“This part is my favorite,” Keri says, leading her mother up the stairs to the observation deck. The room is gray and empty apart from a single row of metal chairs, just as gray as the room itself. It’s quiet here, the only sound a slow whir of ventilation banks on the wall. And there, through one large pane of protected glass, is the Earth. Home in a flat black sky. “It feels better to see it sometimes,” Keri tells her mother. “Then you don’t feel so far away.”

There’s another soldier in the room, and he’s quiet too. People rarely talk when they’re here – not because they’re not allowed, but just because it’s better that way. Keri’s mother stares out into the blackness, Earth in its three-quarters view. It takes some getting used to, that this isn’t the moon in the sky you’re looking at. It’s the other way around.

“I’ll show you the terrarium next,” Keri says.

But her mother is stunned by the view. She’s entranced. That’s normal. Everyone is like that the first time. She finally turns, her eyes full of more wonder than Keri has ever seen in them, like she was a child and not the old woman she actually is. “I didn’t know there was a terrarium.”

“Yeah,” Keri says. “There’s birds and plants there too. And even rain sometimes. It doesn’t smell like real rain though. I can tell the difference.”

- Keri, from a not yet titled chapter of Lakeside Heights

notes: this one was taken in the photo gallery of the National Air and Space Museum, and believe me, when you go all the way to the National Air and Space Museum to take pictures of metal chairs, you get some really strange looks, lol!

But it was sitting in those chairs, and looking at photos of the Earth from space, and the gray tile and walls all reminded me of my moon base from my LH story, and the observation deck room where the soldiers can go to see the Earth in the moon’s sky.

Though in reality, the gallery was far from quiet. And I kept getting annoyed because people were walking through my shot and trying to sit in my chairs! My chairs, people! Leave my chairs alone! lol!

outtakes:

Matt always loved the fireplace. When Felicity was a baby, this is what he and Leila used to do, light a fire and spend the night sitting in front of it. He thought they both enjoyed it. She would talk, and he would listen, and now he’s sorry that he never had anything to say back to her. But it was enough for him, the timbre of her voice, lyrical and clear, the crackle of the fire, the rustic smell of wood burning, as close to the earth as it gets. It was all he ever needed.

One night, in one of those first tumultuous weeks after it all came out, they were sat in front of a fire just like this. The silence between them was almost comfortable, the way a fight fades and loses momentum, the way anger dissolves into apathy. So they sat in front of the fire, trying to summon a conversation but finding so little to talk about beyond what their children did that day. He tried to reach to her, and at their contact, she jumped back like a shiver.

After a minute, he tried again. He reached out to her, and this time, she eased into it. And so did he. He pulled her close, and for a moment they settled there. Until he caught a glimpse of her eyes – behind the reflection of firelight on their glassy surface, underneath, they were lost and full of so much despair. It gutted him. He couldn’t stand the sight of it, so he pulled her cheek to his shoulder and forgot it was there.

- Matt, from “ghost from a wishing well, part 4″, Lakeside Heights

notes: cheated a little bit here, if it counts as cheating – I actually took these fire shots a couple weeks ago. I won’t count it as cheating though, because once the real project gets under way, I’ll have to use my time as best I can to make sure I have a photo to deliver every week. If that means I store up a bunch ahead of time, then so be it!

Again, it was hard to pick just one. I also liked the one below with the reflection on the floor. But I think I liked the wide shot just a little bit better.

Oh, and sorry for using a piece of “The Saddest Story Alive” as an excerpt, lol!

A runner-up:

And more outtakes on the Flickr page!

I saw someone talking about hit counts on another blog, and it got me curious about my own.

This blog, total page views in six-ish years: 9,780.

My Lakeside Heights story, total page views in less than three years: 351,356.

Well, at least my fiction is clearly more interesting than my non-fiction? LMAO!!!

I guess I’ll take that as a good thing. Stick to what you’re good at. (Don’t worry, I will.)

Then when no one was looking, he would write little notes for her in the margins of his newspaper, vague and secret communications between them, a whole conversation. They never wrote emails – too much for her husband to find – but they had these instead, in between lines of news story, or on a napkin slipped under his pie plate. His handwriting was terse print, chicken scratch. Thank you. The pie was wonderful, it made my night.

She couldn’t keep these, she told him. There was too much risk. She wanted to. Even a simple one – thanks for the pie – she wanted to hide in some safe place so she could have it forever.

It’s fine, he wrote on the next one. Just keep them in your head.

- Leila, “ghost from a wishing well, part 1,” Lakeside Heights/Where the Universe Dwells

week 2: in which we eat pie!

Setup was much easier this week. But this one also required venturing outside the house, kid in tow (which is something I’ll likely have to work around for the real deal as well, so I don’t mind the practice). Baby steps, people – we just went out for lunch. And Dylan got to eat pie!

