2.13.2004
Okay, I used GifWorks (OriginalIcons doesn't use it anymore, but I got it anyway) on my and Ruth Ann's avatars and then uploaded the images to Photobucket, so those two won't switch to the logo anymore. The others don't seem to have that problem.
Alyssa--did you read my post to you?
Alyssa--did you read my post to you?
7:02 PM|| 2.11.2004
Reply to the Mair story
For lack of a better place to post this (since I don't know if anyone would still see it on SLWriters)...Alyssa, I read your Mair story and jotted down some notes in a Notepad document. I finally finished translating those notes to understandable suggestions, which I'm posting here. (Obviously.)
I couldn't help noticing that you sometimes switched between the names Melinda Moral and Mair for the main character. Um...what's with that? I saw in the list of characters that "Melinda"'s nickname was Mair, but it still doesn't make much sense. As far as I'm concerned, her name's Mair. That's what she's almost always called (and it sounds like more of a fantasy name, which is definitely good). Actually, for names in general...this is a fantasy story, with places, things, and languages that don't really exist. Therefore, the names should be fantasy--in other words, not from Earth--as well. Example: David and Thomas are Earth names. Not only that, but they come from the Bible (and then from Hebrew or a related language). These are Midenian people, not Earth (or Hebrew, for that matter) people, so give them Midenian names. Mair and Siarl are okay this way, I think, because they're Welsh and they sound fantasy (although you might consider changing them a bit too--behindthename.com says to pronounce them Mier and Sharl, so you could use that), but anything recognizable as an Earth name should probably go.
As for the curse, it's good, but tears are necessary to keep our eyes healthy; Mair might well have gone blind a long time ago if she truly had no tears. You might want to allow for that--say the tears can't leave her eyes, or something. Actually, the way the curse was dealt with struck me as a little bit odd...she seems to know she's cursed, because she knows she can't cry and she doesn't find this extraordinarily strange. What exactly does she know about it?
The first paragraph of chapter 1 presents necessary information, but it feels too...explanatory. You could write one of these typical scenes between Mair and a boy instead of just talking about them--that would give readers the same information, but it would be more interesting.
I liked Aston saying exactly what Mair thought he would--that was funny.
"[The songs] were her tears"--very good line, even if you didn't write it. :o) As for a place, it might go better if you wrote the scene I suggested and insert it there.
"On the topic of war Relina could never be trusted"--maybe instead "Mair could never trust Relina to show any sense on the topic of war."
"Perhaps if they had known this would be their last meeting together, they would have been more reluctant to part." Okay...one thing that really gets me in books is foreshadowing that's too obvious. This sentence all but stands up and screams at us to pay attention because something Big and Important is going to happen next. That is...not a good thing. Foreshadowing should be much more subtle--enough to give us a hint of things to come, but maybe not enough to let us know what's going to happen. Part of the problem is that a sentence like this takes us out of Mair's point of view--because, after all, she doesn't know that anything's going to happen--and throws us into an eye-in-the-sky point of view, which is generally considered bad even if you haven't switched midscene. If I were to rewrite it, I'd probably just have Mair feel uneasy for no particular reason--she could get the odd feeling that she's never going to see Relina again, and she doesn't know why.
Speaking of switching point-of-view...I'm seeing that several times in here, where the POV (point of view) switches within a scene. I believe this is called omniscient POV (or omni), which is--as I said--generally considered bad. It's definitely not wrong to go inside different character's minds; but don't do it within a scene. The excerpt of A Star Shines that Jolene posted here is a very good example of this, actually--notice she put breaks in when she switched between Aragorn's and Arwen's POVs? That's a good thing to do. Now, with yours, I suspect you'll rarely go inside anyone but Mair and Siarl. You can separate your scenes between those two easy enough; Folant and the dragon, since you briefly went inside them, is a bit more troublesome. You could just do the Siarl scene from Folant's POV, because we mostly see his thoughts and feelings there; earlier, though, it's just a short thought: "So this one believes? That is good. Maybe he will help Siarl in a way I could not..." My only idea here is that you could have Folant murmur it under his breath instead, and Mair thinks she hears him say it but isn't sure. On the other hand, it's unlikely she really would hear it. So...I'm not really sure what you should do there, just that you shouldn't switch your POV. For the dragon, you could have Mair imagine what he's thinking, or--again--actually make a short switch. I might write it this way:
As for the problem of Drog leaving, have her hear him fly away while she's running--it terrifies her all the more, wondering whether he'll swoop down on her from behind, and she only starts to relax when she gets into the woods. There, looking up through the trees, she could see him fly out of sight.
