writing

Flash Fiction: Freedom, Too

/ Diane Henders / 4 Comments

This is the companion piece for “Freedom”.  For those folks who wanted to know more about Beth, here you go. 

This is the first time I’ve intentionally written a story where the readers already know the ending, but what the heck, if George Lucas can do it, so can I.

All constructive criticism welcomed and appreciated, as always.

Freedom, Too

She gazes up at the giant, dripping trees and draws in a deep breath of pure joy and spicy forest scent. 

Thanks, Dave.

He’s the one who got her here.  She’s never hitchhiked before, but a car would have been too easy to trace.  She knows people will interfere if they find her.  They all want something from you.  Except Dave.

She walks slowly through the soggy undergrowth, her feet squishing in the mud.  She’s soaked to the skin, and her body quivers uncontrollably.  She smiles, accepting the sensation without judging it. 

She hasn’t spoken to another person in days, but she can hear the busy traffic on the highway.  She carefully dodges a couple of hikers, staying out of sight.

Her mind ticks over the checklist again.  She set up the out-of-office notification on the home and work emails before she left.  Watered the plants, left a cheque for the cleaning lady, paid all the bills. 

She struggles up a rise and stops, her entire being possessed by delight. 

A long vista of wind-blown, rain-swept coast.  Silver mist hanging in the tops of the trees.  The briny ocean smell mingles with the peppery scent of cedar.  She breathes open-mouthed, tasting the air, savouring it with all her senses.

She’s probably seen dozens of views like this since she arrived, but each one is a precious gift.

Thanks, Dave.

She’s done everything, now.  Got the promotions, the respect, the money.  Had the loving husband, mourned his early death, got comfortable living on her own again.  Did the charity volunteer work, nursed her parents until the last, helped her friends through sick kids and cancer and divorce.

They can always count on Beth.  She always gives them what they need, even when it feels like she’s sucked dry.  Even when she has nothing left to give.

She’s pushing fifty now, and this is the last thing in the bucket list.  She’s not much of a traveller, but she’s always wanted to see the Oregon coast.

When she set out, she hadn’t really believed she’d get here, but she didn’t know Dave then.

She smiles at the memory of his steady eyes and his plain, honest face.  He let her ride without questions, never intruded on her privacy.  He didn’t expect anything from her, didn’t even ask.  Not for her attention, not for the details of her life, certainly not for her body.

She chuckles softly, remembering the stunned “Who, me?” expression on his face when she’d offered.

A curtain of rain sweeps across the view, and she turns to stumble down the slope again.  Vividly green ferns drip liquid diamonds.  Invisible traffic hisses on the wet highway.

She’s a little shocked that she offered.  She’s never been easy.  Since her husband died, there was only one guy, one time.  She didn’t return his calls afterwards.  She doesn’t need any more attachments.  They all want something from you. 

She’s finished giving.

The wind whistles through the pines and looses a deluge of cold silver.  She feels the icy droplets soaking through her long hair, dribbling down her neck.  Her body shudders, but she stands smiling, cherishing the sound of the sibilant song.

The trickles on her scalp remind her of Dave’s fingers stroking through her hair. 

“Beautiful,” he whispers.

She blinks, and Dave is gone.  She returns to the checklist.  All the loose ends tied up.  No husband, no kids, parents long dead, friends all doing fine.  Everyone’s needs fulfilled.  She’s finished there.

The university is going to offer her a Senior Fellow position.  There’s a sweet, patient man she’s rebuffed repeatedly; a stray cat that’s been hanging around; the next big charity fundraiser.  Another whole set of others’ needs, poised to bind her again in the delicate, merciless chains of love and duty.

But this freedom is just for her.  Pure selfishness.

A pine cone thumps down beside her, dislodged by the wind.  Like Newton’s apple, it brings inspiration.  She sits under the tree and pulls out the journal she brought in case this trip delivered some profound insight.

