Friday Flashback: Short Story Loving

It's Friday, folks, and about time this blog had another flashback... so today the file cabinet of curiosities has coughed up a little gem dating all the way back to 1992, when 11-year-old Marisa discovered the world of short stories.

The other day I mentioned that I'm a short story lover - LOVE them. Well, I've had short stories on the brain lately, more so than usual because on Marisa's Big Fat List of Goals for 2012 we have:

#4 - Write 3 short stories and post them on my blog
(ie be a big brave girl in public)

Which isn't a huge deal, other than the fact that having my fiction read by anyone other than my trusted crit partners makes me feel like I'm standing in front of the world in my undies - which isn't something I imagine I'd enjoy.... but as I'd love to be an author with a whole world reading my stuff, it's about time I get over my issues - or at least make sure I'm wearing super cute undies!

When I was in 6th grade, my English teacher passed out a short story for dissection, called Midnight Snack by Diane Duane. (part of an anthology called Sixteen, which you can find HERE)*

Unicorns, people, UNICORNS.

(squeeeeeeeeeeee!)

Aura - baby unicorn by R. Wake
SovaeArt on Etsy

I love unicorns.

I do.

I really, really do.

But not only that, Midnight Snack was a YA urban fantasy, which tickled the fancy of middle school Marisa more than any other genre (yeah, things haven't changed much), and sparked a whole slew of urban fantasy stories in my notebooks - though none about unicorns because I was still too much in love with the ones in this story to attempt writing unicorns of my own.

And because of this story, I fell in love with the entire world of short stories. See, before this one I had only experienced the short stories found in our class textbooks - stories so boring I didn't even read them all the way through, and would instead turn to the back of the book where the longer stories, such as Where the Red Fern Grows by Wilson Rawls, could be found.

(oh man, I remember reading that one in class when I was supposed to be doing anything other than secretly reading ahead in the textbook, wiping and wiping and wiping at my never-ending stream of tears)

Not too long ago, I picked up the short story anthology Zombies Vs. Unicorns -

(click to add to your Goodreads list)

- Which is filled with awesome short stories by a whole slew of my current favorite authors, like Meg Cabot, Scott Westerfeld, and Carrie Ryan. (I love zombies, but I'm totally Team Unicorn)

And I liked it - it was a quick, fun read.... but not a single unicorn story grabbed hold of my heart quite like Midnight Snack did.

Short story lovers out there, tell me, what stories hold your heart? I'd love to know!

*if you google it, you can find it on teaching sites online - though I hope you'll pick it up from your library or purchase it for your bookshelf, too!

Happy Lucky Friday the 13th, folks!

As I was born on Friday the 13th, I refuse to believe it is anything other than lucky... despite what this previous flashback might tell you.

xoxo,

Friday Flashback: Best Roommate EVER and Bacon

My husband bought me a package of bacon the other day.

I know. Oh, believe me, I KNOW. He's amazing.

When it comes to bacon - more importantly, bacon slapped between two slices of mayonnaise-slathered Wonder bread - I'm a total nutjob. Let me just say, I've never been particularly trendy until worshiping bacon became the trend.

I WORSHIP BACON. There I said it, folks. I am a bacon-worshiper.

Of all the people who could tell you this fact about me, my former roommate Jean aka Best Roommate EVER, would say it best.

(and by say it best, I mean with a classic Jean-lives-with-Marisa look: eyebrows high, eyes wide - the "I am in the presence of a nutjob" expression on her face...)

Jean was my roommate during my last semester of college, when I was engaged to Will (who still lived in the UK at the time), was writing out mass quantities of wedding invitations (like, 50, but that felt like a ton), and, to my surprise, was in the middle of shape-shifting from a mostly cheerful college student to a neurotic preggo-monster (anyone who lives with Pregnant Marisa deserves a trophy, I'm telling ya).

Because of all this - and because my grandma loves me and bought me a ginormo Costco-sized slab of bacon - Jean was witness to extraordinary amounts of bacon consuming.

OMG, you guys, BACON!

One night, Jean, on the phone with her boyfriend, came out of her room and into the kitchen, sniffing the delicious air. She was already wearing her "I am in the presence of a nutjob" expression.