I don't know if the motive for the hair-cutting bit should really come because of Aston--maybe you could have that come as soon as she finds the sword (she has a sword, but she won't be accepted into the army if they know she's female). She could look at her reflection then in the sword and remember that it's dull, and then she would think of going to Aston and figure he won't recognize her now. As for the actually sentence, I'd say "She could not go to war with hair so long it could brush her waist--Midenian boys never wore their hair to that length." That's not great, though.
Please don't switch to "Andras" and "he". It's just too disconcerting. After all, you're still writing from Mair's POV, and to her, she's certainly still a girl. From everyone else's POV of course she would be Andras and he, but from her own, keep it to Mair.
"Andras jogged out of the remains of his house and down the small winding road to the town, which he reached just as the sun disappeared." If you want to slow it down, have her sneak out of the house, watching for the dragon, forcing herself not to look back.
I think there should be more reason for her dislike of Aston--I like him, I wouldn't be upset if she ended up with him, so why is she? Also, she should plan ahead more so he won't guess who she is. His guessing is fine; she just should have planned better because she seems smarter than that. I'm not entirely sure either why she told him the whole truth, either, so you might want to put in more reason for her doing it.
You want to make a chapter about Mair's night in the woods...it wouldn't have to be a whole chapter. You could just make it a somewhat extended scene at the end of chapter 1, or refer to it near the beginning of chapter 2.
"He had slept well, as well as an excited young person who had gotten their house burned down, met a dragon, made a dission that would change their life and was sleeping outside for the first time could." I don't know. I sure wouldn't sleep well in the same circumstances, and Mair doesn't strike me as someone who can just forget either, despite the narrator's comments to the contrary in the first chapter (which also seem to go against Mair's real personality as we've seen it). Also--why did she say she was from Lennu? Has she been there? If she hasn't, she might run into someone who has and get caught in her lie. And please, tell us what "seven sicurs" mean. I inferred from the first chapter that Mair's about my age, since her friends are all married, but we don't know for sure, and if you're going to use a different numbering of years, you should probably tell your readers. Actually, it'd be nice to know for sure how old they all are...Siarl seems too young for the army, actually.
Different spelling of Linenie...depends on how it's pronounced. You could do Lineni or Linneni.
What's the stuff with the Sea Longing? Will it be important later on? The description of it is very good, but if it's not important to the plot (or to making the world more believable), you might want to cut it.
The tickling fight and Jaethes' teasing of Siarl was quite funny... You should probably refer to Jaethes by his last name, though. That just feels more...realistic.
Okay, the Erwan scene. I'm not really sure why Mair got so freaked out...I would assume she's met nasty people before. Maybe she hasn't, but if that's the case, you should probably make that clear. Also, those insults...this is fantasy, and the country in which it takes place has its own language. Therefore, make up some bad swear words that don't mean anything in our language and let your characters use them as they will. Or don't even use swear words--use some kind of real insult that readers will understand, like...well...instead of "Angaistie, Siarl!" Erwan could say "The Dragons take you, Siarl!" or something. And instead of saying "beloge" to Mair, he could really tell her "Helkith nothing! Go and die for all I care!"
Why is Siarl so antagonistic to Latures Onu? It doesn't really make sense. He must have a better reason than "I'm not made for your god"--that just doesn't hold up. He seems bitter, so that would work fine--something bad has happened to him and he blames Latures Onu, so let that be the reason. If he's only saying he's not made for this god because he doesn't want to admit the real reason, that's fine; you'll just need to make that clear later.
Well, anyway...I did like what you have so far. It seems like a good story...