There weren’t many outtakes from this shoot, it was pretty simple, pretty straightforward – which was a relief after last week’s shoot. I chose this one over the couple others because I liked the texture on the napkin, while leaving the background in obscurity. (I would have liked to get the pie plate a *little* more in focus, but I couldn’t figure that out without losing focus on the handwriting.)

I also meant to have my hubby write the note, so it would be in a man’s handwriting – though it turns out my own handwriting isn’t very feminine after all, lol! Ah well, so be it!

Outtakes:

A conversation with the real live people in my head.

[Note: If you are not a writer, this post may be disturbing for you. But don't be alarmed. In some professions, it is quite normal to converse with the voices in your head.]

Danny, to me: What the hell? You haven’t written about us in over two weeks!

Lexi: I know, I was about to win an argument over here.

Me: Sorry guys, things were getting a little juicy over in LH Land.

Danny: Corbin’s nothing special, I can spew out some philosophical bullshit and be all quiet and brooding.

Lexi: He can!

Me: But Daniel, my dear, can you do tai chi shirtless?

Danny: Uhh…

Lexi: Oooh, who’s Corbin?

Me: Eh, don’t worry about him – it’s probably better you two live in different dimensions.

*makes note that Lexi and Corbin should never meet*

Me: So you guys are so hot to get back to work, what do you have for me?

Lexi: Isn’t that your job?

Danny, to me: Do you see what I have to put up with?

Me: Oh, I know it. Don’t forget, I kind of made her. But I gave her nice boobs for you.

*Lexi crosses her arms over her chest*

Me: So Danny, your dad is dead, and your mother is lecturing you about your sister’s religion (or lack thereof).

Danny: Oh, for Christ! Not that part. Still? Haven’t you finished that yet?

Me: Sorry, no. But I’ll try to make it quick and painless.

Lexi: Do I have to be there for that?

Me: No, you’ll be doing laundry.

Lexi: Oh, joy!

Danny: Can we do a sex scene instead?

Me: Maybe later. Okay, back to work you two.

Okay, not that it’s really a secret or anything (it’s been linked right there in my “about” box since forever), but I write this silly little neighborhood story about my Sims characters. And what sparks this discussion is that everybody LOVES Dallas and Lucy, a young couple in high school – it’s impossible not to love them, they’re adorable, lol! I identify best with Dallas, who is right on the cusp of eighteen, consumingly attached to this girl (as is she in return), but has to decide if he has enough faith in their relationship that he could go away to study abroad for two years while she finishes high school, knowing that at their age, it’s likely she may not be waiting for him when he gets back.

Apparently, I get teenagers. I’ve heard this too many times to even count. I don’t know how, since I never even considered myself one – and perhaps this has something to do with how my husband claims I never grew past the maturity level of a seventeen year-old? But when I write about young people, I’m told they’re convincing and true. So why then do I feel this VIOLENT opposition to admit that I’m writing YA fiction?

And please, no offense to YA writers, I’m really just trying to understand where I’m coming from on this. Why does it feel like a dirty word? It feels like settling, to be bluntly honest. It feels like I would be doing it because I’m not good enough to write mature grown-up fiction. Or maybe the fact of it is I’m only twenty-eight, and NOT mature enough to write grown-up fiction?

The thing is, I want to be read by adults, and while I believe that some older teenagers might really enjoy my stories, my favorite age to write aren’t actually teenagers at all. This is where I get confused. I honestly think I tend to poke fun at my teenage characters until they reach about the age of seventeen or eighteen, where then, I’d honestly consider them little adults. Literal, young adults.

These are usually college kids, or the older high school kids – the 18-24 year olds. They’re out on their own (or almost), taking care of themselves as best they can, making their own mistakes and dealing with their own consequences. What I LOVE about this age is that they’re really making their very first life-altering decisions (and life-altering mistakes), and they’re having to do it all on their own.

Is that YA? Yes, they are young adults, but adults still. And almost entirely not teenagers. I always thought YA fiction was meant to be read by teenagers (I’m thinking 13-16 year-olds). And to be quite blunt, you probably don’t want your thirteen year-old reading about the kinds of things real eighteen to twenty-somethings say and do and think. So is there a category of fiction for the quarter-life crowd? Can I invent one?

But then, I do feel better about being lumped in with youth writers when I find that wonderful (and very mature) books like The Perks of Being a Wallflower and Who Will Run the Frog Hospital are classed as YA. And two of my very favorite books, A Prayer for Owen Meany and The Cider House Rules, both revolve around young people growing up. So maybe my books will be called YA? Maybe it doesn’t matter? Maybe I should just write the damn thing?

Friday ‘Fess Up:

I’m still digging and trying to get my hands into this new version of my novel. Not another new version, but the same new version I’ve been brewing for a few months now. But this came to me yesterday, in Lexi’s voice as if she were speaking right to me (don’t you love it when your characters speak right to you?) – Lexi, by the way, is twenty years-old, married (!!!), and a biology major in college:

“I think it’s best you know that I’m the sensible one of this little trio. Danny and Hannah, as much as I love them, they’re quite honestly from the moon.”

I love Lexi!