And then there was this...

...the last video from my gig on the 16th.  Though they aren't that great, the video takes forever to load.  Anywho, this is a bluesy cover of Bon Jovi's "Livin' On a Prayer" and probably my biggest worry of the whole night.  I mean, it's "Livin' On a Prayer"!  You should have seen me at the first rehearsal: I couldn't stop giggling.  But we changed it so much that it completely worked.  For us at least.  Hopefully other people agreed.  They seemed to.

Introducing...

...Mr. Landol, one of our band's other singers.  Like everyone else in the band, he's really doing this.  I'm the only hobbyist :-/

Blame my camera for the questionable quality of his voice, because, trust me, it was good.  I wish we'd been able to capture more.

I sing a little...

...in public, a very little. Like once a year.  In private, I sing all the frickin' time, unless someone puts me on the spot and asks me to. Yes, yes, I know I'm strange.  I'm not trying to hide it.

Anywho, last night was my one official performance for the year.  And I've got video to prove it.  Gah!  I think it's awful, but then I always think it's awful...  I apologize now for the poor sound quality and picture.  My camera's old and it shows.

I have 2 more videos to torture you with, I think, so stay tuned!  (Or run away screaming.  You have been warned, after all.)

I won't/Say you will

This is a story consisting entirely of dialogue, despite it's strange presentation.  I thought about putting in some description, if not actual dialogue tags, but I sort of like how it is right here.  I'll think on a second post with more detail.  None of the current capitalization/not-capitalization or spacings are accidental.  Enjoy!  Decipher ;)

***

-What are you trying to hide?

-What do you mean?

-Don't you know?
-Why did you run?

-...because if I didn't run away, I wouldn't have been able to walk away.

-So why not stay?

-Because you... because I won't take what's not mine.  it's not right, no matter how much I might want--

-So we keep dancing around the obvious?

-You keep dancing. 

-...you know I did all I could to keep you near me.

-i wondered.

-But you still ran away.

-I had no choice.  Was I supposed to wait for you to decide you were going to stay, or be the catalyst that helped you stray?  No.

-I'm sorry I made you feel that way.

-Are you?

-.....

Fin

Tell Her: Recompense

More from the Tell Her series.  Yeah, I hadn't realized it was a series either, but it suddenly went and had parts, and then an ending.  It's kinda wild.  I'm working on the end now.

She pushed her hair behind her ear, expression pained.  "I know I'm not the only one who makes your life crappy midweek every week, but I usually try not to be one of those people," she said, ending on a note that made it sound more like a question than a statement.  "So I kinda feel bad."  She pushed her hair back again, even though there was nothing to push.

He shrugged.  "It's okay.  It happens every week."

"I know, but..."

"You feel bad."

"Yeah.  So I kinda wanna make it up to you."

He chuckled.  "Don't worry about it."

Her nose scrunched and her lip curled as her expression became more pained.   

He chuckled again, turning away from her as he brought his elbows up onto the desk and laced his fingers together.  When he looked at her again, she was more forlorn.  "You really want to do something to make it up to me," he said.

Grey (2/2)

The second half of what I wrote for this year's NaNoWrimo.  It has not been edited (it is still November after all) and may never be completed, though I quite like this story so I do hope to come back to it.

---

Head to foot in the intermediate gray of position, Janelle was on one knee on the other side of Father’s desk, waiting to be acknowledged. She’d been waiting for over an hour, and had long since gone into a light meditative trance. It took her mind off the hardness of the cold stone beneath her knee and the burn of oxygen starved muscle. It kept her ready and relaxed for whatever came next as the world around her was pushed back behind a cloud of single focus—Father.

She hadn’t yet perfected the technique. Sounds of her brother and sister Greys moving in the hallways, their handful of servants all jolted her out of her trance in bright flashes of pain and tedium. What she was good at, though, was not breaking the look of concentration. Then again, that might be why she was still down on one knee, waiting to be acknowledged by Father.

At least she couldn’t pull her freshly redone stitches in this position.

The edges began to fuzzy again as she reentered the meditative state. It was easy enough in Father’s office. The stone was, as expected, a dull gray and sparsely decorated. The rich wooden bookshelves with their leather-bound volumes provided most of the color, beside Father’s own golden tan complexion. Even his desk was a spare affair. Father never kept any papers longer than he needed them, and preferred to get his messages via email or text when he could. Alorna, his secretary did in fact maintain extensive files for him. Somewhere.

“So Iris says it was...” He cleared his throat. “A Colorless ‘bilge rat’ that managed to wound you?”

Grey (1/2)

I started writing this as my novel for this year's NaNoWriMo.  A few days into the writing, however, I felt the need to go back to work on another project I've had on my plate for over a year.  I promised that I would post what I had written, however, so here it goes.  I actually quite like this and hope to be able to come back to it.  It had been on my mind for a while.  I must warn you, though, that like any good NaNo novel this hasn't been edited.  It's still November, after all ;)

---

Grey

Prologue

It’s the worst way for a Grey Assassin to die. They warn you about it in training.

Never get hurt alone. Never lie bleeding by the side of the road.

The reason was tacitly clear if not explicitely said. You couldn’t ever expect help from anyone but your brothers and sisters, because no one would ever dare. What we Greys did was legal of course. We were color-coded weren’t we? But we were one of the most mysterious colors. One of the deadliest.

Was the Grey lying in the gutter really dying, or was she on assignment waiting for her assigned Target to walk by? Better not to find out.

I wish they would. Because I’m not on assignment. I’m not on anyone’s time but my own. And my brothers and sisters… They’re probably wishing me to a wretched painful hell anyway.

What good is being a Colored Person, with a House and Name and Family if even they are going leave you to run out on the side of the road like Clear Water?

I was just looking for my kin.