She laughs out loud, her unused voice trembling on the mist.  The journal is blank. 

She rips out a page and finds her pen.

“Stuff like this doesn’t happen to guys like me.”  Dave’s tired eyes, full of wonder.

She kisses him and whispers, “Sometimes it does.”  She gives herself gladly, because he doesn’t ask or expect. 

He understands the burden of others’ needs.  He sends every spare dollar to his estranged college-age kids and his ex-wife, still loves them with fierce, bewildered devotion. 

They said he wasn’t there for them.  But he’s been there for them all these years, every hour of every long, aching day on the road, every hour of tossing and turning alone at night in cheap hotels.

He was there for Beth, too.  Not knowing why this was so important to her, but doing what he could to help her anyway.

Her old will is tucked away at home, leaving everything to the charities she’s supported all her life.  Always giving.  But the faceless charities seem cold and distant.

Maybe she can give Dave some freedom, too.

She dumps her shampoo bottles out of the plastic bag and carefully folds the handwritten will into it.  Slips it inside her shirt, next to her heart.

She looks up at the underside of the fern and studies the slow progress of the water droplet down its stem.  When did she lie down? 

The raindrops are millions of perfect crystal spheres.  Her breath makes a thinning plume of vapour in the air, but the rain on her face feels warm.

Her shivering stills as the slow warmth envelops her body.  So this is hypothermia.  It’s so comfortable.  Comforting.  Her thoughts spiral lightly through the misty air. 

Thanks, Dave.  Blessings.

Now the rain is falling up, not down. 

She’s free.

Too Girly For Comfort

/ Diane Henders / 12 Comments

Roni Loren just posted “Battling the Romance Novel Stigma”.  It made me uncomfortable.

It’s best to read the whole thing, but if you’re short on time, here are the parts that rattled my comfort cage:

“…women often are embarrassed to admit it’s a romance or apologize in some way when they admit it.”

“Why are we made to feel that if we’re reading romance we’re something less than – less classy, less educated, less evolved? Or even worse, that something must be wrong with us because we can’t find a real man and instead look for them in books.”

I just hate the fact that those attitudes are real.  I tried about six times to write a comment on her blog, and each time I flailed. 

I’m not a romance reader.  I read romance novels for about six months when I was a young teenager.  I grew up on a farm in the back of beyond, so the tiny library in a town twenty miles away was my only source.  Let’s just say that their selection was limited.  After a couple dozen, even my thirteen-year-old mind identified the formula.  I got bored.  End of reading romance. 

Not to mention the fact that there was no sex in them whatsoever.  Boring.  I started reading fine literature like Stand On It:  A Novel by Stroker Ace instead.  Which probably explains a lot.

Back to the point.  I’ve always been a tomboy.  If I have a choice between listening to somebody discuss relationships or cars, I’ll choose cars every time.  I assumed that my discomfort with the romance genre was due to the fact that I’m not very girly in the first place.

But it bothers the hell out of me to think that women who do enjoy reading romance would feel embarrassed to admit it. 

Why should they?

And yet…  I was reading a novel at the airport.  It was an urban fantasy, but the cover art showed a couple locked in a passionate embrace.  And yeah, I kinda hid the cover.

Because… because… here’s where I start to struggle.  Why would I be embarrassed?  Because somebody might think I’m reading a romance.  Okay, so what the hell is so bad about that?

Well, somebody might think I’m girly.

Which is bad, why?

Well…

Um.

I’m a child of the sixties.  Back then, women were fighting for equality.  A lot of women tried to act more like men in an effort to prove that we deserve equal respect.  Maybe there’s some of that in there.  Men don’t read romance novels.  Ergo, reading romance novels is a sign of weakness.

Which, of course, is pure bullshit.

But it may be part of our collective psyche. 

Why should we apologize for our gender?  “Girly” is used as an epithet.  You don’t see guys sheepishly hiding the covers of their books and mumbling, “Oh, I’m just reading some of that silly manly stuff.”