"I smell bacon. Are you making bacon?" she said. And into the phone: "Marisa's making bacon. Right now. An entire Costco package of bacon."

"Yeah!" I exclaimed, swinging my fork around like a magical bacon wand. "Want a bacon and mayonnaise sandwich?"

"Ew. No. You're making an entire package of bacon."

"I know!"

"Did you notice it's THE MIDDLE OF THE NIGHT???"

I looked at the clock. It was the middle of the night.

"Oh. Yeah. Look at that. Hmmmm... Guess this isn't the best time to make a slab of Costco bacon." A lie! A total lie! It's always the right time for bacon! "Are you sure you don't want some bacon?"

Insert another "I am in the presence of a nutjob" expression HERE.

"Yeah, okay, I'll have some. But not in a mayonnaise sandwich," she said.

And then we ate lots of bacon and lived happily ever after. The end.

To this day (and I literally mean THIS DAY, since I just made bacon about 5 minutes ago) I can't make bacon and mayonnaise sandwiches without seeing Jean's classic "I am in the presence of a nutjob" expression.

Bacon lovers, SHOUT IT FROM THE ROOFTOPS!

And just a note: If you consume mass quantities of bacon when you're pregnant, you'll gain 45+ lbs. Only a little of that will be baby weight. Not a lot of Weight Watchers recipes include mass quantities of bacon. You have been warned.

Happy Friday, folks

xoxo,

Friday Flashback: Fern Ridge (or My First Writing Retreat)

The summer between 5th and 6th grade, I joined my childhood BFF Molly and her family on a trip to Oregon. I couldn't get over how lucky I was. A super long drive (I love road trips), my first ever vacation without my family, the loft of the Holbrook's rental house all to our 11-year-old selves, and, as Molly was my writing buddy, guaranteed non-stop story writing and reading for an entire week.

Best. Trip. EVER. I had never felt like such a grown up.

This trip is so clear in my memory it feels like it happened... well, a heck of a lot sooner than 19 years ago (eek!) Even packing was exciting. I ripped apart my vocabulary notebook from 5th grade, determined to fill it with the best story imaginable. I scoured my bedroom shelves for books I hadn't read yet. (this was the summer I decided I would enrich my life with the classics and packed only stories by O'Henry, The House of the Seven Gables and Black Beauty. I got as far as the beginning of Black Beauty before I ditched my books for Molly's - Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark and The Dollhouse Murders were a little more interesting to 11-year-old-Marisa)

(30-year-old Marisa thinks they sound more interesting, too)

Mostly, I remember the freedom we had to do what we liked all day long. As soon as we arrived at the house, we set up a library in our loft and ran down to the river to find the perfect writing spot which we called Fern Ridge (shown in the above sketch). If we wanted to take a break from writing, we'd row a boat across the river to the beach on the other side. We'd play Spit and BS until our fingers fell off, listen to Bob Marley on a loop, watch more episodes of Happy Days than a person should watch in their entire life-time, build wigwams out of the underbrush and pretend we were Native Americans, and talk boys boys boys (we happened to be madly in love with the cutest set of brothers who attended our church - all my boy book characters were called either Mario or Giovanni that summer).

I held on to that notebook (obviously - it's shown above). And though my story, which I titled Fern Ridge, wasn't exactly the best story imaginable...

... it's certainly entertaining.

Man, did I love sitting on the stairs of our secret writing spot (which wasn't really secret - it was the stairs down to the river) and writing like crazy. I knew even then that I wanted to be a writer someday, but having a writing friend beside me, scribbling in her own notebook, was the BEST part of my life back then.

A year ago, Molly posted this little gem on Facebook and I just about fell out of my chair when I saw it.

No way were we this little. That was the summer we were practically GROWN UPS.

I don't know if Molly is writing these days, but she is certainly releasing her creativity into the world in the form of gorgeous organic meals with her gourmet catering company Organicopia.

And lookie here - she's has her very first webisode. (yay, Molly!)

Organicopia - Webisode Pilot from Nelson Nunez on Vimeo.

Have a flashback of your own to share? Blog it! And then tell me, so I can read it!

