Eating Nouns, Shitting Adjectives.

In keeping with it's peculiar trend of messing with my sleeping patterns, Inspiration struck at goddess-knows-what AM, and as a result I'm currently in the middle of a short story entitled "Madeline & the Giant Ferret of Love", it will most likely be too long to post, as it's a good page-and-a-half already, and while has all the earmarks of a short story, I can't for the life of me think of an ending.
Picture this:
You fall asleep under your desk and awake to find your apartment has morphed into a cave of sorts, after you've suitably calmed down from the resulting freak-out, you are greeted by a giant ferret with messy fur the colour of "a newborn dipped in onion-soup".
It introduces itself as "the Giant Ferret of Love" and proceeds to mistake your name for "Mad-Ellen"

.....So what now? I was coasting on inspiration and hit a brick wall... WHAMM!

I have my setting, characters (will probably end up with more later), setting... But I don't have an event... though a visit from a giant ferret could arguably be an event in itself, I can't have my characters sit around twiddling their thumbs and playing monopoly for another two pages.
Drat it, they'll have to get up off their behinds and DO something, we make our characters earn their existance, no doubt about that, but thinking up their list of chores is quite nearly as taxing as doing the chores themselves...

Gah, inspiration is so volatile!
It gobbles down your nouns and verbs, and tommorow you dissapointedly flush the adjectives down with a yellow wash of oxymorons, if you're not careful. too much of good inspiration is turned into tripe by lazy people who can't be bothered putting in the hard yards to make it something.
Thats the answer, in the end. hard work.
Put work into your words, even if they don't flow easily, and the story you get is the story you earned.

It'll be tea with Madeline for me in any case,
Let you know how it turns out, if its an epic fail... well, you'll probably find out anyway,

a-rollin' up the sleeves,
Leah Mae. :)

The Last Hippie

This little poem goes against most of my writing habits, as it is an environmental cry-out: and while I feel strongly on the subject; Poetry should not have to have a message or reason! -doing so quite nearly undermines the purpose of poetry in fact- and it saddens me greatly that this one should need to be.
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The Last Hippie.

He sits, entwined
In the branches of the last tree
Of metropolis.

This is his place
To breathe, a memory of the tranquil,
Shrouded in chaos,

Like a faded
Photograph, alien to the gaudy lights
Of the city.

An apology, he clings
To the ancient boughs, bark rough under
Tired hands.

Branches spread skyward,
As tactile fingers, and all he can taste is
The sorrow.

They two,
Last of a kind, there was never room
For failure.

With a pistol cocked
To his mouth, forgiveness is begged,
Tomorrow, the diggers come.

There will be no last stand.
-
© Leah Petts 13.09.2009

Tanith's Escapades- some good reasons why keyboards can't scream.

Once again, Tanith was in one of her moods, one could almost argue Tanith was always in one of her moods- not to her face, of course, but there you go;
Erin now had more confidence than a Diva, thanks to Tom's quick thinking and a screaming match with Shannon that effectivley slammed the gate shut on Tanith's any hope of sitting on the fence- not that there'd been any doubt in her mind over sides anyway.
..This is how things were with Tanith, there were never really any shades of grey.

As for right now,
She rubbed her tired eyes and jabbed at the keyes indifferently, the LCD screen flickered and an instant message popped up:
"Hey Tan, its Tom- havent talked to you in a while: ev'rything ok?"
Tanith scowled at the screen and flicked off the computer without bothering to shut it down. In truth, she wasn't sure why she still wasn't talking to Tomas -after all, he'd saved the day with the whole Erin thing... she just didn't have the guts to admit she was wrong. Apologies never really came easy, especially after you'd ruined something like that with blind pig-headedness.

She sat there for a while, with her cheek against the cold, grainy wood of the desk; dirty fingernails drumming mindlessly, irritatedly.
With a determined growl, Tanith suddnely leaned over to kick the bone-box into life. mechanism whirred and the monitor stirred drowsily.
With decided, almost angry strokes, Tanith wrote:
"Out of Eostrogen, next mood swing: T-minus ten minutes...."
She leaned back in the chair and waited, then
"TANITH? -heck, i didnt expect a reply; what's up?"
Her eyebrows raised in confusion and she tapped out another line, erased it all, and tried again:
"I dunno Tom, I guess I just dont know how to talk to you anymore... are we still ok?"
There was a longer pause this time, Tanith was four seconds from turning off the screen in disgust when Toms reply rippled over the monitor:
"No, not really, this is kind of hard Tan, but I dont think we'll ever be what we were... you saw to that..."
Teeth clenched, she beat her answer into the kerboard with rising desperation,
"I thought you might say that."