Now, I’m really wondering. 

Is there a particular demographic that’s embarrassed about reading romance?  Maybe my generation is still dealing with the last of those old attitudes.  But what about our teenagers and twenty-somethings?  Are they embarrassed to be girly?  If they are, we as a society are doing something very wrong.

I guess I’m upset because I was getting complacent.  We’ve come so far, both legally and socially, in my lifetime.  I really thought we were getting there. 

Somebody please help me out here.  Is it only my generation that’s embarrassed to be girly (or only me)?  Is it a sign that we’ve become too complacent and we’re actually losing ground on equality?  Does it just mean that we’re not quite there yet?

Or am I making too much of this?

99-Cent Train Wreck

/ Diane Henders / 5 Comments

Update May 30/11:  I just found an excellent post, “The Pricing of eBooks and Perceived Value“, on Bob Mayer’s blog.  Seems I missed two critical points in my post: 

1) There’s a place for 99-cent e-books as a method of diminishing risk for potential buyers.  The important point here is that not all your books get priced at 99 cents, and they don’t necessarily stay priced at 99 cents.

2) I didn’t mention the sliding royalty scale that’s applied to e-books.  Bob does the math in his post.  When I advocated jacking up the price of e-books, I was thinking in the range of $2.99 to $8.99.  Bob’s post explains why that range would be okay, but anything over $9.99 doesn’t currently work to the author’s advantage.

Here’s my original post:

**************************

I’ve seen a lot of discussion on blogs lately about the idea of selling electronic books for 99 cents.

I’m a business owner in real life.  I’ve spent the better part of the last four years reading up on marketing, consumer behaviour, and pricing.

This is like watching a trainload of people hurtling towards the proverbial busted trestle sagging into the proverbial canyon.

I only hope a few passengers will notice my frantic gesticulations.

Oh, look, charades!  Two words, sounds like… head… no… brain.  Neck.

Brain neck?

Yeah, that’s what I said.  Train wreck.

Bail out now, folks, ‘cause if you stay on that train you’re gonna end up with a locomotive parked on your chest.  At the bottom of the canyon.  Submerged in a raging river.  Surrounded by hostile…  Well, you get the picture.

On my business website, I priced my computer training workbooks exactly the same for the paper and electronic versions.  Nobody ever quibbles.  They buy electronic, because they can have it immediately.  They rarely buy hard copies.

Your work has value.  When people buy your book, they’re not paying for the way it’s delivered.  Whether it’s fiction or non-fiction, they’re paying for the privilege of transferring a little bit of your brain into theirs.

That value isn’t diminished just because nobody killed a tree.  Spin that another way, and the electronic version is actually more valuable because the customer can have it instantly.

As soon as we begin to discount electronic books, we’re entering a commodity pricing system.  Simply put?  Some cheap bastard will always offer it for less.  And everybody loses.

This train ride is a one-way trip.  Once we let consumers believe that electronic books are “less valuable”, they’ll take it as a personal affront if we try to jack up the price later.  We’re in the early stages of this game.  Now’s the time to educate our customers about what they’re really getting.

Some people argue that lower pricing decreases the perceived risk for the buyer.  “I’ll buy it because I can afford 99 cents.  If it’s crap, I haven’t lost much.”

True.  But what’s the customer really thinking?  “This might be crap.”

Gee, that’s the reaction I’m looking for when somebody considers my book.  Not.

There are better ways to reduce perceived risk without diminishing value.  Let ‘em see the first chapter.  If it’s crap, I won’t sell any books.  But, arguably, if it’s crap, I shouldn’t sell any books.

When people buy something expensive, they value the item more.

Pens come to mind. Cheap pens cost about thirteen cents apiece if you buy a box of fifteen.  Or I can buy one fancy pen for upwards of thirty dollars.  A single refill for it costs six or seven bucks.