Have a wonderful weekend, folks!

xoxo,

Friday Flashback: My 7th Grade Horror Fiction

(Today's Friday Flashback is highly influenced by the blog posts of both Kathy aka The Dreamy Giraffe, who shared one of her 7th grade stories today, and Tessa Gratton (author of Blood Magic) who blogged her new collection of 90's teen horror books today - Christopher Pike fans in da' house say "hey!")

Middle School Marisa gobbled up 90s teen horror faster than cones of Baskin Robbins Gold Medal Ribbon. That's saying a lot considering I eat ice cream when I angst and my 12-year-old self lived to angst. And, as I wanted to be a writer, my file cabinet of curiosities had it's own file labeled: HORROR STORIES.

This sample is pretty typical of a 7th grade Marisa story. It contains everything my 12-year-old self loved - an historical preface, a modern-day (circa 1993) tween girl who declares she hates her life in a super dramatic way, evil porcelain dolls, and death angels.

This is fiction that should never see the light of day, you guys. You have been warned. Yep. Here we go.

-------------------------

Preface: 1898, Williamsburg, Virginia

"Oh! Momma!" I cried as I threw open my last birthday gift. It was a doll with pale blonde curls, a soft silk blue dress, cremed rose painted lips in a scary, mocking grin. The doll had clear blue eyes, so clear it almost showed the inside of this fragile doll. I glanced up at Momma. "Thank you, Momma, Poppa. It's a beautiful doll," I said, but I didn't mean it. Not all that much, anyway. Something about her features made me shiver. It was the way she seemed to watch me as I looked at her. "I'll call her Anna-Elise," I said blankly as I set the doll down to continue with the wonderful party given to me.

***

That night, when the party ended, I took Anna-Elise onto my lap and spun her crank to make her say, "Momma!" When she said "Momma!" I smiled. She had a voice sweet and innocent, not like the wicked doll of her appearance. "Momma!" Anna-Elise said again. "Momma!" Slowly I set her down in my doll chair and climbed into bed. A few minutes later, there was a knock at my door.

"Catherine? Are you still awake?" Momma asked me.

"Yes, Momma. You can come in," I said. Momma opened the door to kiss me goodnight.

(insert a page of blah, blah, blah, how did you like your party/doll, I loved it, you're the best Momma ever, shivering because the doll is creepy, goodnight, goodnight, ect... here)

***

The morning came quickly and I got dressed and walked over to pick up Anna-Elise who had fallen over from the night wind which seeped in from my open window.

"You are one gruesome doll," I said to Anna-Elise. I turned the crank in her back. All of a sudden, her clear blue eyes turned red and she smiled at me in a frightening way.

"Mommaaaa!" Anna-Elise laughed. "Mommmmmaaaa!" I dropped Anna-Elise and backed away, only to see her climb up onto her stubby legs. "Come here, Cemitrum!" she said. I backed away. "Come here, Cemitrum!" she said again. I didn't respond. "Raycastra, Floorum, Cristornien, Traichitum, Clagrium, and Opian!" the doll chanted.

From the window, six flying skeletons dressed in shabby robes with flying skeletal birds appeared. I tried to run out of the room but the door seemed stuck.

(insert a half-page of helpless screaming, here)

"Come to me, Cemitrum. Be one of my death angels. Come to me." Anne-Elise's voice was scaring me. I couldn't bear it. I took a step toward the doll. "Good girl," she said. I took another step then grabbed Anna-Elise and flung her out the window. "Aggghhh!" she screamed, then all was silent. As quickly as they came, the death angels disappeared.

From down below, Poppa yelled, "Catherine Alexandra Castrone! Why is your new doll laying on the ground in hundreds of pieces?"

CHAPTER ONE - New York, 1993

"I can't believe you want to move to Williamsburg! I bet they make butter and soap for fun! It's not fair!" I yelled at Momma and Poppa. I was so mad. I hardly even noticed the hurt look on Momma's face.

"Catherine Alexandra Castrone! If you are going to argue then go to your room!" Poppa told me. "Gramma Susan invited us to live in her old house since she is so old, and now we're going to live there! It wouldn't hurt you to learn a little about family history. Anyway, Auntie Maria and Uncle Johnny's kids are going to live there, too. You'll like having Angela to play with. She's twelve, too."

"But Poppa! It's 1993! No one lives in an old town! Believe me!" I whined helplessly.