I couldn't help noticing that you sometimes switched between the names Melinda Moral and Mair for the main character. Um...what's with that? I saw in the list of characters that "Melinda"'s nickname was Mair, but it still doesn't make much sense. As far as I'm concerned, her name's Mair. That's what she's almost always called (and it sounds like more of a fantasy name, which is definitely good). Actually, for names in general...this is a fantasy story, with places, things, and languages that don't really exist. Therefore, the names should be fantasy--in other words, not from Earth--as well. Example: David and Thomas are Earth names. Not only that, but they come from the Bible (and then from Hebrew or a related language). These are Midenian people, not Earth (or Hebrew, for that matter) people, so give them Midenian names. Mair and Siarl are okay this way, I think, because they're Welsh and they sound fantasy (although you might consider changing them a bit too--behindthename.com says to pronounce them Mier and Sharl, so you could use that), but anything recognizable as an Earth name should probably go.
As for the curse, it's good, but tears are necessary to keep our eyes healthy; Mair might well have gone blind a long time ago if she truly had no tears. You might want to allow for that--say the tears can't leave her eyes, or something. Actually, the way the curse was dealt with struck me as a little bit odd...she seems to know she's cursed, because she knows she can't cry and she doesn't find this extraordinarily strange. What exactly does she know about it?
The first paragraph of chapter 1 presents necessary information, but it feels too...explanatory. You could write one of these typical scenes between Mair and a boy instead of just talking about them--that would give readers the same information, but it would be more interesting.
I liked Aston saying exactly what Mair thought he would--that was funny.
"[The songs] were her tears"--very good line, even if you didn't write it. :o) As for a place, it might go better if you wrote the scene I suggested and insert it there.
"On the topic of war Relina could never be trusted"--maybe instead "Mair could never trust Relina to show any sense on the topic of war."
"Perhaps if they had known this would be their last meeting together, they would have been more reluctant to part." Okay...one thing that really gets me in books is foreshadowing that's too obvious. This sentence all but stands up and screams at us to pay attention because something Big and Important is going to happen next. That is...not a good thing. Foreshadowing should be much more subtle--enough to give us a hint of things to come, but maybe not enough to let us know what's going to happen. Part of the problem is that a sentence like this takes us out of Mair's point of view--because, after all, she doesn't know that anything's going to happen--and throws us into an eye-in-the-sky point of view, which is generally considered bad even if you haven't switched midscene. If I were to rewrite it, I'd probably just have Mair feel uneasy for no particular reason--she could get the odd feeling that she's never going to see Relina again, and she doesn't know why.
Speaking of switching point-of-view...I'm seeing that several times in here, where the POV (point of view) switches within a scene. I believe this is called omniscient POV (or omni), which is--as I said--generally considered bad. It's definitely not wrong to go inside different character's minds; but don't do it within a scene. The excerpt of A Star Shines that Jolene posted here is a very good example of this, actually--notice she put breaks in when she switched between Aragorn's and Arwen's POVs? That's a good thing to do. Now, with yours, I suspect you'll rarely go inside anyone but Mair and Siarl. You can separate your scenes between those two easy enough; Folant and the dragon, since you briefly went inside them, is a bit more troublesome. You could just do the Siarl scene from Folant's POV, because we mostly see his thoughts and feelings there; earlier, though, it's just a short thought: "So this one believes? That is good. Maybe he will help Siarl in a way I could not..." My only idea here is that you could have Folant murmur it under his breath instead, and Mair thinks she hears him say it but isn't sure. On the other hand, it's unlikely she really would hear it. So...I'm not really sure what you should do there, just that you shouldn't switch your POV. For the dragon, you could have Mair imagine what he's thinking, or--again--actually make a short switch. I might write it this way:
...He knew it all.And so on.Suddenly Mair saw herself through the dragon's eyes: too smoked and scrawny to make a good meal, and unable to cry from any pain or sorrow he might inflict...but what fun he might have with her before he left! His eyes gleamed, and Mair gasped out, "Where is my melluh?"
As for the problem of Drog leaving, have her hear him fly away while she's running--it terrifies her all the more, wondering whether he'll swoop down on her from behind, and she only starts to relax when she gets into the woods. There, looking up through the trees, she could see him fly out of sight.
I don't know if the motive for the hair-cutting bit should really come because of Aston--maybe you could have that come as soon as she finds the sword (she has a sword, but she won't be accepted into the army if they know she's female). She could look at her reflection then in the sword and remember that it's dull, and then she would think of going to Aston and figure he won't recognize her now. As for the actually sentence, I'd say "She could not go to war with hair so long it could brush her waist--Midenian boys never wore their hair to that length." That's not great, though.