Why the hell would I buy one pen when I could spend the same amount of money and get enough pens to last me the rest of my friggin’ life?  When they look at my signature, nobody can tell what kind of pen I used.

But fancy pens still sell.

Why?  Somebody sold the customer on the look of the pen, the feel of the pen, the quality of the writing experience, the status of owning a pen that murmurs in a well-bred voice, “I am worthy of respect because my pen cost more than your shoes.”

That’s differentiation.  It’s a “better” pen.

As writers, our opportunities for differentiation are somewhat limited.  As long as the cover art is good and the title looks interesting, there’s no way to tell whether the book inside will whisk you to the pinnacles of literary ecstasy or make you recoil at the steaming heap concealed within its pages.

But ya know what?  If I pay six bucks for it, I’m gonna expect a little more ecstasy.  And if it delivers, I’m gonna go back and get me some more.

Whether I sell one thirty-dollar pen or three hundred cheap pens, it’s the same amount of money in my pocket at the end of the day.

Except that tomorrow, I have to go out and find more customers.  Three hundred is a lot.

We can’t stop people from pricing their books at 99 cents, short of creating a self-policing professional association.  I’ll stop laughing now.  The phrase “herding cats” comes to mind.

But maybe that’s a good thing.  It gives us an opportunity for differentiation.  I say jack up the price of those electronic books so people understand and expect the value they’re getting.

What do you think?

Tip: Readability Statistics

/ Diane Henders / 6 Comments


Since I make my living as a geek, I’ll occasionally share techie tricks that I use to make my life easier as a writer. 

Drop me a comment if there’s something specific you’re wondering about.  I’ll help if I can.

Here’s my tip of the day:

Get Readability Statistics For Your Document

Microsoft Word calculates readability statistics based on the length and complexity of the sentences and words you use in your document.  It doesn’t tell you anything about whether your writing is “good” or “bad”, but it can give you a hint if you’re making your readers work too hard.

The Counts are self-explanatory (and you can find them more easily than by using this method).  I’m assuming you know how to find your word count; if not, drop me a comment and I’ll do a post on it.

The Averages are used in the formulas that calculate the three things that concern me most as a writer:  reading ease, grade level, and passive sentences.

The frequency of passive sentences is an interesting stat for fiction writers.  All the “how-to” books warn against passive voice, and this is a handy-dandy way to see at a glance if you’re overdoing it.

Reading Ease is based on a 100-point scale.  The higher the score, the easier the document is to read.

Grade Level is based on average reading levels in the U.S. school system.

The readability score at the right is for my flash fiction piece “Freedom” (about 1000 words).  It’s told from Dave the trucker’s point of view, and you’ll notice that sentences are short, readability is a whopping 93.5, and it’s written at a Grade 1.7 level.  Dave is not a complicated guy.

“Freedom, Too”, the companion piece told from Beth’s point of view, comes in at Grade 4.6. 

Another day, another 1000 words.  Just for contrast, here’s the score for a technical piece that one of my clients requested, describing the ramifications of the Privacy Act here in Alberta.  Trust me, you don’t want to have to wade through this puppy. 

(Disclaimer here:  As a technical writer, I usually write as simply as possible, but this one was full of polysyllabic legalese.  Kinda like those last two words.)

Conventional wisdom states that for most writing, you should aim for minimum readability of 60 to 70, at a Grade 7 to 8 level.  And yes, that includes non-fiction writers.  Despite the complexity of his concepts, Albert Einstein’s papers still clocked in at about a Grade 8 reading level.

How To Do It
Here’s how to get these little gems of wisdom in Microsoft Word (sorry, Mac users, Apple doesn’t consider this a priority.  Readability stats don’t exist in iWork at the moment.)

First, you have to set Word to show the readability stats (this is a one-time thing).