There was no reply, and Tanith wanted to yell: "So why'd you bother in the first place, huh?!" but of course, that would be almost as futile as her black moods.
Head in her hands, elbows on the desk, she sang to herself quietly, Oh, this is how it goooes baby, I'll get angry at your words and I'll head hoooooooome.... she trailed off at the part where the girl goes back home and says sorry.
She stared out the window, and like the proud member of Gen. Y she was, relished the misery as it slid smoothly through her veins, all whispering and irridescent.
Sometimes, the truth you get is never the truth you want, even if you did see it coming.

Biting into the sour flesh of her bottom lip; Tanith slowly, grimly crushed her own, hissing, spitting ego with a growing sense of determination and disgust.
Tommorrow. She would apologise tomorrow.

She did not want him back, -it would not have been in her nature to do so-, but she did want his forgiveness. She was not likely to get it, but for once just knowing why she did things was a good enough reason, after all, it was long overdue.

Oh, this is how it goooes babe, 'cos I'll be back before you knooow, before you know....

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Tanith's Escapades- Infuriatingly Distracting...

Tanith leaned over the guitar, fingers strumming lightly. the hollow wood quivered at the sound, echoing dryly against the peeling fence.
Laying her face on the edge, Tanith could feel the music against her skin; no beat, just indistinct melody. She sat in contentment, pretending everthing was as perfect as a melody.

Gravel crunched underfoot, and a pair of scuffed blue sneakers shuffled into view. Tanith eyed the sneakers with resignation
"Hi Tan," said Tomas, testing the waters apprehensively,
"mmmmm?" it was as good a reply as any.

Tomas shifted his weight from one foot to the other in that infuriatingly distracting way of his;
"I didn't know you played guitar" -what a stupid thing to say, why did i say that??- Tom's brain fizzled it's dissaproval.
Tanith's face showed hers.
"I hardly ever do... not that you'd think to ask."

Tom looked hurt, or at least, tried to look hurt. "Look, it didn't even have anything do do with me anyway!"
"Sure" -Tanith looked unconvinced
Irritation flashed through Tom's brain- "I'm telling you, Shannon's been picking on Erin for over a month now, and you didn't even bother to notice!"

"So explain to me why she says it was you." Tanith snarled though clenched teeth

Tom was taken aback. He knew Tanith was protective of Erin, but to completely disown him because she suspected he was involved?! It was maddeness! -no,- his brain corrected him dryly, -it was "Tanith"-
Tom silently agreed, What was maddness was to try and talk to Tanith just now.

"Ask Shannon" Tom told her shortly, then turned on his heel and crunched away.

Tanith sighed and leaned into the guitar, her fingers unconsciously finding the strings.
After a minute or two of thought, Tanith pulled a sour face; She needed to have a little talk with Shannon, it seemed...

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© Leah Petts, 26.02.2009

Tanith's Escapades- the silent battle for the shiny iPod.

Tomas absently leaned over and handed Tanith half a sandwich, full attention given to the iPod screen.
His eyes were all squinched up in the afternoon sun, and his neon hair lit up like the vegas strip under the glare.
Tanith smiled appreciatively, and took the sandwich from Tom. Her eyes not moving from the pages of her novel.

Erin sat in the tree Tom and Tan were sitting under, glad of the shade. Watching the two she Resisted the urge to grimace.
And to think those two started off practically hating each other.
She shook her head in disbelief, lost her balance, and had to steady herself by clinging desperatley onto the branch in front of her.

Tanith glanced up, squinting in the glare,
"Hey Erin, how about a little personal time eh?"
Erin giggled, and clumsily made her way down, a reply on her tongue faster than a cricketer's reation time.
"yeah yeah, i'll leave you two lovebirds alone shall I? Geez! and you wonder why i keep an eye on ya!"

Tom pulled a speaker from somewhere in his curly fluro mop and looked over at Erin
"Ta Ezza." he noted
With that Erin swished away, turning only to stick out her tongue at the two.

"hmmmm" Tanith said.
"What's 'hmm' Tan?" Tomas enquired, and Tanith made a cross-eyed face at him.
"oh, nothing" she giggled, stealing the speaker no longer in Tom's brain, and sticking it into her ear.
'Gone Away' by the Offspring blared in to her brain, and Tantih took a bite out of the sandwich.

"Um, Tom?"
Thomas shifted to face Tanith, "mmm?"
"why is the sandwhich squashed?"

Tom paused the song and took a chomp of his half of the sandwich.
"well waddaya know," he noted sarcastically "it IS squashed! but Tan, I thought you liked them squashed"

Tanith regarded him for a moment and inclined her head,
"you know me too well, Cooper"
Tom stifled a laugh, and said through a mouthful of stras-and-sauce,
"I suppose you'll just have to kill me now, I know too much!"
Tanith leaned over Tom and un-paused the song
"dont give me ideas"

Tom gently took the speaker from her ear and replaced it in his own.
"oh, don't worry, I wont."

Tanith smiled.
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copywrite, Leah Petts, 14.11.08