Please don't switch to "Andras" and "he". It's just too disconcerting. After all, you're still writing from Mair's POV, and to her, she's certainly still a girl. From everyone else's POV of course she would be Andras and he, but from her own, keep it to Mair.
"Andras jogged out of the remains of his house and down the small winding road to the town, which he reached just as the sun disappeared." If you want to slow it down, have her sneak out of the house, watching for the dragon, forcing herself not to look back.
I think there should be more reason for her dislike of Aston--I like him, I wouldn't be upset if she ended up with him, so why is she? Also, she should plan ahead more so he won't guess who she is. His guessing is fine; she just should have planned better because she seems smarter than that. I'm not entirely sure either why she told him the whole truth, either, so you might want to put in more reason for her doing it.
You want to make a chapter about Mair's night in the woods...it wouldn't have to be a whole chapter. You could just make it a somewhat extended scene at the end of chapter 1, or refer to it near the beginning of chapter 2.
"He had slept well, as well as an excited young person who had gotten their house burned down, met a dragon, made a dission that would change their life and was sleeping outside for the first time could." I don't know. I sure wouldn't sleep well in the same circumstances, and Mair doesn't strike me as someone who can just forget either, despite the narrator's comments to the contrary in the first chapter (which also seem to go against Mair's real personality as we've seen it). Also--why did she say she was from Lennu? Has she been there? If she hasn't, she might run into someone who has and get caught in her lie. And please, tell us what "seven sicurs" mean. I inferred from the first chapter that Mair's about my age, since her friends are all married, but we don't know for sure, and if you're going to use a different numbering of years, you should probably tell your readers. Actually, it'd be nice to know for sure how old they all are...Siarl seems too young for the army, actually.
Different spelling of Linenie...depends on how it's pronounced. You could do Lineni or Linneni.
What's the stuff with the Sea Longing? Will it be important later on? The description of it is very good, but if it's not important to the plot (or to making the world more believable), you might want to cut it.
The tickling fight and Jaethes' teasing of Siarl was quite funny... You should probably refer to Jaethes by his last name, though. That just feels more...realistic.
Okay, the Erwan scene. I'm not really sure why Mair got so freaked out...I would assume she's met nasty people before. Maybe she hasn't, but if that's the case, you should probably make that clear. Also, those insults...this is fantasy, and the country in which it takes place has its own language. Therefore, make up some bad swear words that don't mean anything in our language and let your characters use them as they will. Or don't even use swear words--use some kind of real insult that readers will understand, like...well...instead of "Angaistie, Siarl!" Erwan could say "The Dragons take you, Siarl!" or something. And instead of saying "beloge" to Mair, he could really tell her "Helkith nothing! Go and die for all I care!"
Why is Siarl so antagonistic to Latures Onu? It doesn't really make sense. He must have a better reason than "I'm not made for your god"--that just doesn't hold up. He seems bitter, so that would work fine--something bad has happened to him and he blames Latures Onu, so let that be the reason. If he's only saying he's not made for this god because he doesn't want to admit the real reason, that's fine; you'll just need to make that clear later.
Well, anyway...I did like what you have so far. It seems like a good story...
Testing...
I think I found the title tag. We'll see if this works...
Hm...better. Thoughts? It should look different from the date, though. Should I try to change it?
Hm...better. Thoughts? It should look different from the date, though. Should I try to change it?
I have arrived!
*is confused* I might be able to figure this out. In time. Please bear with me while I try to figure out what's going on.
Why is the title of my post so big?
*is confused* I might be able to figure this out. In time. Please bear with me while I try to figure out what's going on.
Why is the title of my post so big?
"Rain"
This is the story I wrote for OT Survey. Remember, I was complaining about the Ruth thing? I guess you were supposed to write a story about some principle of Ruth, and apparently I picked Ruth's loyalty to Naomi. I stewed on it for a few days, brainstormed for almost a page in my notebook on Saturday, wrote a page or two in my notebook Sunday night, and finished it on the computer Monday night. (Probably the fastest I've ever written a halfway-decent story.) My teacher still has not asked for the stories, which is irritating, but oh well... So, yeah. Read and critique, if you like... (And if anyone's wondering, the evil sentence in there was DELIBERATE. I needed a third item in the list, and I thought of that and went "Oh, what the heck" and stuck it in.) And...um...it's called "Rain" because I couldn't think of anything else. :p Ask about the names if you're curious.