Step 1:
In Word 2003 and earlier, go to the Tools menu and choose Options; or 
In Word 2007, click on the round Office Button in the top left corner, and choose Word Options (lower right corner of box.); or
In Word 2010, click on the File tab and choose Options.

Step 2:
Click Proofing (this will be a tab in 2003 and earlier, or a menu selection in the left pane for 2007 and 2010).

Step 3:
Select the “Check grammar with spelling” checkbox.

Step 4:
Select the “Show readability statistics” checkbox.

After you have this set up, get your readability statistics by running your spell-checker through the entire document.  (I’m assuming everybody knows how to do this, if not, drop me a comment and I’ll do a post on it.)

Unfortunately, you do have to spell/grammar check the entire document before you get the stats.  When the check is complete, the readability window pops up automatically.

Flash Fiction: “Freedom”

/ Diane Henders / 7 Comments

This is in response to a flash fiction challenge based on a photo.  Under a thousand words, in a week or less.  Here’s the only part of the picture I really noticed:

Me:  “Oh, God…”  *shudders*

Those letters in the sky.  They chill my soul.  They do not spell “HOTEL”.  They spell “Weird things will happen here.  Enter at your own risk.  And just try to sleep.  Buwahahaha!”

And that’s just the sight of the sign that’s freaking me out.  My bad hotel karma has scarred me for life.

This preamble is an attempt to justify the fact that my story is more about the journey than the destination.  I’m too traumatized to write about the hotel itself.

But I did use the word “hotel”.  Three times.  That’s gotta count for something.

Here’s “Freedom”.  All constructive criticism welcomed and appreciated.

Freedom

He spotted her about twenty miles west of Winnipeg.  She turned and stuck out her thumb as the rig got closer.  And smiled.

It was the smile that stopped him.  Well, that and the hot body and long, silky hair.  He leaned over and popped the passenger door open.  “Where’re you headed?”

“As far west as I can get.”

“Your lucky day.  I’m going all the way to Vancouver.”

“Great, thanks for stopping.”  She hopped up into the cab.  She moved like a teenager, but there were a lot more years on her than he’d first thought.  The shiny brown hair was shot with grey.  Deep crows-feet around the biggest, bluest eyes he’d ever seen.

“Dave Smith.”  He stuck out his hand.

“Nice to meet you, Dave.  I’m Beth.”  She shook his hand firmly.  She sounded educated and confident.  Clean clothes.  Small backpack.  Not your typical hitchhiker.

He pulled back onto the highway and ran up through the gears.  “Car trouble?” he guessed out loud.

“No.  Just looking for some freedom.  And I’d like to see the Oregon coast.”

She rode in silence.  Out of the corner of his eye, he could see her smiling.  Around Moosomin, he yawned and rubbed gritty eyes.

“Are you tired?”

“Yeah.  Short turnaround yesterday.”

“Do you want me to talk to you?”

“Sure.”

She turned those blue eyes on him, and the next thing he knew, he was telling her about the trucking business and his hometown.  Then about the failed marriage and the bitter ex-wife and the kids that didn’t seem to care if he lived or died as long as they got the monthly cheques for their college educations.

He blew through Regina on autopilot, still talking.  After so many years on the road, he could do this trip in his sleep.  Almost had, a few times.

At Moose Jaw, he pulled in.  “Need to eat?”

“No, I’ll just stretch my legs.”

He left her walking around the parking lot.  Watched her through the glass as he stood in the takeout lineup.  Long legs.  Nice ass in those snug pants.

He wasn’t usually a chatterbox, but she encouraged him.  Six hours flew by.  In Brooks, he asked her where she wanted to eat.

“I don’t need anything.”

“You haven’t eaten all day.”

“It’s okay.”

He frowned.  “Do you need money?”

“No.”

He shrugged and went in to eat.  None of his business.  Outside Calgary, he glanced over.  “I have to stop here for the night.  Regulations.”

She looked at him with those big, blue eyes.  “Will you get a hotel?”