(insert three pages of Go to your room! I hate you and I'm not moving! You have no choice, now stop whining! But all my friends are in New York and Angela is a spoiled, conceited brat and I hate her! plus helpless crying x10, here)

The End.

------------------------

That wasn't really the end. It went on for another several pages, including a scene in which Catherine moves to Williamsburg and makes fun of "the most ridiculous hat [she has] ever seen!"

Invigorating stuff, eh?

But that's not all, folks. My notes come with a family tree. Too bad I didn't think to include a death angels name pronunciation guide.

Sadly, I was more of an ideas + first-10-pages girl and lacked follow through to the finish, so I don't know how this story ends.

Though I'm sure the final fight between middle school drama queen and evil doll and death angels would have been epic, with lots of blood and plenty of helpless screaming, helpless crying, and helpless whining.

Have a fabulous weekend, folks!

xoxo,

Friday Flashback: Fashion

In the wise words of the Conchords, "fashion is danger."

Yeah, that's pretty much how I feel - dangerous stuff, fashion. Which explains why I'm about as fashionable as last season's discount rack at Target. I don't laugh in the face of danger, I hide from it.

Gracie, the resident fashionista thinks differently. When gearing up for her 6th b-day in May, she said to me, "Hey Mom, can I shop at Justice at the mall? That's where the cool clothes are...."

And this kiddo wanted CLOTHES for her birthday instead of toys. Sometimes I wonder if she's really the daughter of my BFF Jenni, who has been known to say, "Marisa... what are you WEARING?" (this is when I dress myself. When my mom or grandma dress me, I'm pretty cool) And every cute pair of shoes that has ever destroyed my feet with blisters always met my BFF's approval.

"Beauty is pain, Marisa." That became my mantra through college as I heard it often enough. This mantra has been replaced by "Comfort is sweatpants, Marisa" and I'm much happier now.

When Gracie was four, I found this picture on the floor and wore a puzzled/impressed expression as I made sense of it.

"You're designing clothes?" I asked her. "Yup, I want to be a fashion designer," she said. Two years later, the girl is going strong. Her style can be described as "Betsey Johnson meets My Little Ponies."

(She was a fashion designer for Halloween last year and this was her monstrosity - er, creation)

So, I thought I'd dig through the file cabinet of curiosities for these: dress designs from my middle school days.

6th grade:


And 8th grade:

I've always been a sucker for wedding dresses. I love them.

When it came to my wedding, I was one of those, "Tell me when to be there and what to wear and I'll show up about a half hour early," kind of gals. I was happy to hand ALL the wedding planning over to my grandma, who did a beautiful job! and focused my attention on making sure my hubs didn't get too crazy on his stag do and wake up naked in a train car in Scotland (he didn't, phew) and finishing school (I got married the same week as finals, so I ended up with a degree and a hubs at the same time).

When it comes to Gracie and fashion, she's very much a "back away, Mom, I'll handle this" gal, and tromps around the backyard in heels and fancy skirts with hair bows erupting from her head.

She's asked to design her 1st grade back-to-school wardrobe so we've been having fun prepping for that. Making sure Gracie doesn't go to school dressed as the tooth fairy will be a challenge... but she shares my love for art deco and I'm pretty jazzed about the designs she's played with so far.

Stay tuned, folks. My 6-year-old fashionista is prepping for the unveiling of her fall collection and it's going to be pretty sharp.

xoxo,

Friday Flashback: Teeth

Gracie lost her third tooth this morning - one of her two front teeth, which are my favorite teeth for kids to lose. I'm crossing my fingers that the other one will hurry up and fall out because, in my opinion, nothing is cuter than a ginormo top-teeth gap on little kids.

When it comes to pulling out teeth, Gracie and I are polar opposites. (or molar opposites. har har.) She's very timid. This last tooth wiggled in her head for a good two months until it fell out on it's own.

Me at age 4, with my big brother, Dan - my first lost tooth.
How RAD is that wall paper?

I, however, was of the 'will inflict physical pain on self if it means a visit from a real live FAIRY and a handful of shiny coins' variety. And so, at the age of four, I pulled my first tooth out of my head during nap time at preschool when it wasn't even wiggly. (I was of the 'will inflict physical pain on self it if means NOT NAPPING' variety, as well, which got me in a lot of trouble as a kid)

Eventually, my grandma taught me a short cut - the string-tied-to-your-tooth-and-then-to-the-door-and-then-you-SLAM-the-door-and-VOILA! short cut. Which is brilliant! Teeth come out SO easily this way!