It was raining.
Maeryn stared out the window, her eyes tracing water droplets as they slid down the glass. Everything was wet—her apartment building, the street below, even the trees that stood like sentinels in front of the curb. The rain blurred the cars passing on the street and the people on the sidewalk, and she could see them, but the rain smudged their forms and she wondered if they weren’t part of some other world that she couldn’t reach. Maybe only her apartment was real, and the phone in her hand, and the droplets trickling down her window.
Like tears, she thought. Did the whole world weep today?
Maeryn hadn’t cried, not yet, but she held the phone as if it might attack her if she let go. A small part of her insisted that it already had. Lara’s voice still played through her head: “The headaches keep getting worse, Maeryn…I don’t know what it is.” “I talked to the doctor today—he scheduled an MRI. Pray it’s not something bad…” And today: “Something’s wrong, for sure…the doctor thought it might be a brain tumor.”
Cancer.
She remembered cancer. It had taken her mother, even before Maeryn could remember. It had taken her father only a few years ago.
And now Lara?
She shuddered and cradled the phone. It might not be cancer. We don’t know yet…it could be something else…
God, help us.
Maeryn turned away and glanced into the kitchen. College textbooks and papers lay strewn across the table, reminding her that she had no time to stand worrying and wondering. She had studying to do, even if she still had a couple days left of spring break—
“Studying,” she said to the books, “can wait.” She could at least use her last few days to visit Lara. If she could do nothing else, at least she could be there.
***
Rain still fell as Maeryn pulled her battered little car into Lara’s driveway, some hundred miles from the apartment. Lara met her at the door with a smile that couldn’t quite hide the worry in her eyes. “You didn’t have to come, you know.”
Maeryn half-smiled. “Did you have to stay up with me at night when I was sick and help me with homework and—”
“Yes—”
“Well, then.” Maeryn shut the door behind her. “Anyway, you’ll need emotional support when you go to the hospital again.”
Lara’s smile dimmed a bit. “I will, at that. Are you planning to stay long?”
“However long you need me.”
Lara headed into the kitchen, calling over her shoulder, “I just made up some coffee—like some?”
“Sure.” Maeryn trailed after her, noticing the papers piled on the table, dishes stacked in the sink, magazines covering the couch. Even living alone, Lara couldn’t seem to keep a clean house. Apparently some things never changed.
A photo hung in the middle of the kitchen wall arrested Maeryn’s attention, and she lingered a moment, looking at it. A little girl with dark brown hair and serious gray eyes crouched at the center of the picture, gazing down at the flower in her hands. The woman behind her—smiling, blonde, green-eyed—looked so unlike the girl that even a casual observer would have deduced that no blood connected them. Maeryn remembered the day her father had taken that picture, barely; he’d remarried to Lara only a few months before then.
She shook her head and slid into her old place at the table. Lara brought the coffee mugs to the table, and they spent the next hour simply talking. Maeryn related the most memorable events from the past few weeks; Lara, anything interesting from her job and her volunteer work. Neither mentioned hospitals or cancer.
Finally Lara sighed and scooted her chair back. “That appointment’s in half an hour. I suppose I should get there in enough time to wait for the doctors to get their act together.”
“I’ll drive you,” Maeryn offered.
They passed the short drive in aimless conversation as rain pattered on the car’s roof. In a small corner of her mind, Maeryn wondered why they bothered avoiding the single important subject—but she didn’t want to talk about it either.
“There’s a separate building for oncology,” Lara said. Maeryn changed direction without comment and parked as close to the building’s doors as she could. She could feel wetness soaking through to her skin as she hurried into the hospital. No one looked at her or Lara as they took their seats in a waiting room.
After a few moments, a nurse called Lara’s name, and she stood to leave. Maeryn squeezed her hand and watched her walk up the corridor, around a corner, out of sight.
Please, God…
The minutes stretched into an hour. Maeryn waited, her fingers twined in her lap. She’d tried reading one of several magazines on the side table a few chairs down, but she couldn’t concentrate on the words. Her eyes kept straying to the hallway where Lara had disappeared.
The hands on the clock clicked forward two more minutes, then three. Lara rounded the corner, and Maeryn saw her eyes.