“Yeah.”  His usual stop was a dive, but it was cheap and clean enough.  “You can sleep with me if you want.  I mean, uh, in the hotel.  You know.  Not…”

She smiled at him then.  “I’d like to sleep with you.”

“Uh?”  He instinctively glanced over his shoulder.  Nope, nobody else in the cab.  Took stock of his own weary eyes and greying stubble in the rearview mirror, looked down at the generous gut stretching out his T-shirt.  Hole in the T-shirt.  When did that happen?  He shook himself.  Tired.  Must’ve heard wrong.

She leaned over and kissed him.

Hadn’t heard wrong.  Holy shit.

Stuff like this didn’t happen to guys like him.

He didn’t get the regulation hours of sleep that night.  Hauled himself up out of that long soft hair and fine white skin after some head-banging morning sex.  “We need to get breakfast and get on the road.”

“You go ahead.  I’ll wait by the truck.”

“Don’t you eat?”

“Yes.”

“You don’t have any money with you, do you?”

“No.”

He dragged her into the restaurant and bought her a big breakfast.  She ate like it was her last meal.

Heading up into the mountains, he watched her smiling as she gazed out the window.  She got him talking again.  At lunchtime, he bought takeout for two.  She ate everything he gave her, and then took him into the sleeper and rocked the whole damn rig.

He made up reasons to stop often.  Rolled into Vancouver late; sore and exhausted and grinning like an idiot.  Best trip ever.  Holy shit.

In the parking lot, she said, “Thanks, Dave.”  Kissed him and turned away.

“Wait.  Where are you going?”

“Oregon.”

“Come with me instead.”

“Where?”

“Winnipeg.  I leave tomorrow.”

She smiled.  “I’m finished there.  I just want to see Oregon.”

“I’ll take you.”  The words burst out before he could stop them.

“You know you can’t.”

He kicked at the front tire.  He knew he couldn’t.

“Call me.”  He handed her his card.  She smiled, and he knew she wouldn’t.

“Wait a second.”  He pulled out his phone and called a couple of his buddies.  Found her a ride south.  Spent another long, hot night with her in another cheap hotel.

Next morning, she thanked him again and kissed him goodbye.  Got in Frank’s truck.  Waved and smiled as they pulled out.

Three weeks later, he got the call.  Lawyer in Winnipeg.  Yeah, he was Dave Smith.  Yeah, he’d been on the Winnipeg-Vancouver haul a few weeks ago.  Beth who?

Oh.

Shit.

Sitting in the lawyer’s office, twisting his cap between his hands.  She’d been found dead in the woods in Oregon.  Starvation and exposure.  Not far from the road.  No sign of foul play.

He hadn’t even known her last name.  Didn’t know why the hell the lawyer would call him.  Suit droning on, something about validity of handwritten wills.

“…to Dave Smith, with sincere thanks for enriching my last days, and for helping me reach my final goal, I leave all my worldly goods.  Thanks, Dave.  I found my freedom.  Blessings.”

Over a million bucks.

She hadn’t needed him.  She could’ve flown there in a private jet, drinking champagne all the way.  Lawyer said he couldn’t understand it.  She hadn’t been sick, didn’t seem depressed.

He knew the truth.  She was just… finished there.  Looking for freedom.

Holy shit.



For those who asked about Beth’s story, it’s here:  “Freedom, Too“.

			

	


			
				


	

							
Bad Hotel Karma
						

			 / Diane Henders						 / 13 Comments
								

			


		

		
I don’t know what I did in a previous life to deserve this, but I have bad hotel karma.  Here are a few of the more memorable examples:


Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan.  I arrived, only to find that the door to my room had been recently kicked in.  And repaired.  With packing tape.  Yeah.  Big splinters out of the door frame, all held together with clear tape.  It looked as though somebody had gone out the window fast, too.  They’d almost gotten it back in the frame afterwards.  There were just a few gaps here and there.