Fortunately, there is no photographic evidence that I had a monstrous mouth of scraggly teeth. I smiled with my mouth closed in every close-up shot until my teeth looked normal again in fifth grade...


...thus avoiding looking like my adorable scraggle-toothed hubs....


...who eventually turned into an adorable Jr. Bugs Bunny.

What will Gracie's mouth look like? Only time will tell...

But in the meantime, she's pretty darned cute, if I do say so myself!

Have a FANTABULOUS 4-day weekend and 4th of July (or Good Riddance Day, as my Brit of a husband likes to call it)!

xoxo,

Friday Flashback: A Midnight Beach

I'm still planning on taking a mini blog hiatus because I have over-committed myself just a tad and need to catch up with life, but I'll toss in a Friday flashback first.

So. I've blogged about my wretched (but amusing! - to me at least) poetry from 7th grade in previous flashbacks, and here I go again. Only this poem was my 7th grade Young Author's Faire submission so it has fancy pictures!

A Midnight Beach

And in usual Marisa fashion - a page in which I dedicated my book to one of my childhood cats.

And, in case you aren't sure whether you just read a truly terrible poem or a REALLY AMAZING poem, I'll just go ahead and show you the reviews:

That's right you guys - my poem is one of the greats.

Best. Poem. EVER.

Seriously, though, I hated this poem when I wrote it. I might have had a ginormous love for writing and poetry back then, but my self-confidence was atrocious. It was supposed to be a descriptive poem, and even now, writing descriptions usually ends with me banging my head on my desk and blubbering that I'm a no-talent hack.

Although I am happy to say that my teacher liked my poem more than I did - every teacher picked two books from each class to enter the Young Author's Faire, and my poem was one of her choices.

But I will add that even then I was positive my teacher picked my poem because of the illustrations - this is the same teacher who announced to the class, while looking directly at me, that book reports and other non-artsy class assignments (she was also my history teacher) were not allowed to have illustrated covers because they will NOT count toward the grade.

This is also the teacher who, ten years later, saw me working at the elementary school her daughter attended, remembered me, and asked if I was still into art. That was pretty cool - she was one of my favorite teachers. I felt awful that I didn't recognize her. I also can't believe that at age 23 I looked enough like my 13-year-old self (eeek!) that my teacher recognized me.

Have a flashback of your own? JOIN IN THE FUN and hop on over to Tia's blog while you're at it.

Happy weekend, folks!

xoxo,

Friday Flashback: Middle School Marisa's Book Covers

I've blogged before about the stories I used to write in fifth grade, middle school, my freshman year of high school... well guess what, folks! Some of those stories have BOOK COVERS! And attached to those book covers are the stories that go with them and, oh man, they crack me up. I might need to share samples from some of those stories in another flashback.

This post is about book covers, so I'll begin with THIS:

From 5th grade - check out those eyebrows.

I didn't get my first set of fancy colored pencils until 6th grade, so I made do with crayons. And check out the calligraphy in that title! Practicing calligraphy was one of 11-year-old Marisa's favorite pastimes.

From 6th grade - a sci-fi story about doppelgangers found in an alternate universe.

From 7th grade - another sci-fi about an alternate universe inside a mirror and a girl who falls in and has to convince the dorkiest, smelliest boy in her class - who she and her friends made fun of - to help her find a way out (he's the one who has the mirror). This story was about unexpected friendships - I was big into writing stories featuring unexpected friendships.

(for those who recognized the frightening girl in the mirror - yes, that was me. You'll find brown-haired, blue-eyed, moley-faced characters on a lot of my covers because I learned how to draw people from looking in the mirror. Also, I never finished the drawing because I thought it was so darned ugly)

Also from 7th grade (1993) - how NINETIES is this book cover?

In this story, my main character's BFF dies. Her name was November Shane. I was a huge Guns N' Roses fan, you guys.