And she knew.
***
Tumor…malignant…inoperable…radiation…chemotherapy…
Familiar words. Familiar, terrible words.
Cancer…
Again Maeryn stared out the window at the rain. She and Lara had said nothing on the drive home. Maeryn had struggled to concentrate on driving, struggled to keep herself from thinking, but now in Lara’s quiet house she had no choice.
Lara had retreated to the den as soon as they’d arrived, ostensibly to research; Maeryn knew she would spend most of the time praying.
As for Maeryn, she settled on Lara’s well-worn couch and watched the world cry.
Time passed; Maeryn neither knew nor cared how much. She only knew that she had come no closer to a decision when she heard Lara’s footsteps in the hallway, only that she had to do…something.
The easy chair creaked as Lara lowered herself onto it. Maeryn turned to look at this woman with whom she shared no blood, only love and memories, and she knew what she would do.
Without preamble, she said, “I’m staying here.”
Lara glanced at her. “What?”
“I’ll stay here. With you. As long as…as long as this takes.” She raised her head and met Lara’s eyes. “You might need someone to…help take care of you.”
“You—” Lara stopped, took a breath, and started again. “You can’t do that. You have college, you have your job in the city, your friends there, you…” She waved one hand in the air, a gesture Maeryn knew well. “You have your whole life, Maeryn—”
“College can wait, I can get another job here, and my friends will live. Don’t try to stop me. I’ve made up my mind.”
For a long moment Lara gazed at her, as if wondering what to say. Outside Maeryn could hear water dripping off the roof.
Then Lara laughed. “All right, then,” she said. “I have to admit I’ll be grateful for your company.” She smiled sidelong at Maeryn. “You always were the stubborn one, weren’t you?”
“I try,” Maeryn said.
Lara nodded at the door. “Go get your things from the car. I’ll get your old room ready for you.”
Maeryn took her keys from the end table and pushed open the screen door. It slapped shut behind her, and for a moment she stood on the cement walk in front of the house. The rain had not stopped, and gray clouds still hovered overhead, but now she could see what she hadn’t before: everything green drank in the rain. The grass, the bushes, the trees… There was life in rain, she realized. Life...
She hurried down the driveway to her car.
This is the story I wrote for OT Survey. Remember, I was complaining about the Ruth thing? I guess you were supposed to write a story about some principle of Ruth, and apparently I picked Ruth's loyalty to Naomi. I stewed on it for a few days, brainstormed for almost a page in my notebook on Saturday, wrote a page or two in my notebook Sunday night, and finished it on the computer Monday night. (Probably the fastest I've ever written a halfway-decent story.) My teacher still has not asked for the stories, which is irritating, but oh well... So, yeah. Read and critique, if you like... (And if anyone's wondering, the evil sentence in there was DELIBERATE. I needed a third item in the list, and I thought of that and went "Oh, what the heck" and stuck it in.) And...um...it's called "Rain" because I couldn't think of anything else. :p Ask about the names if you're curious.
It was raining.
Maeryn stared out the window, her eyes tracing water droplets as they slid down the glass. Everything was wet—her apartment building, the street below, even the trees that stood like sentinels in front of the curb. The rain blurred the cars passing on the street and the people on the sidewalk, and she could see them, but the rain smudged their forms and she wondered if they weren’t part of some other world that she couldn’t reach. Maybe only her apartment was real, and the phone in her hand, and the droplets trickling down her window.
Like tears, she thought. Did the whole world weep today?
Maeryn hadn’t cried, not yet, but she held the phone as if it might attack her if she let go. A small part of her insisted that it already had. Lara’s voice still played through her head: “The headaches keep getting worse, Maeryn…I don’t know what it is.” “I talked to the doctor today—he scheduled an MRI. Pray it’s not something bad…” And today: “Something’s wrong, for sure…the doctor thought it might be a brain tumor.”
Cancer.
She remembered cancer. It had taken her mother, even before Maeryn could remember. It had taken her father only a few years ago.
And now Lara?
She shuddered and cradled the phone. It might not be cancer. We don’t know yet…it could be something else…
God, help us.