Many people would consider this ample reason to vacate.  Instead, I went out to buy a bottle of wine.  I was young(er), and this made sense at the time, for reasons that escape me now.  Because usually I’m a beer drinker. 


I stood in line to buy an overpriced bottle from off-sales (if you’re from Saskatchewan, you know what I’m talking about).  A creepy-looking guy was in line behind me, so I stepped aside to let him buy his beer first.  When I returned to the parking lot with my bottle, he was still sitting in his truck.  I drove away.  He followed me.  All the way back to the hotel. 


I discovered shortly afterwards that he was the hotel manager.  I didn’t know whether to be reassured or not.  He hadn’t actually been following me, specifically, as far as I knew.  But he was definitely creepy.  And he had a key to my room.  Not that he’d have needed it.  He could have farted in the general direction of the door and the whole thing would have given way.  I didn’t sleep well that night.


Manitoba.  The only hotel in a small town which shall remain nameless.  It was definitely a deluxe establishment, with a bathroom on each and every floor.  Three, in total.  I spent the night sleeping on the doormat on the linoleum floor, because it was both cleaner and more comfortable than the bed.  The cattle in the adjacent feedlot started bellowing at four in the morning.  The smell was unspeakable.  But I’m willing to concede that this one may have been more a matter of poor choice than karma.


Lest you think that my ill fate arises from the fact that I’m a cheapskate, allow me to present another hotel experience.  Swanky high-rise in Vegas.  Two hundred bucks a night, back in the ’90s.  (No, I wasn’t paying.  So I’m cheap.  Shut up.) 


At two o’clock in the morning, some nutcase rappelled down from the roof past my twelfth-floor window.  Hooting and hollering.  Feet bouncing against the glass.  Thump.  Thump.  Thump.  I didn’t get up to look.  I just didn’t want to know.  I heard the rumour later that he was naked, so I guess I should have looked.  You don’t see naked guys rappelling every day.  I’m thinking that he’d have wanted to be careful putting on the harness, though.  Maybe that’s why he was hollering.


Lethbridge, Alberta.  Another hotel, another night.  And no, this one wasn’t cheap, either.  There was an ill-fitting connecting door to the next room.  Around midnight, the neighbour stumbled into his room, immediately lit up a cigarette, and dialled an escort service.  The cigarette smoke drifted under the door.  He demanded, “Sex!  Lots of sex!”  Middle European accent.  Every word clear as a bell through the useless door.


Since I was awake anyway, I sneaked out of my room to get something from the car.  He caught sight of me and thought I was his hooker.  I’m not quite sure what he found attractive about my baggy jeans and sweatshirt, but then again, he was pretty wasted.  I ignored his bawdy shouts and lay low until the real hooker arrived.  She was wearing a nice little black business suit.  She was much more tastefully dressed than I was.  Should that bother me? 


I sneaked back into the room and called the front desk.  They declined to acknowledge that there was a problem.  Fortunately, the guy had all the staying power of wet toilet paper.  If that was his idea of “lots of sex”, no wonder he had to pay somebody.  He was done in minutes, the hooker left, and I actually did get some sleep that night.


Bad hotel karma runs in our family, too.  If my sister ever writes her memoirs, don’t miss them.


Got any bad hotel stories?  Come on, I know you do.  Share, share!

			

	


			
				


	

							
Hello, World
						

			 / Diane Henders						 / Leave a comment
								

			


		

		
When a computer geek writes his/her very first program, it usually generates the following text: “Hello, World.”


Well, I’m a geek.  Go figure.


I’ve resisted blogging for some time now, but peer pressure is a terrible thing. I’ve lurked on several blogs for a while. Kristen Lamb  has never heard of me, but her RSS feeds keep nagging me to create a platform.


And I keep seeing flash fiction challenges.  That’s why I started this blog.  I want to play, too.


So here goes…