Also, I killed off someone in just about all of my stories. I loved killing characters. In fact, here is a little clip from the diary I kept when I was in 5th grade:

(my character in this particular story was called Capulet Montague, by the way. 11-year-old Marisa was fascinated by desperately sad love stories)

(also, in case you are wondering, this entry was from March - my diary did a great job of reminding me of those missing summer pages in that when I came to them, they were missing!)

From 8th grade - the main character spends the summer suffering from a horrible illness, confesses her love for her very best friend who confesses his love for her, too, and then she dies.

Also from 8th grade - a ghost story. This one featured a haunted doll that was made as an effigy of a girl who had been murdered by her tutor - the girl's bones and dress were found in a locked trunk that was in the basement, hidden behind a brick wall, The Cask of Amontillado-style. I had just read that story and it freaked me out so badly I simply HAD to include my favorite part in a story somewhere.

According to my notes, I planned for the doll to have the hair and eyelashes of the dead girl... but how that could be when she disappeared and her body was found a hundred years later locked in a trunk behind a brick wall, I have no idea. But hey, not too bad for age 13!

And because it amuses me: The title page, complete with publishing information.

And another ghost story from my 8th grade days:

This one was Scooby-Doo-like in that the ghost was a hoax in order to bring guests into the haunted inn where the characters were staying.

This was my 8th grade Young Author's Faire book.

I didn't win. Heck, I wasn't even chosen from amongst my classmates to participate in the actual Faire - my story was pretty darned boring, despite the mildly interesting title. However, I wasn't upset. Only one book was chosen from each class to be entered into the contest, and the girl who won from my class asked me to do the illustrations for her book, which I did. That made me happy.

And now for a mermaid story (because there has to be a mermaid story somewhere - these are MY stories, after all):

This was the very last book cover I made in my middle school days, drawn just before freshman year, and I worked on this story off and on through high school.

Sadly, I cannot find the other book covers I drew, though I know they are around my house somewhere. Most of these I found in a file marked: MARISA'S TAXES '02. My organization skillz are clearly lacking.

Have a flashback of your own to share? Head on over to Tia's blog and join in the fun!

Have a great weekend, folks!

xoxo,

Friday Flashback: Desperately Seeking Susan

I'm just gonna go ahead and say I love the movie Desperately Seeking Susan. Have you all seen this movie? If not, what are you waiting for! It's so quirky and cute and Madonna and Rosanna Arquette are awesome!

Here is the description from Amazon: Bored New Jersey housewife Roberta fills her days by reading the personal ads and following an ongoing romance between "Jim" and "Susan", a mysterious drifter who leads the kind of free-spirited life about which Roberta can only dream. And dream she does, until the day she actually shows up at the couple's prearranged rendezvous in New York City...and after a bump on the head, a bout of amnesia turns Roberta into Susan and opens the door to intrigue, laughter and love!

I love screwball comedies.

The other day I was talking awesome 80's fashion with my pal Alyssa, and mentioned I went to my Homecoming dance when I was seventeen dressed Madonna-like a la Desperately Seeking Susan and she said, "BLOG IT!"

Then, funnily enough, yesterday my pal Tina blogged her love for this movie, and how it influenced her 15-year-old self when it came to fashion. (Seriously, Tina, I love and adore you even more, if that's possible!)

Now, I wasn't about to rock the parachute pants and though my mom still had her leather pants from the 80's, which looked exactly like the pants Rosanna is sporting on the movie cover, I wasn't about to rock those either. So my mom helped me come up with a skirt alternative.

Costume shopping with my mom is so fun, you guys. We went to Victoria's Secret for a black lace body suit, black bra, and lacy thigh-highs. Hit up the Goodwill store for costume jewelry. Bought lace socks which I painted gold.

And the pièce de résistance: My pyramid jacket! (which my mom made)

Okay, so I don't quite look like Madonna... And I'm not sure how many people at my school had seen this movie (it came out 14 years before) because no one knew what the heck was going on with my outfit.

And the ticket collector took one look at me and said, "It's Cyndi Lauper!"
But whatever. That outfit was so totally me and I loved it.

You know what else I love? This song:



(which is in the movie)

So, Alyssa and Tina - what do you think? Did I do 80's Madonna-inspired fashion justice?

Have a flashback of your own to share? Join in the fun at Tia's blog!

Happy Friday, folks!

xoxo,