Maeryn turned away and glanced into the kitchen. College textbooks and papers lay strewn across the table, reminding her that she had no time to stand worrying and wondering. She had studying to do, even if she still had a couple days left of spring break—
“Studying,” she said to the books, “can wait.” She could at least use her last few days to visit Lara. If she could do nothing else, at least she could be there.
Rain still fell as Maeryn pulled her battered little car into Lara’s driveway, some hundred miles from the apartment. Lara met her at the door with a smile that couldn’t quite hide the worry in her eyes. “You didn’t have to come, you know.”
Maeryn half-smiled. “Did you have to stay up with me at night when I was sick and help me with homework and—”
“Yes—”
“Well, then.” Maeryn shut the door behind her. “Anyway, you’ll need emotional support when you go to the hospital again.”
Lara’s smile dimmed a bit. “I will, at that. Are you planning to stay long?”
“However long you need me.”
Lara headed into the kitchen, calling over her shoulder, “I just made up some coffee—like some?”
“Sure.” Maeryn trailed after her, noticing the papers piled on the table, dishes stacked in the sink, magazines covering the couch. Even living alone, Lara couldn’t seem to keep a clean house. Apparently some things never changed.
A photo hung in the middle of the kitchen wall arrested Maeryn’s attention, and she lingered a moment, looking at it. A little girl with dark brown hair and serious gray eyes crouched at the center of the picture, gazing down at the flower in her hands. The woman behind her—smiling, blonde, green-eyed—looked so unlike the girl that even a casual observer would have deduced that no blood connected them. Maeryn remembered the day her father had taken that picture, barely; he’d remarried to Lara only a few months before then.
She shook her head and slid into her old place at the table. Lara brought the coffee mugs to the table, and they spent the next hour simply talking. Maeryn related the most memorable events from the past few weeks; Lara, anything interesting from her job and her volunteer work. Neither mentioned hospitals or cancer.
Finally Lara sighed and scooted her chair back. “That appointment’s in half an hour. I suppose I should get there in enough time to wait for the doctors to get their act together.”
“I’ll drive you,” Maeryn offered.
They passed the short drive in aimless conversation as rain pattered on the car’s roof. In a small corner of her mind, Maeryn wondered why they bothered avoiding the single important subject—but she didn’t want to talk about it either.
“There’s a separate building for oncology,” Lara said. Maeryn changed direction without comment and parked as close to the building’s doors as she could. She could feel wetness soaking through to her skin as she hurried into the hospital. No one looked at her or Lara as they took their seats in a waiting room.
After a few moments, a nurse called Lara’s name, and she stood to leave. Maeryn squeezed her hand and watched her walk up the corridor, around a corner, out of sight.
Please, God…
The minutes stretched into an hour. Maeryn waited, her fingers twined in her lap. She’d tried reading one of several magazines on the side table a few chairs down, but she couldn’t concentrate on the words. Her eyes kept straying to the hallway where Lara had disappeared.
The hands on the clock clicked forward two more minutes, then three. Lara rounded the corner, and Maeryn saw her eyes.
And she knew.
Tumor…malignant…inoperable…radiation…chemotherapy…
Familiar words. Familiar, terrible words.
Cancer…
Again Maeryn stared out the window at the rain. She and Lara had said nothing on the drive home. Maeryn had struggled to concentrate on driving, struggled to keep herself from thinking, but now in Lara’s quiet house she had no choice.
Lara had retreated to the den as soon as they’d arrived, ostensibly to research; Maeryn knew she would spend most of the time praying.
As for Maeryn, she settled on Lara’s well-worn couch and watched the world cry.
Time passed; Maeryn neither knew nor cared how much. She only knew that she had come no closer to a decision when she heard Lara’s footsteps in the hallway, only that she had to do…something.
The easy chair creaked as Lara lowered herself onto it. Maeryn turned to look at this woman with whom she shared no blood, only love and memories, and she knew what she would do.
Without preamble, she said, “I’m staying here.”
Lara glanced at her. “What?”
“I’ll stay here. With you. As long as…as long as this takes.” She raised her head and met Lara’s eyes. “You might need someone to…help take care of you.”
“You—” Lara stopped, took a breath, and started again. “You can’t do that. You have college, you have your job in the city, your friends there, you…” She waved one hand in the air, a gesture Maeryn knew well. “You have your whole life, Maeryn—”
“College can wait, I can get another job here, and my friends will live. Don’t try to stop me. I’ve made up my mind.”
