes before I finally asked the most obvious question.

Where do you think outlines come from if not creativity?

This the problem with authors who decide at some point that their way is the only way to write. They not only stop seeing possibilities for themselves, but they also stop considering how others might work differently and still do as well.

Do I really need to say this? Outlines are creative. They are the essence of a story, worked out in great or small detail, so the path from start to finish makes sense for the writer (and the reader, for that matter). They are not the book with the story complete, and all the wonderful little touches that make the characters come alive and the tale exciting. They are not set in stone and I have yet to work all the way through an outline without having a number of changes along the way. However, I am not stopped, time and again, by 'what happens next' or 'that doesn't work with what I had before, I need to make drastic changes' problems. I have (as I have often said) the road map worked out, but I don't know everything my characters will see and do, or what interesting detours and side trips might show up as the true details of the story unveil themselves.

The only real difference between pantsing and outlining is the amount of detail worked into the 'first draft' of the work. An outline is a very brief first draft of the overall story. It requires just as much imagination and creativity to work out as any other form of story writing.

Working out the major events or themes or whatever else you add into the outline does not limit your creativity; it only gives it a focus for the story you are already imagining. This also means you are committing to tell a specific story, and not the new one that kind of resembles it. That's a different story; write this one first.

Some lose interest in writing a story if they work it out, which makes outlines impossible for them to use. For others, the outline is the barest glimpse at a story they want to know far better and to share with others.

I have done, and will continue to do, both. I tend to pants shorter work, but I do the same with novels on occasion, too. I love writing outlines, though, with the fun ride through the basics of the story and then the rush of greater creativity with all the basic problems worked out and the ability to fly.

Whatever your system, keep two things in mind:

1. What works best for you will not work for everyone.

2. Never be afraid to try something new and experiment.

Find what works for you -- but never assume it is the only answer!