For a long moment Lara gazed at her, as if wondering what to say. Outside Maeryn could hear water dripping off the roof.
Then Lara laughed. “All right, then,” she said. “I have to admit I’ll be grateful for your company.” She smiled sidelong at Maeryn. “You always were the stubborn one, weren’t you?”
“I try,” Maeryn said.
Lara nodded at the door. “Go get your things from the car. I’ll get your old room ready for you.”
Maeryn took her keys from the end table and pushed open the screen door. It slapped shut behind her, and for a moment she stood on the cement walk in front of the house. The rain had not stopped, and gray clouds still hovered overhead, but now she could see what she hadn’t before: everything green drank in the rain. The grass, the bushes, the trees… There was life in rain, she realized. Life...
She hurried down the driveway to her car.
2.10.2004
The review idea again...
For those who didn't hear (okay, read) it, this is what I posted at SLWriters:
--How would you all like to write some movie reviews? Focus on the Family has a media reviews site--Plugged In--that I visit frequently. Basically, my idea is this--read several movie reviews on Plugged In (preferably of movies you've watched) until you're familiar with how they're written and what the reviewers look for, and then write a review of your own. You could do this with a movie you've seen (like Pirates of the Caribbean--I'm still ticked with Plugged In for doing a short review), or you could pretend that something you've written, are writing, or are planning to write has been made into a movie and do a review of that. (Like I could write a review of Wormhole or Thieves' Honor as if they've been made into movies, because I'm most familiar with them.) Is anyone interested in doing this? I think it might be fun, especially if it would help us to learn more about each others' stories.--
To Ruth Ann's question of whether this would be content- or art-based, I said:
--Well, I'm most familiar with Plugged In, and I've been toying with the idea of writing reviews for my own stuff for a while. Their reviews are mostly content (they divide each review into positive content, spiritual content, sexual content, violent content, crude or profane language, drug and alcohol content, and other negative content).--
They also do a short plot description and a conclusion, if anyone's wondering, and usually say something about how good the movie was overall regardless of content (like they said that Snow Dogs was mostly rubbish even though it was low on objectionable content, and that Mystic River was a great movie that no family should watch).
So...right. Anyone want to do this?
For those who didn't hear (okay, read) it, this is what I posted at SLWriters:
--How would you all like to write some movie reviews? Focus on the Family has a media reviews site--Plugged In--that I visit frequently. Basically, my idea is this--read several movie reviews on Plugged In (preferably of movies you've watched) until you're familiar with how they're written and what the reviewers look for, and then write a review of your own. You could do this with a movie you've seen (like Pirates of the Caribbean--I'm still ticked with Plugged In for doing a short review), or you could pretend that something you've written, are writing, or are planning to write has been made into a movie and do a review of that. (Like I could write a review of Wormhole or Thieves' Honor as if they've been made into movies, because I'm most familiar with them.) Is anyone interested in doing this? I think it might be fun, especially if it would help us to learn more about each others' stories.--
To Ruth Ann's question of whether this would be content- or art-based, I said:
--Well, I'm most familiar with Plugged In, and I've been toying with the idea of writing reviews for my own stuff for a while. Their reviews are mostly content (they divide each review into positive content, spiritual content, sexual content, violent content, crude or profane language, drug and alcohol content, and other negative content).--
They also do a short plot description and a conclusion, if anyone's wondering, and usually say something about how good the movie was overall regardless of content (like they said that Snow Dogs was mostly rubbish even though it was low on objectionable content, and that Mystic River was a great movie that no family should watch).
So...right. Anyone want to do this?
At the risk of sounding like a paranoid spoilsport (I've already been accused of both by others, thanks), can I suggest that maybe having our pictures in here isn't a good idea? I mean, it looks good, and it's a cool thing for us to see what we all look like, but...anybody can see this site. Any weirdo out there on the internet could get on here and see what we look like and generally where we live, and from certain things we've all said in our blogs--which, obviously, are linked here--well... On SLWriters or the forum it's limited-access, so there I feel pretty safe about it, but here everything's open. The pictures do look good, though...maybe we could find little avatar-like pictures instead?
2.09.2004
I edited the second quote so it doesn't do the skooky line break thing. I don't know how it looked on different screen settings, but on mine it was weird. Better?
